Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
These names were used to describe the people trying to bring suffrage to freed slaves, bring education to freed slaves, bring progressive ideas to the south in reconstruction. The people describe in those terms were only doing the moral, ethical, just and what they thought was right. There was no ill will toward the south in these people.
Redeemers
Redeemers movement were the embittered whites who in time pushed the others out and gave us the south we know from 1880 to 1960's. They gave birth to the segregated and apartheid south.
The Redeemers also gave the south its bible belt image.
Look at the words Radical, Scalawags, and carpetbaggers are all derogatory terms describing people who only wanted, what was best for the south both white and black.
Look Redeemers a positive word used to describe the embittered southern whites. Who ended a progressive south and gave us segregation and apartheid. All they wanted was white power in the south.
Why did the northern papers allow southern papers to give these ugly names to people looking for a just southern society back in the 1870's.
Why did the early historians fall for this obvious character assassinations of a progressive movement.
The south(Pro-southern Historians) by every measure wrote the history of the of Civil War and reconstruction.
See how words where used misguide the people of that time in history for the people of today. The powers of words is amazing.....
__________________
"States Rights are about States Wrongs" - Jesse Jackson
These names were used to describe the people trying to bring suffrage to freed slaves, bring education to freed slaves, bring progressive ideas to the south in reconstruction. The people describe in those terms were only doing the moral, ethical, just and what they thought was right. There was no ill will toward the south in these people.
Redeemers
Redeemers movement were the embittered whites who in time pushed the others out and gave us the south we know from 1880 to 1960's. They gave birth to the segregated and apartheid south.
The Redeemers also gave the south its bible belt image.
Look at the words Radical, Scalawags, and carpetbaggers are all derogatory terms describing people who only wanted, what was best for the south both white and black.
Look Redeemers a positive word used to describe the embittered southern whites. Who ended a progressive south and gave us segregation and apartheid. All they wanted was white power in the south.
Why did the northern papers allow southern papers to give these ugly names to people looking for a just southern society back in the 1870's.
Why did the early historians fall for this obvious character assassinations of a progressive movement.
The south(Pro-southern Historians) by every measure wrote the history of the of Civil War and reconstruction.
See how words where used misguide the people of that time in history for the people of today. The powers of words is amazing.....
Well, they really weren't Republicans, radical or even 'Liberal', by strict definition...
And Scalawags and carpetbaggers came after the war.
UnionBlue has convinced me I need to call a spade a spade, and so TOTALITARIAN COLLECTIVIST seems to fit my definitions much better. As Jefferson would say, " I very much like the word!"
I think you give too much credit to these people as abolitionists. They clearly were interested in much more than our present day standard of 'negro equality'.
The last 150 years have not shown these former black slaves anything but the inequality of forced emancipation, which only served to group the freed and slave blacks under the collectivist net, and even throw in the Conservative white Southerners for ballast. Yet, any time there is a complaint about Racism after the war, it is the 'Glorious Old Southern Confederacy' which is called to account for it, said Confederacy which no longer exists, and which never had the racial problems with freed negroes as does and as did the post-war Left wing governments of the South.
The myths of the Old South, and its romanticization, are
as much a product of Northern legend as anything the actual Southerner 'remembers'.
I see the guilt of the North not being assuaged by destroying the South, nor by claiming to try and set right the egregious practices of the Slave Trade, originally.
Two wrongs cannot possibly make a right. And to claim that the Confederacy of the Old South was a completely slave-minded enterprise is, as we have argued, not accepted by the Southerners of today, and not even by Davis, himself, nor any of the Conservatives who developed the Confederacy, against the Unionist Slave Owning Cotton Whig Liberals of the South, who knew that the Confederacy would condemn slavery forever if the Confederacy failed. Stephens was exemplary of the Racist
Left Wing Unionist, and the deeds of these people, before, during and after the Confederacy, are still used to attack the whole Confederacy, and taking in the Davis-styled Conservatives as well, which is dead wrong to do... Stephens and the other Left Wing Unionists sought to degrade the negro through Blatant Racism, to keep him in as much of a 'chattel' role as possible. Stephens, in this very regard, was a great embarrassment to the Confederacy's commander-in-chief as well as many at the South. I personally see him as a traitor. {There's a nice term for your collection!).
Read Stephens' speeches to understand what I mean, here.
So, your definitions are not in themselves 'hurtful' (one of my very favorite Clinton-era terms!) but the perceptions seem to be identified negatively. YANKEE was once such a term, but the North seems to embrace it now, and the Southerner who throws it out does not expect to see the furor that such word once caused.
You will note the Southern Sympathizer of today does not scream when LOST CAUSER, TROLL, or REVISIONIST is
carelessly tossed over him like a filthy blanket.
Perception is value.
