Interesting site about Confederacy.

Due to the recent attacks on their right to free-speech/expression in regard to displaying the Confederate Battle-flag, I feel it's incumbent upon me to present a more balanced view of the Confederacy, so I'll post this address: http://www.civilwarhome.com/

It's a big site with lots of interesting information about the real causes behind the Civil War, and much more besides. Please take the time to explore it.


P.S. If people can boycott those who display Confederate flags, then those who display them (and those who support the right to free-speech) could easily retaliate in-kind against those who display, say, the "Peace Sign" or the "Hammer&Sickle" of the USSR. Boycotts are a serious business, and not something to be taken lightly.

I don't think this thread, interesting though it is, really belongs here. I'd say it was a candidate for Off-Topic.

My reason for posting was to discourage boycotts on free-speech and expression _within SL_. It's just a continuation of another, older thread in this group that I doubt anyone reads anymore, hence the new thread.

Or, the resurgency of confederate thinking in the US rears its ugly head right here in Sim City!

For anyone who doubts the "go white" aspect of dixie that can become violently dominant is resurgent in 2006 needs a reality check. This is not some off-the-wall lunacy, but a real politic drive to restore the balance of racial inequity in the states. Whites rule and everyone else can subsist in the shadows keping quiet.

Of course, the other Federation - Parlimentary is not the old-south argument. The old south does not want to legislate support for specific rights to minorities. This return to Dixieland goes arm and arm with the repealing of any civil right that is morally false.
From the referenced site in an essay titled "The Myth of Confederecy" we have the following quote

" Looking back through history, I find it very difficult to define what Confederate politics actually were!"

Ignorance for the confederates, is bliss.

An interesting informed response might read:

"The Civil War of the 1860s came about when the South was not content to
maintain slavery but insisted on expanding its reach into new territories
and forcing nonslave-holding states to be complicit in their crimes
through the Fugitive Slave Law. A South Dakota- instigated rejection of
Roe will be felt in states that would never consider banning abortion."
From: Black Commentator http://www.blackcommentator.com/175/175_freedom_rider_civil_war.html


The modern perverted confederate strategy for democracy is about as close to absolute totalitarianism as the human mind can comprehend.

The attacks against waving a flag go to the heart of the Publc's distate for the confederate's history on dealing with minority voting rights. Get over it and suggest a site that waves the confederate flag and handles the hunting rights of aboriginal Indians or Federal voting rights for blacks in Georgia and I'll wave the flag too.

As for SL there is no formal form of voting Hmmmm?

Sure, they could. But I think there are more anti-racists than racists in SL, so I wouldn't be too worried. Besides, it's hypocritical for LL to be against rascism and bigotry in the TOS but not ban Confederate symbols.

The confederate flag -is not- about racism

So its not hypocritical

Your comments represents a deep ignorance of history, whether willful or not, that is incredibly insulting to thousands of Americans and incredibly destructive.

The Confederacy launched a war to protect their right to enslave people based on the color of their skin. The Confederates betrayed their nation because they were concerned that the newly elected President might not let them own people. So how are Confederate symbols not racist?

The south seceded because the north began to yrannize them. The north was not interested in freeing slaves, they only wants the raw materials and taxes of the south

So how is the confederate flag racist?

edit: during WW2, japanese citizen were put in camps. Is the american flag racist too?

Have you ever read a book on American history? Seriously?

The South attacked the North because they didn't like who was elected President. They feared he would not treat other human beings as property based on the color of their skin, so they attacked Fort Sumter.

I'm glad you enjoy supporting racist traitors, though. Keep going with that, see where it takes you.

And you completely ignore the history of the US...

The south seceded because they were systematically mistreated as states.

The north couldn't stand them exercising their RIGHT to secede.

I'm glad you enjoy supporting racist, regionalist tyrants de facto. Lets see where that takes you.

The south was never mistreated. That reflects either total ignorance or a delusion. They were allowed to have slaves, something totally inhumane and unjustifiable. They were the ones doing the mistreatment. I suppose next you'll say Hitler was mistreated by the Allied powers.


