Monument Contemplation

[JonC]

Thanks HankD, well said.

JonC, it occurs to me the southern culture has imprints on you. The monuments are not history, no monuments showing KKK hanging strange fruit on trees. No monuments showing slave ship hands throwing dead off the slave ships. Or the rapes. The South did not face the truth but instead rewrote history to hide southern villainy. Just as the baby killers say its about reproductive rights, you say its about history rather than slavery.

Lincoln took a boat ride into the south and he saw first hand the real south. It is too bad the false facade covering the horrible truth is not gone with the wind.

I'm sure our cultures have left their marks on both of us. Such is life.

But my views of the Civil War do not come from culture. When you read the arguments of that period you find more than the moral issue of slavery. You find cultural, political, religious, consanguineal, economic and socio-economic issues as well. I suggest reading the arguments contemporary to the day instead of assuming the issue was simply one of slavery.

I believe this to be a problem that has developed not only with the topic of history but with theology as well. We tend to simplify far to much.

 

[Reynolds]

Monument Contemplation



Recently in the news there have been reports of lawful and unlawful removal of monuments and the like honoring those who defended their southern culture in the American Civil War.

I have traveled a bit in the South, and have seen their statures and monuments way more often than I see monuments heralding the North and its point of view.

And in conversations, I have heard southerners that say the civil war was about northern exploitation rather than the ungodly institution of slavery.

I think it is fair to say the North and its abolitionist point of view did not win the hearts and minds of the south. Even as recently as the 1960’s we had de facto and de jure subjugation of non-whites. Segregation and Jim Crow laws/ One day as a little tyke, my mother and I boarded one of the public transportation electric train (Red Car) vehicles. I was surprised when I saw all the black people huddled at the back. Now California had no laws saying blacks had to ride at the back of the bus, but the southern culture had made a lasting imprint upon the blacks of California.

I was born in the age of Polio, so today when I hear that many people are against vaccination, I simply do not understand. You cannot escape the culture of your formative years.

I am all for getting rid of things that say there was something good about defending the institution of slavery, but it should be done lawfully with the consent of the governed. After all, that was one of the things wrong with slavery.

I am all for Yankees leaving me alone. That was the issue in 1860 and still is today.

 

[HankD]

The purpose of his civil rights platform:

“I’ll have those ******* voting Democratic for 200 years.”

So far, he's been proven right.

I agree he probably said those words.

HankD

 

[Crabtownboy]

I agree he probably said those words.

HankD

I seriously doubt that Johnson said that. He is reported to have said when the Civil Rights Law pass, "We have lost the South for a generation."

If you or Carpo can find a credible reference to the statement Carpo posted I would appreciated seeing it. Thanks.

He was wrong. It will be for a number of generations as the GOP took up the racist stances and have played them well into a new Solid South for the GOP.

 

[carpro]

I seriously doubt that Johnson said that.

It's a direct quote from an Air Force One steward that heard the remark.

That particular steward been proven correct in his assertions on many other occasions and it's in character with other well known statements by LBJ.

He was a vulgar racist man. He probably said much worse that hasn't been reported. He was a democrat, like you. I hope you're proud of him.

 

[HankD]

I seriously doubt that Johnson said that. He is reported to have said when the Civil Rights Law pass, "We have lost the South for a generation."

If you or Carpo can find a credible reference to the statement Carpo posted I would appreciated seeing it. Thanks.

He was wrong. It will be for a number of generations as the GOP took up the racist stances and have played them well into a new Solid South for the GOP.

No I am not looking up a statement using the supposed word, I lived when he was president. He was a political gangster par excellence probably a (*nevermind*). There were many theories even while he was alive that he had something to do with JFK's demise.

HankD

 

[Crabtownboy]

It's a direct quote from an Air Force One steward that heard the remark.

That particular steward been proven correct in his assertions on many other occasions and it's in character with other well known statements by LBJ.

He was a vulgar racist man. He probably said much worse that hasn't been reported. He was a democrat, like you. I hope you're proud of him.

Give me a link or I'll assume it is simply another myth you are passing on. Thanks.

 

[Crabtownboy]

The purpose of his civil rights platform:

“I’ll have those ******* voting Democratic for 200 years.”

So far, he's been proven right.

That seems to be a myth. Here is what I found:

LAIM
President B. Lyndon Johnson once said, "I'll have those niggers voting Democratic for 200 years." See Example(s)




RATING

UNPROVEN
ORIGIN
A viral quote circulating since the 1990s attributes the following statement to Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States: “I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for 200 years.”

It’s cited in a variety of contexts — as an example of LBJ’s opportunism, as an example of his crassness, as an example of his racism and hypocrisy, and as an example of the racism and hypocrisy of the Democratic Party in general.

We don’t have a high degree of confidence that he actually said it, however.

There’s no question that Lyndon Johnson, despite championing the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and signing it into law, was also a sometime racist and notorious vulgarian who rarely shied away from using the N-word in private. For example, he reportedly referred to the Civil Rights Act of 1957 as the “nigger bill” in more than one private phone conversation with Senate colleagues. And he reportedly said upon appointing African-American judge Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court, “Son, when I appoint a nigger to the court, I want everyone to know he’s a nigger.”

