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Fragment of a discussion from User talk:ColbertFan
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"which was of course completely separate from slavery and racism." --Seme Blue

I didn't say it was SEPERATE from slavery and racism, what I mean by "Nor do I believe the Confederacy was racist" means that I don't believe that is mainly founded on slavery. I know that it WAS a racist state, however, so was the US when it was founded(most of the founding fathers owned slaves) and we don't say the US was founded on slavery.

Putting people to high standards and then saying to supporters of a view "SEE!" is a bad arguing method.

Edited by author.
Last edit: 03:48, 13 March 2011

Well if you know the Confederacy was a racist state, why do you have Nor do I think the Confederacy was racist. on your userpage?

Updated to say, don't you think you should qualify Nor do I think the Confederacy was racist. to represent what you really think?

MtD (talk)03:46, 13 March 2011

Miswording, I will change it to Nor do I think the Confederacy was MAINLY racist. Okay, MtD.

 

Please, since you've spent so much effort describing what you don't think, tell us clearly what you do think.

Seme Blue03:49, 13 March 2011
  • The Confederacy was founded mainly on states' rights
  • Abe didn't care about slavery as much as people think he did
  • The Union at that time could be easily compared to the Great Britain under King George III with regards to secession movements.

So, it was just a little bit racist?

MtDHolla!03:56, 13 March 2011

It was FLAWED, it wasn't made by God. What I think you mean is "Was the Confederacy made for slavery", which my response would be no. It was made for states' rights, and free blacks fought in the War for Southern Independence.

Also, I DO NOT have a Southern accent.

  • The Confederacy was founded mainly on states' rights
Yes, this is a partly true statement.
  • Abe didn't care about slavery as much as people think he did
Also true.
  • The Union at that time could be easily compared to the Great Britain under King George III with regards to secession movements.
This is not even wrong.

Let's talk about this.

What you fail to understand about the Confederacy was that the reason the Southern states seceded was because they felt that their way of life was mortally threatened by the election of Abraham Lincoln, who was an anti-slavery (not an abolitionist, of course) Northerner. Their way of life included economic, political, and social elements--some historians even contend that the North and South were not simply different economic regions, but two entirely separate civilizations--and differed from the North in all of these elements. One government could no longer contain both societies, especially given the expansionist tendencies of both (c.f. the wp:Ostend Manifesto and wp:Kansas-Nebraska Act and its repercussions), so the South saw no choice but to break away. What you specifically fail to realize is just how integral the institution of slavery was to Southern socioeconomics, and how the subjugation of blacks was not simply an economic policy but a societal necessity. The Confederacy, the culmination of the seceding states' effort at housing their society in a new government, is simply inextricable and inseparable from that subjugation.

You correctly point out that the chief reason given for secession by the Southern states was that under the "compact" theory of the Constitution, it was a "state's right" to secede. Lincoln, the North and ultimately the Supreme Court affirmed the "contract" theory of the Constitution, meaning that the federal government was supreme. This issue was put to bed after the war in a legal sense, but persists to the present day in the political invective in conservative Southern states. States' rights were the legal foundation of the Confederacy. But the moral, economic, and social foundation of the Confederacy was the aforementioned subjugation of blacks. That's not to say that states' rights were not vitally important to the Confederate States--they were, and that probably helped them lose the war--but that the Confederacy was created to preserve the Southern way of life, their civilization if you will, which was based on the subjugation of blacks in all respects. States' rights were merely a justification of their continuation of that way of life.

Seme Blue04:21, 13 March 2011
 

Who said it was made by god? Also, I don't recall suggesting you have a Southern accent.

MtDPinko Scum04:00, 13 March 2011

No, but people put it up to perfect standards, when all governments are flawed. Also, the Southern accent part was joke. However, in reality somethings I can say with a Southern accent.

 

Everybody's a little bit racist sometimes

Nebuchadnezzar (talk)04:01, 13 March 2011

Well, ok. I don't really care for the Welsh. But I don't think I'd enslave them.

MtDPinko Scum04:05, 13 March 2011
 

True, I used to be racist. When I was I tried to stop it, however, it was hard because most of my bullies where brown(or Latino for those politically correct Nazis).

I thought Latinos had an African skin color, I thought there was only 2 skin-colors.