Tell me where it says in the constitution that a state has a right to secede. Is the word secede even mentioned in the Constitution? Find it for me.
Besides, the South didn't attempt to secede peacefully. THEY ATTACKED FORT SUMTER. Do you understand that? They started the war. Calling it a "War of Northern Agression" is like calling World War II the "War of French-Polish Agression".


How is being AGAINST slavery racist? I suppose next you'll say Jews are fascist. Is it Opposite Day and I didn't notice? I'm not the one in this thread who supports rascism, regionalism, and tyranny. How is being opposed to secession supporting regionalism? Do you even know what any of those words mean?

First off, I'm partly Jewish, do nto start with comments about Hitler.

Second off, I'll respond:

A state entering a REPUBLIC has the right to withdraw at any point. Thats a given right for them to step outside of a government no longer working as it should. A government is not made to empower itself, it is comprised of people, and FOR the people.

I can't help they owned slaves, but the north owned slave too. And none of them were freed because of civil war battles.

The war was started on the South through politics, first shot fired is not always a gun...going by your logic, we should still be under british rule! After all the colonies SECEDED from england..tell me where that was allowed?

I suppose you support all of america's history since you think I support all of the souths history. This includes the PERSECUTION of slaves and the japanese.

You support regionalism because you say the south should have just suffered through the northern sanctions Did the colonies have to suffer englands?

You support tyranny because you support the north overrunning the south. Do you think england should still run the US?

Whether they had the right to secede or not, the way in which they went about it was wrong, and violent. They attacked their own government with full force, making them traitors. If they'd sued in court for their right to secede you might have a point, but they didn't. They didn't even try to do it legally, or democratically.


You understand it was by and large the states that allowed slavery in 1860 that seceded, right? Only a bare handful of states that did not secede allowed slavery in 1860. I think it was Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky, but I might have missed one or two.


Wars are started with bullets. The South started the war, just like Germany did. From the dictionary:
War:
A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties.
Therefore, the South started the war by, you know, starting it.


Well, that's a complete twisting of what I wrote. The South seceded to protect slavery - which is also the main reason the Confederacy existed. Therefeore, any support of the Confederacy translates into condoning both slavery and racism. And treason.

If supporting the north is supporting tyranny, then democracy is tyrannical. The USA was under a democratic system of free enterprise governed by a Constitution, which created a federal government with certain authorities. The federal government did not ban slavery in Southern states before they rebelled - if they had, you might have a point. The Southern states rebelled because they feared that might happen, not because it did happen. In fact, with both the Dred Scott case and the Fugitive Slave Law, the federal government acted to protect slavery. So give me one example of the north being "tyrannical."
The majority deciding things is not tyrannical. That's how democracy works. If you don't understand that I don't know how you can possibly understand any aspect of American history.

The sovereign state of South Carolina, having voluntarily formed a union with other states, seceded from that union in 1860. At that time, the union was building a fort, Fort Sumpter, in Charleston harbor. South Carolina and the federal government entered political negotiations regarding the status of both the cession and the fort, and on December 9, 1860, agreed not to take military action against each other while political discussions continued. Each side specifically agreed not to attempt to seize or reinforce federal installations, including Fort Sumpter.

The evening of December 26, 1860, the union occupied Fort Sumpter (it had not previously had a garrison), in violation of its agreement. The union showed no interest in honoring its prior political position, and peaceful negotiations ultimately failed.

On January 9th, 1861, South Carolina forces fired on and forced the withdrawal of federal shipping, which was seeking to deliver additional war material to Fort Sumpter.

South Carolina continued to attempt to reach a negotiated settlement until April 10, 1861, when the union forces occupied Fort Sumpter were ordered to depart. They refused, and on April 12, 1861, South Carolina military forces engaged them, forcing their withdrawal on the following day.

The union government had no interest in any peaceful resolution, nor any interest in anything beyond maintaining its political control of the resources and raw materials of the Southland.