Abolitionists in themselves may have once, in some circles, been of pure thought, and intent, but we must always be very wary of the great damage and harm that the follies of the compassionate have historically wrought! (paraphrased; the exact quote and source of said quote is neither mine, nor comes to mind!)
When they formed a pact with the devil of Collectivism, however, and joined that society, their good intentions were swallowed by the results, and lost in the shuffle.
So, they should look to these implied definitions, and
seek to better themselves by following the Constitution, as written, and not try and influence the military - extra-constitutionally... which is of course, the reason those serious abolitionists got grouped into the same classification as the Yankee North...
Thanks to the 'way' slavery was 'done away with', the whole country looks less in the eyes of the whole world, where one side claims to have done a greater good through violent bloodshed...
I would, if I were you, and you are serious, strive to use such terms and labels for your edification, and grow from them, to better yourself, and others. Use them as examples of what not to do, in future!
"There could never be a doubt with any sane man of the ability of the North to march over the South....If it were necessary, we could clear off the thousand millions of square miles so that not a city or cultivated field would remain; we could exterminate the nine millions of white people and re-settle--re-people the lands. There is no want of ability; and if such a work was demanded, there would be no want of a will."
Daily Herald (Newburyport, Mass.) 24 May 1861
(Supported Lincoln in 1860 election.)
"It is plain that nothing approaching the present policy will subdue the rebels. Whether we shall find anybody with a sufficient grasp of mind and sufficient moral courage to treat this as a radical revolution and remodel our institutions, I doubt. It would involve the desolation of the South as well as emancipation, and a re-peopling of half the continent. This ought to be done, but it startles most men."
Thaddeus Stevens, September 5, 1862
"Stevens wants to be in the Cabinet to put into practice his idea of killing all the Southern white men and giving their lands and property to the slaves..."
New York Herald, September 1862
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
Of course you have left out a few things. For example, Stonewall Jackson was advocating marching into the North and laying things waste as a war measure well before Virginia seceded or Lincoln called for the first Militia or Fort Sumter was attacked or any of a number of other things happened. This was, to him, simply the way it would be when war came. He had a very realistic view of war, probably honed by his studies and experience in Mexico, and he did not see it as the glorious thing some other fools did. He knew it was horrible, and he wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible, and he thought the only way to win for the South would be to show the North first-hand how horrible it could be.
On the very day of the vote on Tennessee secession, the secessionists in that state were arresting people at the polling places. Fielding Hurst, for example, was arrested by the Governor's Militia that day, taken to Nashville, and tossed into prison for months. When you look at his rather ugly record in later years, remember how it started: with a political arrest, part of the secessionist suppression of those who voted against them in Tennessee.
Parson Brownlow's bias and record is well-known -- his paper was vehemently opposed to secession, and he repeatedly scorched the TN and Confederate governments in his paper; very clearly a Unionist. By October of 1861, he was forced to flee Knoxville and was hiding in the Great Smokey Mountains: a political refugee because of his beliefs (and probably his actions as well). But I don't see you talking about his betrayal by Confederates: offered a pass to Union lines, he was arrested when he came in to Knoxville to get it. In prison, he was starved and physically abused for months as part of an extortion plot (along with other Unionist prisoners in Knoxville). Granted, the Confederate authorities eventually cleaned up this mess and Brownlow and others were released about March of 1862 -- but his health was broken and his opposition to the rebels had turned into a personal rage and hatred that consumed the rest of his life. That all happened before the quote you are offering here, and helps us understand the depth of his desire for vengance. How about a few quotes from those Confederates doing the starving and torturing? Let's see their motivation and desires clearly laid out.
Then, of course, we have the Confederate espionage people conspiring to set fire to Northern cities (and actually trying) during the war. Had they succeeded, there would have been conflagrations worse than the Chicago Fire, with thousands of dead and many more horribly maimed: old folks, women, children. You like to dedge up old quotes: how about showing us statements from those folks showing how they justified the cold-blooded mass murders they planned?
You know full well that you can find venom and hate on BOTH sides if you try to look for it. The problem is that you want to make believe the South was all-holy, and you want to paint the North in Devil's colors no matter what the truth was.
And on and on. Men and women on both sides developed anger and hatred for the other as the war went on and the killing left them bereft. Your constant attempts to paint things all one way only show that you are unwilling to see the whole picture.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
Thaddus is one of the great figures of that era and the more I learn about this era the more I like his reasoning.
He was the first to call for Total war before Grant gets the credit. He idea that the southern states should have been considered conquered lands and fall under the concepts of spoils of war.
I think he may have been right to break up the southern states and give them new names maybe even make a majority free- slave state..
New states no segregation or an apartheid south...
