Posts tagged history

righteousblasphemy:

I figured I’d collect the most important links and quotes into one post, which I will forever refer to, or even copy-and-paste in a response, whenever I see someone spew forth the misguided belief that the Civil War was about anything more than it was about slavery and that the Confederacy is not inherently racist (and the flag not a symbol of anything racist).

This is as much for my own archives and convenience in rebuttal as it is anything else, but feel free to use it for your own edification, too.

Constitution of the Confederate States of America, the major differences from the U.S. Constitution having explicitly everything to do with slavery. Key ones include:

Article I, Section 9, Clause 4: 

No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.

Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 (note the explicit language):

The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.

Funny how they felt the need to specifically set off slaves from “other property.”

Article IV, Section 3, Clause 3:

The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several States; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.

Declarations of Secession from four states:

Georgia, the SECOND SENTENCE IN THE WHOLE THING:

For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.

Mississippi, SECOND PARAGRAPH:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery— the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

South Carolina, the first state to secede. This one is particularly egregious. FIRST SENTENCE in the declaration:

The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. 

And further on down, a flat-out admission that the protection of its right to slavery was the main reason South Carolina ever ratified the U.S. Constitution in the first place:

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made.

Texas, explicitly stating that being a slave state was one of its strongest ties to the states east of the Mississippi:

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery— the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits— a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

And because I live in Tennessee, I think it’s appropriate to throw in some of my state’s stuff. Like the speech from Gov. Isham Harris (who very soon after sent Confederate troops to storm strongly pro-Union East Tennessee to prevent it from becoming its own state within the Union, as West Virginia would do successfully).

Shortly into his speech:

The systematic, wanton, and long continued agitation of the slavery question, with the actual and threatened aggressions of the Northern States and a portion of their people, upon the well-defined constitutional rights of the Southern citizen; the rapid growth and increase, in all the elements of power, of a purely sectional party, whose bond of union is uncompromising hostility to the rights and institutions of the fifteen Southern States, have produced a crisis in the affairs of the country, unparalleled in the history of the past, resulting already in the withdrawal from the Confederacy of one of the sovereignties which composed it, while others are rapidly preparing to move in the same direction.

And, finally, the Cornerstone Speech of CSA Vice President Alexander Stephens:

The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.

And then:

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, 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. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

And then this, perhaps even the most offensive (and saying it in the name of what I assume is the Christian God):

With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper material-the granite; then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for the superior, but for the inferior race, that it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator.

weexist-weresist:

iamabutchsolo:

I hear this from people all the time when it comes to all forms of oppression, but particularly racism. When discussing the past atrocities committed by white folks onto people of color, someone, almost always a white person tries to excuse the white people in the past by suggesting that they just didn’t know what they were doing was racist.

Slavery? Native American genocide? Banning racial minorities from immigrating to the US? The Zoot Suit riots? Internment of Japanese Americans? Etc.?

“Yeah, that was bad, but they didn’t know that what they were doing was racist/knew what racism was/didn’t think about race!”

I think what people neglect to think about is that the people of color who were the victims of these racist acts definitely knew what racism was. They could see that the way they were treated was predicated upon their race. They lived every day seeing it and having to take it and normalize it as if that was how life was supposed to be. So when I hear, “But they didn’t know about racism back then!” to me, it suggests that the mindset of “they” meaning “white people” is somehow more important than the suffering of the people of color they oppressed. And to me, it’s just another example of how white people control how we see US history.

Plus, the fact that they happened happened in the past does not negate the fact that these acts were heinous and racist, the consequences of which still affect racial inequality today, and I don’t believe that we should just give the white people of the past a free pass and treat them as children by saying, “They didn’t know better.” No, it’s far worse: They knew exactly what they were doing; they just didn’t care that people of color were suffering.

I would buy that ‘people didn’t know that slavery was bad’ if

1. black people felt benevolent towards their enslavement

and

2. there weren’t abolitionists who lived right at the same time that slave owners lived.

(via bubonickitten)

bookling:

mattgorman:

truestory0:

Well this is awkward. I didn’t mean to start a fight here, I was just explaining something that I was taught, not on Wikipedia, but in my AP United States History course. Look, the fact of the matter is that slaves were the southerner’s livelihood. They couldn’t have their huge plantations without the slaves and without their plantations they had no way of standing up against the booming north. This carried over into national government and the southerners were quickly losing a voice because of smaller population and less money. Why do you think slaves got counted as people/property at all? Furthermore, the north was just as racist as the south. If they  hadn’t been that way, African-Americans would not have had to bring their fights for civil rights into the twentieth century.

None of this makes any goddamn sense. I hate to break it to you, but your AP History teacher is much more likely to be wrong than Wikipedia. HS teachers perpetuate this ignorant bullshit all the time. You don’t seem to understand that the main reason that they were having a hard time with their economy was because they refused to give up slavery. It’s really too bad that slaves were the “southerner’s livelihood”, poor southerners, right? Maybe they should have picked another livelihood that didn’t rely on the systematic dehumanization of an entire race of people.

Seriously, I can’t even respond to the rest of this. I seriously urge you to take a look back at what you just read and realize how monumentally ignorant every one of those things is. 

Do they not teach critical thinking in schools anymore? Sure, the slaves and plantations were the southerners’ livelihoods, but you can still consider that maybe it’s wrong that some people built their livelihoods on other peoples’ backs. 

(via bookling-stormborn)

squee-gee:

mattgorman:

truestory0:

mattgorman:

There is a significant number of people who live north of the Mason-Dixon, who have never lived in the South, who proudly display the Confederate flag. Those people make me want to murder things.

Even if you are from the South and you display the Confederate flag, you’re probably racist. Your “heritage” is one of hate, ignorance, treason (hey, remember who won the Civil War?). Go fuck yourself.

Dear American citizens, 
You may not be aware of this, but the Civil War was a war of economics. Freeing the slaves was just a great byproduct. 

I’m not sure what this has to do with the mini flag debate blowing up my dash, but I thought I should point that out because it bothers me that people do not realize it! And I don’t think Matt will mind me doing this to his post. He seems like a reasonable guy.  

Oh sure, the cause of the Civil War certainly was economics. You see, the South liked their economy that relied heavily on the dehumanization, torture, and trade of fellow human beings and would fight to the death for their right to keep that economy. ECONOMICS!

States Rights!  To own slaves!

Economics! To keep free labor in the form of slaves!

Heritage! Of slavery!

For real, how do people forget this?

(via squeetothegee-deactivated201111)

The Confederacy is a part of my history as well. Slavery was — like it or not, rebels — the root cause of the Civil War. As the descendent of people that those under the rebel flag fought so valiantly to keep as property, the flag is offensive. Even more heinously offensive is when a person claims that flag and then tries to tell me that their history is more important that mine. Their misplaced sense of pride is more important than my anger at the fact that they try to keep our true history swept under the rug.

The people who fought under that flag fought for the institution of slavery, which by the by, is racist. It’s an ugly truth. Stop trying to look away from it. Clearly, not everyone whose ancestors fought for the Confederacy is a racist. But when you claim that flag with pride, we have a serious problem.

jaeboogie:

For those interested, PBS broadcasted these episodes a few months ago. I never got the chance to watch them on TV but am geeked to find out the full episodes are online via their website! Yay. I don’t know how long they’ll be up so watch them while you can.

Haiti & the Dominican Republic: An Island Divided

Cuba: The Next Revolution

Brazil: A Racial Paradise?

Mexico & Peru: The Black Grandma in the Closet

(via squeetothegee-deactivated201111)