Southern Identity on Decline

POSTED BY: Succatash
UPDATED: Saturday, October 25, 2003 14:08
VIEWED: 11855
PAGE 5 of 6

You are correct that slavery was not in America for 200 years. The truth was it was here alot longer. If I remember correctly, the first slaves were brought here in the 1600's. Slavery, as an institution, wasn't a new thing even then. It was around for thousands of years before anyone had ever heard of the New World. Did many people of the world, such as the British you mention, find the notion of slavery so abhorrent they banned it from their respective nations? Sure did, quite a while before the USA even considered it.

Why didn't the Union abolish slavery long before the Civil War? I think it had something to do with economics. Chills me to write this, but I think it boils down to that. The South produced the cash crops needed by the nation. The North, and the Federal government, was content to let slavery continue, so long as it kept the wallets full. When the South seceded, it removed a significant amount of revenue from the Union. While there was a growing movement to abolish slavery, it was still a small minority. Most either didn't care, or didn't want the former slaves competing for jobs. Politicians of the day felt blacks could never become citizens, so there was little impetus (aside from moral outrage from the abolitionists) to free them.

But I think there is a key problem with many of the arguments presented here. They focus on the period of the Civil War, but do not touch on the two decades prior to said war. People do not go to war overnight, there has to be a reason for the use of force. The reasons are numerous, and have been touched on in this discussion, but are irrelevant for the discussion. There was a more fundamental reason for the war, and it wasn't the notion that whites should own blacks (though it seems Drakon wishes to convince otherwise).

To understand this reason, one must understand what the benefit of a government, or any grouping, really is.

As an individual, I can accomplish many goals without the aid of others. Yet there remain many goals I cannot reach. I do not have the resources or the physical ability to accomplish these tasks, yet they remain important to me. Also, though I would wish it otherwise, I cannot protect myself completely from outside harm. Harm can come from nature, such as a tornado or flood, or from other individuals, such as thieves or ruffians. To provide for such resources for my goals, and to protect myself from hostile individuals, it is advantageous to align myself with other like-minded individuals whom I can trust to support me in my endeavors. And they trust me to support them in their endeavors and to help protect them as well should they need my aid. This is a simple example of a grouping, one that aids and supports the other members of the group. If individual members of a group repeatedly refuse aid, or act as obstructionists to the needs of other members, then those members are removed. In the case of a majority of members interfering and even harming the interests of a minority, the minority leaves the group to create their own grouping elsewhere. Without mutual advantage, there is no benefit to remaining with the group.
Governments are simply the organized leadership of a group of individuals. The government is specialized to see to the needs of the group as a whole, while the individual memebers of the group pursue their own specific goals. Government occasionally asks for individuals to sacrifice for the benefit of the group, but individuals must be compensated later or convinced of the "rightness" of the reasons for sacrifice. If a governing body does not see to the needs of the members of the group, or favors a set of individuals over another (such as those with wealth, or those of a certain religion, or even those of a certain race), then the governing body must be corrected. If the governing body cannot be corrected, or refuses to allow such corrections, then that body must either be changed by force or abandoned.

The Southern states were in a minority in the Union, both by population and ra

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Good summary. Although I do quibble with the assertion that I see slavery as the only issue. I see it as important and relavant to the South's decision to leave, as well as a possible reason for some of the Northern actions taken prior to the war. Not the only issue, but it is, if not central, at least very close, to why the war came about in the first place.

But I really liked what you said here:

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As an individual, I can accomplish many goals without the aid of others. Yet there remain many goals I cannot reach. I do not have the resources or the physical ability to accomplish these tasks, yet they remain important to me. Also, though I would wish it otherwise, I cannot protect myself completely from outside harm. Harm can come from nature, such as a tornado or flood, or from other individuals, such as thieves or ruffians. To provide for such resources for my goals, and to protect myself from hostile individuals, it is advantageous to align myself with other like-minded individuals whom I can trust to support me in my endeavors. And they trust me to support them in their endeavors and to help protect them as well should they need my aid. This is a simple example of a grouping, one that aids and supports the other members of the group. If individual members of a group repeatedly refuse aid, or act as obstructionists to the needs of other members, then those members are removed. In the case of a majority of members interfering and even harming the interests of a minority, the minority leaves the group to create their own grouping elsewhere. Without mutual advantage, there is no benefit to remaining with the group.

