Correct,.. right or wrong, everyone has a reason for their participation in a war.
House Republicans overwhelmingly vote to support a Confederate monument at Arlington National Cemetery
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Correct,.. right or wrong, everyone has a reason for their participation in a war.
yes...which is why just saying "their way of life" is a sh*tty response to "what was the confederacy fighting for"
akin to saying "because they didn't want to lose"
So you think they were fighting for some element of personal joy derived from forcing blacks to live a miserable existence?...
They never saw the world beyond their master's property line. Really prepared to tackle the world wouldn't you say!
Marginally smarter than MAGAs.
Their way of life revolved on same level around slavery, whether they owned slaves themselves or not.
The civil war simply doesn’t happen without southern state’s determination to maintain the institution of slavery.
no...i think your answer was given because it sounds better than "because they wanted to keep being allowed to own human beings"
and some people have an odd aversion to admitting the most basic fundamental truth of what the confederacy was
Silly Boy! Very few who fought and died for the Confederacy owned slaves, stop believing the Hollywood version of the south pre civil war. The North sought to bring the south to its knees and most living in the south resented that notion. The north was the oppressor here.
Acting the part of a traitor (Confeddy “war heroes”) is a bit more than problematic, isn’t it? Lincoln talked about forgiving w/o malice but I believe assimilating and rewarding those who turned against the nation is a bit more than what Abe meant.
yessir! Rico come through ONE more time!
Americana as it never was!
I think that was way more prevalent than a lot of people would like to believe.
GFY - you called slaves "alleged" and said they were treated so well that they decided to stay with their owners.
BTW - GFY
Why would it matter if they owned slaves or not? I'm guessing there are people who vote for guns and don't bother to own a gun. I don't have to be Jewish in order to be on the side of Israel, same for the other side. You're using the old argument, I can't be racist, I don't own any slaves. You really need to think before you post.
No, it was based on repression and given time it was destined to destroy itself...
Yes. The joy in having work done and the results they received by forcing slaves to do the work.
Every one of them fought to keep slavery.
You finally posted definitively what we already knew - you are a confederate supporter.
Sure, there will always be people who revel in the misery of others,.. but I don't believe it was pervasive then, or now.
Then why would you call the Union an "oppressor" if they were fighting, justifiably, for the freedom of slaves? Why do you defend the honoring of confederates who were fighting for slavery?
Here's some education on the subject for you. I doubt you will entertain it but on the off chance you will consider something other than the right wing propaganda you've been consuming...
Economic Context and Slave Ownership
- Slave Ownership in the Confederacy:
- A significant proportion of families in the Confederate states owned slaves or relied on the labor of slaves in various ways. According to the 1860 U.S. Census, about 32% of Southern families owned slaves. These families, often wealthier, provided a substantial number of officers and soldiers for the Confederate army.
- Even those who did not own slaves directly benefited from the institution of slavery through the agricultural economy, primarily based on slave labor.
- Dependency on Slave Labor:
- The Southern economy was heavily dependent on agriculture, particularly cotton, tobacco, and other cash crops, which relied extensively on slave labor. This economic structure supported not only the plantation owners but also smaller farmers, tradespeople, and the general economy of the South.
- Many Confederate soldiers came from farming backgrounds where the labor of slaves was integral to their family’s livelihood, either directly or indirectly.
Contribution to the War Effort
- Enslaved People's Role in the War:
- Enslaved people provided crucial labor for the Confederate war effort, including building fortifications, working in factories, and serving as cooks, teamsters, and laborers in various capacities.
- The use of enslaved labor allowed more white Southern men to join the Confederate military, as slaves performed the necessary agricultural and industrial work on the home front.
- Military Enlistment:
- Historical estimates suggest that a significant number of Confederate soldiers came from households that owned slaves or were involved in occupations that benefited from the institution of slavery. For example, a study cited by historian Joseph T. Glatthaar in "Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia" indicates that around 40% of Confederate soldiers either came from slaveholding households or were employed by slaveholders.
Socioeconomic Ties
- Socioeconomic Influence:
- The social and economic influence of slavery extended beyond those who directly owned slaves. The wealth generated by slave labor permeated the Southern economy, affecting merchants, artisans, and other non-slaveholding whites who had economic ties to the plantation system.
