Romanticization of the Civil War
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 4, 2026 09:53
VIEWED: 15839
PAGE 4 of 13
One, a fight for freedom.
The other, a fight for slavery.
Same thing!
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Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
You can try sophistry and equivocation all you want, but the fact still stands that the Confederacy attacked the Union and kicked off hostilities. And secession is not a patriotic action. Traitorous rebel scum seems an apt descriptor for such people taking such actions.
Okay.Quote:
The Capture of Fort Ticonderoga occurred on May 10, 1775 when a small force of Green Mountain Boys led by Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold overcame a small British garrison at the fort and looted the personal belongings of the garrison. Cannons and other armaments from the fort were transported to Boston and used to fortify Dorchester Heights and break the stalemate at the Siege of Boston.
After seizing Ticonderoga, a small detachment captured the nearby Fort Crown Point on May 11. On May 18, Arnold and 50 men boldly raided Fort Saint-Jean on the Richelieu River in southern Quebec, seizing military supplies, cannons, and the largest military vessel on Lake Champlain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_Fort_Ticonderoga
Hmmm. Almost two months prior to the Declaration of Independence, when the Colonies seceded by declaring "...that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;..."
Traitorous rebel scum indeed, King George.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
Absolutely. That's exactly how the revolutionaries were viewed by the British. And had the British defeated the colonists, the leaders and traitorous rebel scum would have been rounded up and hanged. Guess maybe the Union shouldn't have been so merciful with the Confederate scum, eh? ;)
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions
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Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
While not a historian, would you give any credence to the words of Revolutionary agitator Samuel Adams?Quote:
"Rebellion against a king may be pardoned, or lightly punished, but the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death."
Seems he wasn't keen on domestic insurrection or rebellion, and thought the leaders of Shays' Rebellion should be hanged.
Jefferson, on the other hand, said:
Quote:
“I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people, which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
One, a fight for freedom.
The other, a fight for slavery.
Same thing!
I don't recall the Revolutionary war freeing the slaves.
As Fremd noted, making the Civil War all about slavery is pretty much revisionist propaganda. It was about trying to preserve the Federal government.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Quote:Then why did you respond?
Come on, Siggy. In common usage, the word "people" is assumed to apply to both groups in such a sentence.
Since you obviously misunderstood my point, no response from me is necessary, I guess.
Geezer, you don't get to skate past so easily.
You counted up the death of free citizens, but the death of slaves due to slavery never even crossed your mind. It's like the rich Filipino said: In my country, people don't do laundry. Your bias runs so deep, you gloss over the brutal deadliness of slavery so quickly that it never rises to the surface. Your application of the category "people" is sketchy. THAT is exactly the problem I'm talking about: Selective amnesia.
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Quote:Nope, the job was completed in 1865. And not by the south.
I don't recall the Revolutionary war freeying the slaves.
Keep defending your peculiar institution, buddy. It owns you.
AFA what the Civil War was all about: It started with the question of slavery and it ended with freeing the slaves. I find the whole argument about "State's rights" and "preserving the Union" to be sophistry at best.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
You counted up the death of free citizens, but the death of slaves due to slavery never even crossed your mind.
Okay. when you start doing your mind-reading act again, it's time to ignore you, since you'll just skip right past whatever I say and fall back on your erroneous preconceptions.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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S'wenyway, there was a war fought to decide if a state can secede from the Union. In doing so, we found out a couple things:
1) A state CANNOT secede from the Union peacably, simply by voting itself out.
2) A state or group of states that wishes to leave the Union must do so violently, and must WIN, overthrowing that Union and demolishing it. Otherwise, it's still part of the Union.
Confederates claimed that they COULD leave the Union by choice and vote, and they rather seem to have been proved conclusively wrong.
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Quote:No, Geezer, I'm reading what you wrote. You looked at free citizens' deaths due to the civil war and balanced on the scale against freeing 4 million slaves. But if death due to slavery (including the slave trade) ever crossed your mind, you didn't mention it.