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I have one quibble, and that is the word "need".

Needs are means to an end. There is essentially only wants, desires. Without those desires present, then needs do not exist. A need is a dependent concept.

We all "need" food, water, air, etc. But that is only if we desire to continue existing as we do now. If we have no such desire, if we are suicidal, then such needs no longer exist as well.

And when those needs conflict with the needs, desires of others, then you get a problem.

You and others can talk passionately about the needs of the South, but the problem still remains that one of the things the South needed was to preserve their economic viability at that time, was the continuation of slavery. It needed to veto the needs of the black population in the South, to put their own needs ahead of the slaves. And at the point of a gun demand the slaves put the needs of their Masters ahead of their own.

No matter how you dress it up, slavery was fundamental to the Confederacy. And it ruined their logical arguments for any kind of freedom from tyranny, exposed it as a hypocracy. It ruined foreign support, and ultimately killed the Confederacy. It reduced the issue of tariffs and such as trivial, and made the South's actions all that more questionable.

Whether you like it or not, southern aristocracy depended on the plantation system for its wealth, power and leasure. Without the slave system, the South would have been a very different place, and secession possibly less likely.

Now, I recognize the Union's initial reason for fighting was to preserve the Union, the democratic government that had been established. No government can exist where rebellion is legal, and so rebellions have to be fought. They have to be suppressed, or else no government is safe. And the benefits you talked about deriving from organizing a government evaporate.

The South did not leave, so much as say "Come and get us" They did not pick up and move somewhere else, like our immigrant ancestors did (and even our non-immigrant ancestors did, only earlier) They stayed put, and cut their nation out of the boundaries of the old one. Again, a dangerous precedent for any government to let stand.

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To summarize: Is slavery wrong? Yes.
Did the Civil War end slavery? Yes, indirectly.
Was it the reason for the Civil War? No.

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Did the South comprise the majority of slave owne

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I will welcome your response, please don't patronize mine.

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I am never (intentionally) patronizing. Boring, stubborn, arrogant, pedantic, maybe. But I never intend to be patronizing, or condescending or insulting. I have been told I come off that way in my writings, but it is not my intention.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

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I have read most of these posts and am struck by the timing.
I just returned from Tifton GA where we buried my Grandfather. He was one of the (very) few remaining true sons of the Confederacy and was sent off with cannon and rifle salute, the piper played Dixie and my Grandmother was presented with the Confederate battle flag that draped his coffin. I cried, the Sons of the Confederacy in attendance (from 3 states) cried, even the grounds keeper that didn't know us from adam cried. I had never given much thought to "southern identity" before, except to hide it as it has way too much stigma attatched to it.
My Great-grandfather entered the GA militia at 14 and survived the war to sire my Grandfather at the age of 67...he never owned a slave and reportedly resented their use because it made it hard to compete with his little sugarcane/tobbaco operation.
After I had hugged and wept with every one of those strangers in their anachronistic uniforms I left with the realization that it must be a poor life indeed to live denying your heritage (with all it's flaws) and vowed never to downplay my feelings because a boy named Jasper went to fight just because he wanted to protect the land he loved. I'm glad, in the end, that he lost but I am wiping tears of pride because he fought.

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Great^N granddad and his brother enlisted in Arkansas, where the family had moved from Georgia back around 1840. Both fought at the battle of of Helena, and were captured. Great^N Uncle caught more or less healthy, while grandpa had been shot in the hand.

