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They don't make 'em like that anymore. Wise and honorable man.
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This is largely bullshit. The real reason that the South seceded was for fear of political impotence in comparison to the rapidly expanding Northern and Western anti-slave states. If ever there was a "real" reason to secede, this was it.
They were, rightly, afraid of being walked all over.
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Why the Holocaust™ is a Fable.__________Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.
I retain copyright to all original content I post on The Apricity. Notice posted on June 13, 2020."Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can and will not retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen!" Martin Luther (1483-1547)
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R.E.Lee was my great (x's 6?) grandfather. All first born sons of the branch of the Lee Family that became me carry the Lee name as our middle name.
For what it's worth.
Operator of large machinery, mover of heavy objects and doer of neat and nifty things
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John C. Calhoun's speech on the Compromise of 1850 best illustrates this fear of encroaching Southern impotence:
http://www.nationalcenter.org/Calhou...ompromise.html
I have, senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion. Entertaining this opinion, I have, on all proper occasions, endeavored to call the attention of both the two great parties which divided the country to adopt some measure to prevent so great a disaster, but without success. The agitation has been permitted to proceed with almost no attempt to resist it, until it has reached a point when it can no longer be disguised or denied that the Union is in danger. You have thus had forced upon you the greatest and gravest question that can ever come under your consideration: How can the Union be preserved?
To give a satisfactory answer to this mighty question, it is indispensable to have an accurate and thorough knowledge of the nature and the character of the cause by which the Union is endangered. Without such knowledge it is impossible to pronounce with any certainty, by what measure it can be saved; just as it would be impossible for a physician to pronounce in the case of some dangerous disease, with any certainty, by what remedy the patient could be saved, without similar knowledge of the nature and character of the cause which produce it. The first question, then, presented for consideration in the investigation I propose to make in order to obtain such knowledge is: What is it that has endangered the Union?
To this question there can be but one answer,--that the immediate cause is the almost universal discontent which pervades all the States composing the Southern section of the Union. This widely extended discontent is not of recent origin. It commenced with the agitation of the slavery question and has been increasing ever since. The next question, going one step further back, is: What has caused this widely diffused and almost universal discontent?
It is a great mistake to suppose, as is by some, that it originated with demagogs who excited the discontent with the intention of aiding their personal advancement, or with the disappointed ambition of certain politicians who resorted to it as the means of retrieving their fortunes. On the contrary, all the great political influences of the section were arrayed against excitement, and exerted to the utmost to keep the people quiet. The great mass of the people of the South were divided, as in the other section, into Whigs and Democrats. The leaders and the presses of both parties in the South were very solicitous to prevent excitement and to preserve quiet; because it was seen that the effects of the former would necessarily tend to weaken, if not destroy, the political ties which united them with their respective parties in the other section.
Those who know the strength of party ties will readily appreciate the immense force which this cause exerted against agitation and in favor of preserving quiet. But, great as it was, it was not sufficient to prevent the widespread discontent which now pervades the section.
No; some cause far deeper and more powerful than the one supposed must exist, to account for discontent so wide and deep. The question then recurs: What is the cause of this discontent? It will be found in the belief of the people of the Southern States, as prevalent as the discontent itself, that they can not remain, as things now are, consistently with honor and safety, in the Union. The next question to be considered is: What has caused this belief?
One of the causes is, undoubtedly, to be traced to the long-continued agitation of the slave question on the part of the North, and the many aggressions which they have made on the rights of the South during the time. I will not enumerate them at present, as it will be done hereafter in its proper place.
There is another lying back of it--with which this is intimately connected--that may be regarded as the great and primary cause. This is to be found in the fact that the equilibrium between the two sections in the government as it stood when the Constitution was ratified and the government put in action has been destroyed. At that time there was nearly a perfect equilibrium between the two, which afforded ample means to each to protect itself against the aggression of the other; but, as it now stands, one section has the exclusive power of controlling the government, which leaves the other without any adequate means of protecting itself against its encroachment and oppression.
The result of the whole is to give the Northern section a predominance in every department of the government, and thereby concentrate in it the two elements which constitute the federal government: a majority of States, and a majority of their population, estimated in federal numbers. Whatever section concentrates the two in itself possesses the control of the entire government.
But we are just at the close of the sixth decade and the commencement of the seventh. The census is to be taken this year, which must add greatly to the decided preponderance of the North in the House of Representatives and in the Electoral College. The prospect is, also, that a great increase will be added to its present preponderance in the Senate, during the period of the decade, by the addition of new States. Two Territories, Oregon and Minnesota, are already in progress, and strenuous efforts are making to bring in three additional States from the Territory recently conquered from Mexico; which, if successful, will add three other States in a short time to the Northern section, making five States, and increasing the present number of its States from fifteen to twenty, and of its senators from thirty to forty.
Continue...
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The southern states could have easily formed alliance with western states to limit anti-slavery legislation. Much of the Free Soil movement was not based on abolitionist sentiment, but on the desire to keep blacks out of western states. Had southern legislators understood this, they could supported free states in the West in return for westerners supporting pro-slavery politicians in Congress. By seceding, they basically alienated almost all potential political allies in the Union and shot themselves in the foot. And even if they were outvoted by anti-slavery politicians, that's no good reason to secede. In politics, you win some, you lose some, but you don't throw everything away except in the most dangerous of circumstances.
From a moral perspective, Calhoun is stating the very obvious fact that secession was about protecting slavery. Regardless of one feels about modern race relations, that is not a moral or just cause in the least bit, and not one that should be celebrated. Yes, many southerners fought bravely for the Confederacy; I myself had an ancestor who fought in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. I respect his courage, but I strongly feel that he was wrong to have enlisted, and that the whole Confederate experiment was rotten to the core.
Rollin' like a super sonic
Another fool that gets down on it
Values, culture, language, not race.
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Lee was a good man.
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