You'll find that a very large chunk of learned folks who have come to the conclusion that waging war against the Confederacy was both morally wrong and a mistake are amongst the staunchest supporters of Israel, amongst the loudest critics of the "holocaust denial," and amongst the staunchest opponents of national socialism (Nazism) and its political bedfellows (fascism, socialism, communism). Taking my own points of view and those of many whom I've discussed these issues with into consideration I can absolutely say that a desire to "minimize the slavery issue" is not something that I have frequently encountered. Furthermore, to make the case that supporting the Confederacy's right to exist necessarily equals a desire to minimize slavery or to cheer for evil people rests upon one or either of two faulty assumptions: 1) There could be no evils greater than the evil of slavery... rendering any actions to preserve a system that maintained slavery morally unjustifiable.. 2) That a society's countenancing of slavery (or any other significant evil for that matter) necessarily defines it as evil, and as such it loses the moral right to self-preservation if its self-preservation preserves that evil. I don't believe either of these two premises to be true, as there are in my mind some evils (although only a very minimal few) even greater than slavery. Furthermore, if we go down the path of assumption number two then it doesn't take long at all to see where that leads. For example, let us start with the premise that there are some evils even greater than the evil of slavery. I'll choose an evil I think most of us would agree is even greater than slavery: murdering innocent people. On the surface I'm sure we would all say that a system or society that countenances the intentional murder of innocents deserves to be overthrown... right? Well, not so fast my friends. In the early 1500s most significant Meso-American civilizations - including the mighty Aztecs - practiced human sacrifice (from the European perspective at the time a practice seen as the murder of innocents). And of course after the events of 1519-21 the Spanish considered the eradication of human sacrifice - although it was certainly not the driving force behind their conquest of the Aztecs - one of the many moral justifications for their recent actions. Did, however, their practice of ritualistic human sacrifice make them - the Aztecs and their way of life (political and religious systems) - necessarily evil? And as such, if we assert that the practice of human sacrifice did indeed define them as evil, did it strip away from them the moral right to defend their independence from the Spanish? My point here - of course - is neither to argue in favor of nor against the Aztec's right to defend themselves against the Spanish conquest. My point is to assert that there is at least a legitimate moral and philosophical argument to be made in favor of the Aztec's right to defend themselves against the Spanish - dependent upon how one grades the nature of different evils - despite the fact their society practiced human sacrifice. Well, if we do not give the Confederacy at least the same consideration - that it was possible that the Confederacy did indeed have the moral and philosophical right to defend itself despite the fact that it countenanced the evil of slavery - then we don't really have a philosophical or moral debate at all... what we get instead is a messy hybrid of blind nationalism and emotion-based self-righteousness sprinkled in with a hefty spoonful or two of "might makes right."
I don't have much to say in response to this, other than to say that trying to rank "evils" in a sort of BCS poll is a pretty pointless exercise.
So you're saying there should be a March Madness of evil instead? Also, apologists for evil are less concerned by the nature of the evil itself than the identity of the perpetrator. Which is to say, they're happy to minimize or gloss over evil perpetrated by the "good guys". In this case, the "good guys" are the Confederates, who were only defending themselves against those dastardly Fort Sumter walls that kept getting in the way of their cannonballs.
That would be the West bracket, no? The East bracket would feature an epic Pol Pot vs. Kim Il-Sung match to determine who gets to face Mao in the second round.
I'm putting my money on Idi Amin getting bounced from the South Regional before the Sweet 16. Lot of mid-major dark* horses there. *NOT WHAT YOU'RE THINKING
He'd at least give Mobutu Sese Seko a close game, though, but I'd say Mobutu makes a buzzer-beater. In the meantime, all eyes in the Northwest are on the Trujillo vs. Duvalier grudge match.
Poland Attacked Germany? Well who wouldn’t? To be fair you can still admire General Lee and Stone wall Jackson even knowing they were fighting to preserve slavery (even if they did not like slavery themselves) as Nice said you can admire Rommel’s military tactics even if he was a Nazi. The thing with Lee is that if he was born/lived say a Pennsylvanian and not a Virginian, he may had lead the Union Army and the Civil war may have not lasted that long, unfortunately he was a Virginian and he felt like defending Virginia even when not being a fan of slavery. But yes downplaying the importance of slavery in the civil war is like being a holocaust denier IMO. But isn’t that like saying the soccer game does not start until I get to the game, even if I am a little late, so all the playing/fighting does not count prior to my arrival? I know our history books are very European centric, so Chinese and Japanese killing each other is not very important when we come up with dates in our history book. Then again WW1 is used to reference a war fought by European countries and their colonies around the world even when fighting did not happen in the Americas and most of Asia (some Middle east fighting for sure, and Germany losing its colonies in the pacific).
I always thought the claims about it "not being about slavery" were about the North's motives, not the South's. In other words, it wasn't Slavery per se that the North was against, but the economic advantage it gave the South.
The problem with that hypothesis is the enormous gap in size of the Northern economy compared to the South. Really the only area of the Southern economy that the North would have had any cause to be alarmed about was the cotton trade, which had boomed in the 1850's; this along with a few other agrarian areas (tobacco for example) were the only areas where the South could even hope to compete economically with the North, and as the South learned fairly quickly during the war, "king cotton" was not much help to them, partly because of the Northern blockade, but mostly as the success of cotton growers in the south in the years leading up to the war had created huge surplusses of material that helped european economies dependent on southern cotton (the UK and France primarily) to weather the storm once their supply of southern cotton dried up.
Worse than that (from the confederate point of view,) the cessation of supply from America uncovered an existing inefficiency in the market. European companies discovered they could import completed cotton textiles and even garments from India more profitably than they could manufacture and sell from American raw materials even had the market remained uninterrupted.
And specifically, I think the sarcasm of the original post was lost on ceezmad. In the Soutwest, Hugo Chavez will get schooled by Augusto Pinochet. Too soon?
I don't know if anybody mentioned it but if you did I'll just add to it. Alexander Stephens Vice President of the confederacy said this for the reasons of secession. "Our new government is founded.... Upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition".
He must have been a Lincoln disciple... “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”
That isn't obscure anymore, you know. It has been cited too frequently at this point. He was trying to win an election, and he was trying to keep the south from seceding-- he'd have said just about anything to avoid the Civil War. Once that was off the table his expressions and opinions on the subject changed rapidly.