Uncle was sent to a POW camp in Illinois, and died of smallpox later on. Great^N Grandpa was sent to a military hospital and survived the war.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

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Drakon, I agree with many, if not most, of what you have said. I simply wish to clarify that the issue of slavery was such an unimportant issue until the North decided it was advantageous to end it. We know now what a horrible thing it was, but remember that the civil rights movement started roughly a CENTURY after the civil war. I agree that the Union and Confederacy was much better off together in the long run, but that is only with hindsight. The people of the time were doing what they could to deal with the issues of the time. You're right, slavery was the issue used to end the War, but it was used as a bludgeon, not considered ethically or morally. Black slaves were non-people then, and remained so well into the 20th century. I assert that to use the ending of slavery as an important issue of the war is as fine a piece of hypocracy as any the Confederacy used. Note that I don't disagree with you over 75-90% with what you're saying, just this particular point. I'm also not saying the South wasn't wrong about it, I'm saying the Union wasn't right about it (the treatment of blacks) either. There is plenty of blame to go around about this sticky subject.

Jayne: "How big a room?"

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This is, I believe, the crux of the matter.

It has been said Southern identity is on the decline, and many welcome this. Southern identity has been linked to a terrible act, slavery, and thus with the removal of that identity is the removal of slavery in the USA. But this is a deliberate passing of blame for an entire nation's wrongs upon a small segment of its population. No one could muster the political support for abolition, even though many important people of the time felt the institution of slavery was wrong. It was simply too profitable to remove, both in the North and the South. What removed it was pure political expediency: the removal of support from the South and the appearance, in the eyes of the nations of the world, of the rightness of the North's cause. As I said, the North needed the economic strength of the South, and was willing to get it through whatever means necessary. As for aboltion, the abolitionists would not, or could not, provide for the transition of the blacks into the general population. The Emancipation Proclamation itself was greeted with riots in the North, fully two years after the start of the war.

Again, with the hindsight we have now, we know the wrongness of the enslavement of a race. But at the time, very few considered blacks to be people (or even human in some cases), so there was little reason (in their eyes) for freeing them. Disgusting and disturbing as it is, this was the mindset of most Americans of the time. Dressing up the North's aggresion as some sort of mission to bring freedom to a race is revisionism of the worst sort. It attempts to place blame for centuries of injustice squarely (and expediently) upon the shoulders of the defeated, as a means to justify the winners victory.

Drakon, your responses seem very well thought out, what is your opinion on my assertation that the North vilified the South to make their cause seem justified?

Jayne: "How big a room?"

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Drakon wrote:

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This is probably the most disingenous argument I have ever heard.

First off, the US had only come into existence in 1789. It was not 200 years old when the Civil war broke out, let alone had the Stars and Stripes as its flag.

Second, slavery was an important institution in the South. As had been noted earlier, almost all of the Northern states had outlawed it at the time. So the part of the US that was still slave holding, was exactly the part that ceded and flew the Stars and Bars for 4 years.

As noted earlier, slavery was part of America before America was a nation. It was part of our inherentence from England. Yet, it was English ships, under the Union Jack that first put pressure on the Atlantic slave trade to stop it.

Even though slavery in America began under the English, the English corrected that mistake, and took steps to end it, both at home and overseas. Even though slavery started before the Union was formed, it was the Union that put an end to it. To correct that sin, Northern boys fought and died. Southerners fought and died too, but no matter how many great leaders of the South wanted to end slavery, they did not. And ended up fighting to preserve the system.

Slavery poisoned the Confederacy's ideals, and its moral standing. It kept the British and French from supporting her, and rendered her arguments about tyranny and tariffs on the federal level unpersuasive. And even, on the verge of getting the slave system, which at the time was their economic livelyhood, protected by both Supreme Court ruling, and a constitutional amendment, the South still shot at federal troops and ceded from the Union that had bent over backwards to protect their unique way of life, despite the fundamental hypocricy it posed to the foundational principles of this nation.

Slavery made the Confederacy the "wrong side" and ruined any good that might have come from her. It was a fundamental contradiction to the very ideals the revolution of 1776 proclaimed and needed to be removed, if the US was ever to be the kind of nation the founding fathers dreamed it should be. The North saw that, and many southerns did too. But the Confederacy still fought on the losing and wrong side of that issue.

So the flag gets adopted by hate groups, and sullies it name. Sorry to hear that. But it was the South that had brought it upon itself. Whether Sumter was a trap or not, is beside the point. South Carolina blundered into it boldly. It was the Confederacy that lost the votes, and fired on the fort, lost the debate, and the war. Almost 150 years ago.