Did LBJ Say 'I'll Have Those N*****s Voting Democratic for 200 Years'?

 

[carpro]

Give me a link or I'll assume it is simply another myth you are passing on. Thanks.

You can assume whatever you like. I really don't care.

 

[HankD]

Neither do I.

HankD

 

[Reynolds]

I will third that motion.

Neither do I.

HankD

 

[Van]

I'm sure our cultures have left their marks on both of us. Such is life.

But my views of the Civil War do not come from culture. When you read the arguments of that period you find more than the moral issue of slavery. You find cultural, political, religious, consanguineal, economic and socio-economic issues as well. I suggest reading the arguments contemporary to the day instead of assuming the issue was simply one of slavery.

I believe this to be a problem that has developed not only with the topic of history but with theology as well. We tend to simplify far to much.

1) JonC says his view does not come from culture. But he also says his culture left its marks on him.
2) I have no interest to listening to the disingenuous arguments aimed at claiming the war was not about slavery.
3) No need to assume my view is uninformed.
4) The OP did not provide an oversimplified view, the charge is simply deflection.

As I said, the men dressed in blue at Gettysburg sang, let us die to make men free. And, sir, they did.

Note folks, no one is trying to justify the institution of slavery, so why not replace the monuments in the south with monuments of those who died to make men free. Now that would be actual history.

 

[JonC]

1) JonC says his view does not come from culture. But he also says his culture left its marks on him.
2) I have no interest to listening to the disingenuous arguments aimed at claiming the war was not about slavery.
3) No need to assume my view is uninformed.
4) The OP did not provide an oversimplified view, the charge is simply deflection.

As I said, the men dressed in blue at Gettysburg sang, let us die to make men free. And, sir, they did.

Note folks, no one is trying to justify the institution of slavery, so why not replace the monuments in the south with monuments of those who died to make men free. Now that would be actual history.

My view does not come from my culture. Unlike most of my family, I have very little interest in the Civil War (it just never interested me) beyond the ideologies that motivated arguments on each side (those are more interesting).

The fact that you either cannot fathom people viewing those monuments as anything other than monuments to the institution of slavery or cannot understand the legitimacy of their belief is not my problem. If you believe the war was fought solely on the grounds of slavery then you are wrong, plain and simple. The evidence is that the majority of those who fought did not own slaves. Why do you believe they were fighting? Some to protect the institution of slavery. Some to protect their own financial interests. Some (probably most doing the actual fighting) to defend their land from what they viewed as a foreign force (remember, we are less than a century away from the Revolutionary war). Your assumption that it was all about slavery is ignorant.

 

[Reynolds]

1) JonC says his view does not come from culture. But he also says his culture left its marks on him.
2) I have no interest to listening to the disingenuous arguments aimed at claiming the war was not about slavery.
3) No need to assume my view is uninformed.
4) The OP did not provide an oversimplified view, the charge is simply deflection.

As I said, the men dressed in blue at Gettysburg sang, let us die to make men free. And, sir, they did.

Note folks, no one is trying to justify the institution of slavery, so why not replace the monuments in the south with monuments of those who died to make men free. Now that would be actual history.

Men at Gettysburg fighting to free slaves in the CSA, but slaves in the Union were not freed. See any hypocrisy there?

 

[Lewis]

My ancestors fought on both sides, and none of them were slave owners.

 

[JonC]

Men at Gettysburg fighting to free slaves in the CSA, but slaves in the Union were not freed. See any hypocrisy there?

No, because it was not a war about slavery. The institution of slavery was evil. But slavery itself embodied issues that had been simmering for decades. It was the straw, not the cause.

 

[Van]

Hi Reynolds, the war was fought over slavery. No one said there were not slaves in northern states. Note today there are no slaves in the Union of north and south.

 

[JonC]

Sadly, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. When we are so blind we can see only one issue, other issues remain unaddressed. Perhaps this is why so many have resurfaced or remained unresolved since the time of the Civil War.

 

[Van]

My ancestors fought on both sides, and none of them were slave owners.

Some of my ancestors (living in Pennsylvania) fought for the north. They were at Cold Harbor. But I fear other ancestors, farther back in American history, who lived in North Carolina about 1800 were engaged in seafaring. Most probably, the cargo included if not slaves, the products of slaves. Again, those who were born into and grew up in the slave culture (and were not black) probably thought the culture was not an abomination. But folks, it was.

 

[Reynolds]

No, because it was not a war about slavery. The institution of slavery was evil. But slavery itself embodied issues that had been simmering for decades. It was the straw, not the cause.

I agree. Slavery was an issue, but it was not The Issue. The issue was money. The Northern states wanted to oppress the Southern states with grade restriction and tariff. The slaves were part of the economic engine of the South. Abolition, for the most part, was not based in morality, it was an attempt by the north to further exert control over the South.