Okay. when you start doing your mind-reading act again, it's time to ignore you, since you'll just skip right past whatever I say and fall back on your erroneous preconceptions.
If it didn't, then you completely overlooked it due to bias. And if it did and you didn't mention it, then you consciously misrepresented the costs of action/ inaction.
There were 600,000-700,000 deaths on one side of the scale. That was the "cost of action". On the other side, several million deaths due to slavery IN ADDITION TO the violent subjugation of an entire people. That was the "cost of inaction".
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Shoot, I'm going to have to do this in pieces--when you guys get going, you REALLY get going. Anyway, only got part way through so I may duplicate.
PLEASE TRY TO READ THIS, as it clears up the whole question of slavery as the cause of the Civil War, and I think is important for us to know:
Frem, I’m not naïve, I know about the REAL reasons for the Civil War, and that slavery was mostly a convenient one which has gone down in the history books. And yes, both sides deserved to be smacked upside the haid almost equally. But I refuse to believe the reason people get angry and fly the flag, or omit slavery from a celebration, etc., is because of that. Sure, they have reason to be pissed at being portrayed wrong, but I don’t think that’s why.
You’re entitled to your opinion of Lincoln, we’ll just have to agree to disagree. While I’m not uneducated on that aspect either, I don’t see him as the devil you do, I think it’s less clear cut.
Yes, Geezer, I know Southerners...some who’ve moved here. I like them all, and I know we have our share of racists, etc. Everyone does. But those in the rural South, who never move from where they were born; the “good old boy” mentality, I maintain is as I believe is valid.
I don’t question at all that racism has changed and is improved, and that education and integration have helped change it in the South. I can’t find any information on racism by state, tho’ I tried every word combination I could come up with, but OVERT racism is still most evident in the South, from the incidents we have seen in the news, like the Black-White prom controversy, the nooses, etc. I can only go by that. There’s also the different KINDS of racism across the country, from anti-Native American racism in places like Idaho to anti-Hispanic racism here in California, etc. But the general topic is “romanticization” of the Civil War, so since I can’t show statistics on racism, I’ll stick with that.
Magons, you’re absolutely right; romanticizing wars is an age-old tradition among humans. Again I point to “The Americanization of Emily” for some of the best (IMO) portrayal of romanticizing wars by the British, which can easily be generalized to people all over.
Sig, again since I can’t find statistics, I can’t argue where racism is the worst in the states; I wish I could, because I have trouble believing it’s worst in the Northeast. Since I can’t refute it, I’ll let that lie.
Mike,Quote:
I’ll bet Frem jumped all over that further down the line, because that’s an inaccurate portrayal of what led to the Civil War, trust me. We’ll see as I get further down.
If any of you don't have a problem with someone flying the flag of the confederacy, a bunch of traitorous, anti-American rebel scum who attacked the U.S. and waged war on American soil and sought to violently overthrow the legitimate government
But since Geezer replied to your question, I’ll do what I can to clear it up a bit. Some of the real reasons, via a quick search, were as follows. This first one gives secession as the primary reason (but in my opinion that’s not accurate in that it doesn’t answer the reasons BEHIND the desire for secession), but it goes on to state:Quote:
http://www.iberianet.com/articles/2009/11/22/forum/doc4af86784a1afa653
The second reason behind it was to weaken the south. Thanks to its thriving slave-oriented economy, the south was considerably wealthier than the north at the time. The north wouldn't stand a chance against its richer southern enemy if it didn't. The final reason for Lincoln's action was a strategic maneuver. He knew the south wouldn't comply and therefore he'd have a due cause for war- as well as attracting a greater following in sweeping down on the south.
390058.txt
This one’s written by a Southerner and is quite slanted; he calls it the War of Northern Aggression. Nonetheless he makes some good points:Quote:
In his book The South Under Siege 1830-2000 author Frank Conner noted that Northern manufacturers wanted to o
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