The point of the thread is we are taught in school that Carpetbaggers were bad along with the Scalawags during Reconstruction and the truth is the opposite. They were just agents of change not bad people only wanting to bring forth a progressive south.
Overtime they were left to finned for themselves by our government and were over whelmed by the Reactionaries(Redeemers) in the south.
Carpetbagger, Scalawags are not pretty words. Why were they allowed to be characterized by such ugly words....
__________________
"States Rights are about States Wrongs" - Jesse Jackson
Congratulations, Beowulf. You have finally contributed something that made sense and is applicable to the thread. Thank you.
As usual, Trice, another sterling post.
I wouldn't blow my nose for a general or a president who is determined to play nice when there is a shooting war going on. Stonewall had the right idea: hit first, hit hard, and don't let the opponent get up. A war is going to end with overwhelming force in any case, it might as well begin that way.
A very interesting thread, gentlemen. I especially appreciate the idea of examining the words used.
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Unfortunately, I think that in some cases the term "carpetbagger" or the like when used to designate an opportunist from the North coming to seek his "fortune" in the South is probably apt in some cases. What percentage I do not know.
I am currently reading Catton's Grant Moves South and his discussion of the cotton traders moving into the "liberated" parts of Tennessee is telling. There were clearly many unscrupolous men in the North willing to take advantage of the situation and using underhanded or unscrupulous means to make a quick fortune in the South.
Should the term apply to all Northerners who went south to attempt to help in reconstruction? Clearly not. Unfortunately, all it takes is a few "bad eggs" to give a bad name to an entire class of persons.
All this by way of saying that I agree with you, to a point, but only to a point. It is as simplistic to attribute altruistic motives to all of the "carpetbaggers" as it is to attribute evil motives to all.
I think the term "carpetbagger" was originally used to only cover those who came South to make their fortune, the image of being so poor as to use a carpet bag for luggage with an intent to take advantage of the upheaval in the South - no doubt arising from a political cartoon somewhere and then taking on a life and meaning of its own. Then perhaps being appropriated and "broad brushed" by the "Lost Causers." My guess is that they did not originate the term or the image, but I have no evidence to that effect. It may originally have even come from a Northern political cartoon. Anyone have an idea?
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
These names were used to describe the people trying to bring suffrage to freed slaves, bring education to freed slaves, bring progressive ideas to the south in reconstruction. The people describe in those terms were only doing the moral, ethical, just and what they thought was right. There was no ill will toward the south in these people.
control the language and you control the argument, or at least frame the argument to your advanatage.
scalwags is a scottish word, look up its origins and how it came to be applied in the US for instance.
those people were doing what they considered moral and imposing ther morality on others, and using the federal gopvernment to do so, in the 30s the abolitionsts were barred from using the US Post service because they insitted servile insurection in their liturature, the ill will was clearly expressed, it was better that 6 million southerners were exterminated than slavery allowed to continue another day.
Quote:
Redeemers
Redeemers movement were the embittered whites who in time pushed the others out and gave us the south we know from 1880 to 1960's. They gave birth to the segregated and apartheid south.
the North was already segregated and pratcising aprathied, it was there laws the south copied, so get you ducks in a row first.
Quote:
The Redeemers also gave the south its bible belt image.
Look at the words Radical, Scalawags, and carpetbaggers are all derogatory terms describing people who only wanted, what was best for the south both white and black.
Well im sure the imman wants something nice for you and yours, and should they continue to try and impose their morality and religion on you and yours youwill continue to phrase your languege on them in colourful terms.
Quote:
Look Redeemers a positive word used to describe the embittered southern whites. Who ended a progressive south and gave us segregation and apartheid. All they wanted was white power in the south.
Why did the northern papers allow southern papers to give these ugly names to people looking for a just southern society back in the 1870's.
nope redemers implies they have lost and now are found, those southerns never considered that they were imoral and needed saving by others who professeda higher mraility than they, in fact the terrorist J brown was hung for doing that, now the governemnt was infourcing more of those of his ilk doing what they co0nsidered moral.
Quote:
Why did the early historians fall for this obvious character assassinations of a progressive movement.
The south(Pro-southern Historians) by every measure wrote the history of the of Civil War and reconstruction.
See how words where used misguide the people of that time in history for the people of today. The powers of words is amazing.....
Well perhaps thats because your not good at words, what they means and how to use them.
Shouting the battle cry of freedom , the North stole all the other mans property, shouting the cry of all men are equal, but only if you acknowedge the federal governemnt as superior, in which case you can keep that same property.
__________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
There were clearly many unscrupolous men in the North willing to take advantage of the situation and using underhanded or unscrupulous means to make a quick fortune in the South.
There were actually people flopping sides as the situation dictated to facilitate trade between the warring parties. (both North and South)....many people aren't above making a buck!
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