Conclusion
While precise figures are difficult to determine, it is clear that a significant proportion of Confederate soldiers came from backgrounds that were economically tied to the institution of slavery. Estimates suggest that between 30-40% of Confederate soldiers had direct connections to slaveholding households, with many more benefiting indirectly from the slave-based economy.References
- Joseph T. Glatthaar, "Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia: A Statistical Portrait of the Troops Who Served under Robert E. Lee"
- 1860 U.S. Census Data
- James M. McPherson, "For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War"
Wrong poster,... I never called the Union an oppressor, nor am I defending the Confederacy,.. Direct your ire elsewhere.
Perhaps, but it had already lasted longer than what many would have thought 80 years earlier. Instead, it had gotten deeper and deeper entrenched into every corner of southern society. By 1860, I don’t think it was possible any longer that it could have been destroyed peacefully. Massive societal changes on this scale rarely occur willingly.
Apologies - easy to get you and Rico mixed up.
You are definitely trying hard to defend the notion that confederates are worthy of memorials.
Disposing of slavery in the US was going to be painful no matter how or when it occurred...
Wrong again,.. I have made no comments pro or con regarding confederate memorials..
Had it happened sooner rather than later, the chances of doing so peacefully, or at least with far less violence than something on the scale of the Civil War, were far higher.
Holy shit. Everything is justifiable by taking the "way of like position". Khmer Rouge would vote for Rifler.
No doubt,.. Would be interesting to see how different this country might be today if slavery had never played a role in our development.
I can't support something that doesn't exist, and you know nothing about the motives of soldiers 160 years ago. Put down the paperback version of "the wokers guide to the civil war" and just realize you're wrong.
You can easily support something that existed in the past but does not exist now. If you've got a brain, so I guess maybe that's why you don't understand the concept.. It's done a million times every day. Just quit being a nagging nitwit racist and accept that you're wrong.
Their motives mean nothing to me, it's about their actions. They fought against the U.S. and as a result they're traitors. Just like I don't care about the motives of the hamas fighters, it's about their actions.
In the fall of 1860, John Townsend, owner of a cotton plantation on Edisto Island, authored a pamphlet delineating the consequences of Lincoln’s elevation to presidency. The abolition of slavery would be inevitable, he warned, which would mean “the annihilation and end of all Negro labor (agricultural especially) over the whole South. It means a loss to the planters of the South of, at least, FOUR BILLION dollars, by having this labor taken from them; and a loss, in addition, of FIVE BILLION dollars more, in lands, mills, machinery, and other great interests, which will be rendered valueless by the want of slave labor to cultivate the lands, and the loss of the crops which give to those interests life and prosperity.”
More to the point, he noted, abolition meant “the turning loose upon society, without the salutary restraints to which they are now accustomed, more than four millions of a very poor and ignorant population, to ramble in idleness over the country until their wants should drive most of them, first to petty thefts, and afterwards to the bolder crimes of robbery and murder.” The planter and his family would “not only to be reduced to poverty and want, by the robbery of his property, but to complete the refinement of the indignity, they are to be degraded to the level of an inferior race, be jostled by them in their paths, and intruded upon, and insulted over by rude and vulgar upstarts. Who can describe the loathsomeness of such an intercourse;—the constrained intercourse between refinement reduced to poverty, and swaggering vulgarity suddenly elevated to a position which it is not prepared for?”
Non-slaveholders, he predicted, were also in danger. “It will be to the non-slaveholder, equally with the largest slaveholder, the obliteration of caste and the deprivation of important privileges,” he cautioned. “The color of the white man is now, in the South, a title of nobility in his relations as to the negro,” he reminded his readers. “In the Southern slaveholding States, where menial and degrading offices are turned over to be per formed exclusively by the Negro slave, the status and color of the black race becomes the badge of inferiority, and the poorest non-slaveholder may rejoice with the richest of his brethren of the white race, in the distinction of his color. He may be poor, it is true; but there is no point upon which he is so justly proud and sensitive as his privilege of caste; and there is nothing which he would resent with more fierce indignation than the attempt of the Abolitionist to emancipate the slaves and elevate the Negroes to an equality with himself and his family.”
Link:
Why Non-Slaveholding Southerners Fought
Thanks to so many keeping journals, writing letters, etc., we actually DO know a lot about their motives.
The motives of the confederates were well documented. The only people denying that they fought to keep slavery intact are slack jawed confederate sympathizers. You fit in well.
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