President-elect Lincoln had gone on record as early as the late 1850s as being ambivalent to slavery. He stated repeatedly that he had no concern whether any particular state was slave or free, so long as it remained under the control of the union. (See the "Greeley letters".

Had South Carolina, or the other states of the Confederacy been concerned about maintaining slavery, they could simply have remained in the union and done so to their hearts' content. Instead, they formed a new political alliance, the Confederacy, correcting what they saw as usurpation of power by the previous federal government. The Confederate Constitution prohibited importation of new slaves, and the political direction of the Confederacy was toward ending slavery as an institution.

The first official comment on the union government's part was the Emancipation Proclamation, which only applied to states the union believed were in revolt. Slaves in states not in revolt against the union remained slaves. Once again, it was not about slavery for either side.

The union constitution did not address slavery until the so-called "Civil War Amendments" passed in 1868.

Not what you were taught in history class? Assuming you had a history class? I'm shocked!

Yup, they fired first, they started the war. Just like the guy who punched first started the fight, regardless of previous actions. Had they not fired, they might have been able to secede peacefully, but they decided they wanted to kill a lot of Americans instead.



I agree that probably slavery would have ended in another decade or two, with or without the Confederacy. However, by starting a war the Confederacy hastened its end. To say it was about state sovereignty was inane, since the South cared little for state sovereignty when it helped maintain slavery. It was about maintaining slavery.

As noted above, the federal government had previously taken action to help the South maintain slavery, in violation of state's rights, and the South had zero problem with that. Prior to 1860, the federal government was fairly weak - it was only after the civil war that the very strong federal government we see today came into its own. In just one example, before the civil war it was common to say "The United States are going to do something." After 1865, it became much more common to say "The United States is going to do something." The transition to a strong federal government was reflected in the language.

By rebelling violently, the Southern states encouraged the creation of a strong federal government, and encouraged that federal government to do everything in its power to eliminate slavery. Had they remained in the Union, or seceded peacefully, they would likely have been able to maintain slavery in some form for decades more.

In the end, the South's revolution helped create both a strong federal government and the end of slavery in the nation. It's really a wonderful example of poetic justice.

I believe the word in response to the post explaining how the war started is 'burn'

The main reason the south seceded was for the good of its people. therefore any support of the confederacy is support of freedom and of the good of a population, in addition to states rights.

Unless they happen to be Black, then they don't count, at least under the Confederacy. Or were you talking about a different Confederacy than the CSA?

Any look into the empirical causes of the american civil war will amount to endless argument, unless one considers that the confderacy insisted on expanding its reach into new territories and forcing nonslave-holding states to be complicit in their crimes through the Fugitive Slave Law.

For ten years, from 1850 - 1860 when apprehended, an alleged fugitive was taken before a federal court or commissioner. He was denied a jury trial and his testimony was not admitted, while the statement of the master claiming ownership, even though absent, was taken as the main evidence. The law was so weighted against the fugitives that many Northerners, formerly unconcerned, were now aroused to opposition. New personal-liberty laws contradicting the legislation of 1850 (and described, with some reason, by Southerners as equivalent to South Carolina's notorious ordinance of nullification) were passed in most of the Northern states. Abolitionists fearlessly defied the 1850 act, often mobbing federal officials in attempts to rescue fugitives.

Civil rights and civil liberties are in grave danger in the RL. They will disappear if there is no willingness to fight for them. Preserving them will mean having to fight against some of our fellow citizens.

This is relevent to Sl in the sense that many of the modern attitudes of the confederacy invoke romantic notions of statist rights, seccession, the heroism of the battle -- fails to remember that what was at stake in 1860 can be achieved in no time in the 21st century. South Dakota repeals Abortion, Georgia insists on ID's, the NSA'a oversight, the draconian aspects to the Patriot Act. We are all subject to becoming "uppity (expletive withheld)".