Whether you like it or not, the single most defining characterisic difference between the North and the South was the slave system. And it was that system that the Stars and Bars represented. You can talk about States rights, and export tariffs till you are blue in the face, but the nagging question of slavery still haunts, and damages, the reputation of the Confederacy. The Union ended it. The Confederacy did not. You can argue they "did not get a chance," all you like. But it just doesn't fly.

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First off, relax. Talk about me arguing something until I am blue in the face. Pot, kettle. You are no more going to change what I believe & know, and it is obvious you will not see anything but your point.

I do not deny anything the South did wrong. Slavery was wrong. Say it w/ me class.... We know it was wrong. Yes the South did not end it, but they could not abolish slavery without destroying their economy and impoverishing the entire South. If they did that, who do you think they would have turned to for financial aid? The Union, that's who.

As others have pointed out, slavery existed in this country, in America, the United States, long before the Confederacy was even dreamed up. The US flag in one incarnation flew over this land during that time, regardless which person sat in the drivers seat in Washington. Sure slavery was "outlawed" in the North before the start of the War, less than 30 years prior, but how is it th

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Originally posted by BrownCoat1:
First off, relax. Talk about me arguing something until I am blue in the face. Pot, kettle. You are no more going to change what I believe & know, and it is obvious you will not see anything but your point.

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This is calm. It probably does not play well in text, but as I have said before, the fact it happened about 150 years ago, well, it seems kinda silly to get all worked up about. We disagree, and perhaps we will not convince each other, but I still find it enlightening to discuss this kind of stuff.

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I do not deny anything the South did wrong. Slavery was wrong. Say it w/ me class.... We know it was wrong. Yes the South did not end it, but they could not abolish slavery without destroying their economy and impoverishing the entire South. If they did that, who do you think they would have turned to for financial aid? The Union, that's who.

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Absolutely true, well, mostly true. But for the most part irrelevant to the reason why the Confederate flag is associated with slavery, while the US flag is not. The reason why is secondary to the fact that it was not done.

Just as the reason why the Union freed the slaves is secondary to the fact that they did it. Whether their motivations were pure or not, does not matter. They acted, and that action had consequences. It is the consequences that matter, far more than the reasonings and rationales before the act.

I find the assertion that it would bankrupt the entire south a bit hard to handle. As you noted earlier, only 10% of southerns owned slaves. I believe they may have been the more wealthy individuals, and do grant that wealthy folk have a greater impact on the region's economy than poor folk do, but would it have been that bad economically overall, if the South had followed their better instincts?

Short term probably worse for a time. But in the long haul, I think you would even agree it would have been economically better.

It does bring up an interesting question on the effects of slavery on southern culture.

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If there is blame, it lies on both sides of the Mason Dixon line.

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But my point still stands. It was the US flag under which the liberation of slavery was accomplished. Not the Confederate one. You may see that as unfair, but think for a moment. If you were a slave, which flag would be more attractive to you? The one that comprise the slave states which had ceded from the Union, or the flag of the Union that ultimately freed you, regardless of reason or cost, or even if they had previously allowed slavery before. The person who figures out that slavery is wrong, even late and life and actually does something about it, or the person who knows its wrong, and does nothing?

It seems that your argument is that the North should be equally condemned, for "aiding and abetting". I don't think that works. Even if true it does not take into account that one cannot "aid and abet" a crime, if a crime is not committed in the first place.

And I will say it again. If your future actions in no ways make up for past errors, then we all are in a world of hurt.

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I concur, and I have tried to show that the problems leading up the War were far more than the issue of slavery, which was not a major issue, at least not as major as some might wish to believe.

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You have tried. But actually talking to you has convinced me that it was more central to the difference between northern and southern culture, tthe difference in mind set, and also the defeat of the Southern armies.

You've noted that despite only 10% of southerner owning slaves, it was too important economically to abolish the slave system. Economics does affect culture as well as ability to fight and win wars. The south may have been fighting against export tariffs, and for states rights, but the more I look at it, I see the institution of slavery polluting the nobility of their cause, and aiding and abetting their defeat.

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Exactly! They left

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