Finally, a flag is only appropriate when it identifies the standard bearer. It is impossible to wave the confedrate flag without a direct appeal to the days when whitey ruled. If it is possible to form a conjecture where waving the flag of confederacy actually rejects that appeal, I'm all ears. Is there such an appeal? Not ever, not once.

"The 21st century Confederates are succeeding because no one is willing to
stand in their way. The Argus Leader, the largest newspaper in South
Dakota, announced it will not take an editorial position on the new law.
Spineless editorial page editor Chuck Baldwin made this amazing comment
about his decision to gag himself. "Rather than change anyone's mind, we
would create another controversy."

Translation: The powerful have spoken, and I'm not bucking the system."
http://www.blackcommentator.com/175/175_freedom_rider_civil_war.html

You focus on the January 9th defense of the harbor and ignore the December 26th federal occupation. If you don't see insertion of an armed occupying force, in violation of a political agreement, as aggressive and hostile, I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree.



Is there a fact behind this assertion? Perhaps a southern state invading a northern one, forcing it to change its constitution to permit slavery? Or a northern slave state which was not adversely impacted by the tariffs on export of raw material and import of manufactured goods seceding and throwing in with the Confederacy? Or might economics have a significant role in this (unsuccessful) bid for freedom, as they did with the prior (successful) one?



That would be the Fugitive Slave Act, to which you alluded earlier? Which was an enactment of the federal Congress reaffirming the status of slaves held in southern and northern states alike as slaves, regardless of where in the union they might be found? I suppose if you look at it that way, it could be considered violative of states' rights, but it's a violation to which all the participating states agreed when they approved the Commerce Clause of Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution, not a subsequent usurpation of power by the federal government.



Exactly correct. That is to say, the understanding of the relationship between the states, and their created servant, the federal government, was consistent from the fountation in the late eighteenth century until the servant became the master and conquered its creators by force.

And, a few years later, more or less as an after thought, created the slavery smokescreen to provide a moral basis for its aggressive and otherwise unjustifiable actions.

I display those colors, proudly and sadly, in memory of my ancestors who fought on both sides, of men who loved their homes more than they loved themselves, and a time before a powerful central government siezed and exercised authority over its citizens that they never had ceded to it. I do so without resorting to racist epithets, as well.

You are worried about the state of civil rights today? Welcome to the world of the strong central government, which ours never was intended to be, and against which, the brave men you revile fought.

No, I believe actually firing shots starts a war. Silly me. I can see why that's difficult to understand.


The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 unfairly applied the laws of the South to the northern States. The northern states were more unfairly affected by the South than the South ever was until the South decided killing Americans to protect slavery was a good idea. The Commerce Clause was a mere justification for an amoral policy being applied to the entire nation.


There was only force involved because the South started a rebellion. You keep conveniently forgetting that, but I suppose it's understandable that you might gloss over that eensy little fact.


Actually, it's racists who created the state's rights issue as a smokescreen for defending treason. The secession was not justifiable according to state's rights, since the South didn't care about that issue when it helped them.

This seems to have become primarily between you and me. That's not necessarily a bad thing. You've made comments that suggest you've done at least some reading about what actually happened in the middle of the nineteenth century. Sadly, that's rare. A civil comparison of interpretations attached to facts might be both educational and entertaining.

I'm sorry we can't seem to reach that level. I can't benefit from your interpretation of facts, though, if you don't cite your facts.

I wish you peace and joy.

Toni, we'll have to agree to disagree - because as I read history, you're ignoring it...and nothing can change the facts. Occupation by force = declaration of war for instance..

And as I read history and, you know, reality starting a fight is starting a fight. If the Confeds didn't start the Civil War because the big bad north made them go sit in the corner, then the Nazis didn't start WWII. Really, the French did because they made the poor Germans pay reperations.

You see the problem with your so-called logic excusing racists of their treason? No, you don't. Of course you don't. Why do I even bother? Forget it, just forget it.

I hope the South tries to secede again, they seem to really want to, and are really into risin' again.
And we can all go meet out at Gettysburg again, to sort it all out.