Some dare call it freedom split from Oh Pooh its Confederate History Month

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OK but, did the signers of the DOE ever say anything like "hey, we're doing this because King George represents a clear and present danger to slavery"? It seems fine to say "we want to govern ourselves" but maybe not so admirable to say "we want to govern ourselves because you guys might take our slaves away".

As a matter of fact they did -- although the final version eliminated it -- but not in the way the Southern states of the secession winter did:

"[H]e has incited treasonable insurrections in our fellow-subjects, with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation of our property: he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another."

On June 28, 1776 Jefferson's draft of the "Declaration" was presented to Congress and on July 1, Lee's resolution came back up for debate and a vote. Lee's resolution of independence was passed the following day, July 2, 1776 but debate continued on Jefferson's "Declaration." The debate apparently centered around Jefferson's references to slavery in the document and approximately 20% of the text was revised:

"After voting on the Lee resolution, the congress moved immediately to a consideration of Jefferson's draft. In committee-of-the-whole format the delegates spent two days making editorial changes that revised or deleted about 20 percent of the text. They found Jefferson a bit wordy for their taste, some of his language too florid or sentimental, and insisted on removing any reference to the slave trade or slavery itself, even when Jefferson blamed it all on George III. Mostly they focused on the latter two-thirds of the document, the lengthy list of grievances against the king. They cared most about that section because the whole point of the Declaration was to justify independence, which depended upon demonstrating in one conclusive indictment that George III had betrayed their trust."
American Creation, Joseph J. Ellis, pg. 55
 
Opposition to slave insurrection is protecting slavery. I believe that is rather obvious. ...speak of the same thing.


It's obvious it's not the same. Complaints about insurrection deal with loss of life. Protection of slavery is quite different.
 
What is so difficult in understanding that, in essence, the Confederate soldiers fought to be free from the USA. There may have been a myriad of other reasons that they thought important, but they were reasons nevertheless.
What ever their reason was ( actually we already know thanks to the ordinances of secession) it had absolutely nothing to do with freedom unless you or someone else can make an articulate case for it.
Leftyhunter
 
The use of the word freedom is what is driving this ridiculous thread. Admittedly there are better words which could have been used. The entire thread here is to have an argument based on the word. It's an bogus thread. Anyone who bites into it is allowing themselves to try and defend a position based on the use of a word that was purposely used so the opposing position could pounce upon them for it's use. Nice try. Here's the thing. After this thread dies, there will be another that does the same thing. It's a given. I see it over and over. People playing with words. Nothing more. No substance.
I asked a simple question if you or others cant answer it perhaps in no shape or form was the Confederate soldier fighting for freedom.
Leftyhunter
 
I will not get seriously involved here as this will once more lead to nothing, but I will say that freedom means not only freedom from something (the forum rules forbid to give details, but with all due respect, maybe a European can understand better what it means to submit individual state's rights to an overwhelmingly regulative central government) but it means also freedom to something. I'll leave it to everybody's own imagination what that might have been and back out of this thread again.
My Faraway Friend, I truly appreciate your sensible and well-grounded post to this thread.
 
Then, Let's play with the word slavery and it's synonyms in the 1700s and 1800s:

Declaration of Independence...no mention of slaves in the final copy. Hmmm...wonder why.
Articles of Confederstion...no mention of slavery. Hmmm...wonder why
Constitution: Missouri Compromise... 3/5 of them exist finally. Allowed 20 more years of slave trade and allowed "fugitive" slaves to be recaptured .Hmmm...wonder why.
Dred Scott Case...became no case at all. He apparently wasn't a man. Hmm...wonder why.
7 of 11 southern states seceded with slavery as the main reason for secession. Hmmm...

Now that is playing with the concept of slavery, only that playing was with human lives in the United States, both north and south.
 
What ever their reason was ( actually we already know thanks to the ordinances of secession) it had absolutely nothing to do with freedom unless you or someone else can make an articulate case for it.
Leftyhunter

I can make an articulated case that independence from an increasing anti-South U.S government was freedom.
 
I can make an articulated case that independence from an increasing anti-South U.S government was freedom.
How was the U.S. govt being anti South? What specific examples can you cite? What freedoms was the Union ttrying to take away from the South? What freedom did the South loose never to be gained back?
Leftyhunter
 
??? I can't speak for the others addressed, but goodness knows I have discussed why the Republican Party's political platform of 1860 so alarmed Southerners that it drove seven states to secession. The now serious schemes of an empowered “free-soil” movement into confiscated western Indian lands would have rendered the Southern slave states into little more than useful vassals unable to protect their political and economic interests from the all powerful rest of the country.
Obviously they didn't want to change, did they! Easier to split, fight, and die, than to change?

Kevin Dally
 
Freedom for...what? The Jeff Davis government was sure more intrusive than the US Government!

Kevin Dally

That government only existed during war, apart from a few brief months in 1861, and there's no way to know how it would have worked in peacetime. Compare it to the US during the same time. You can't argue that Lincoln's government didn't get very, very intrusive due to the war.
 
Obviously they didn't want to change, did they! Easier to split, fight, and die, than to change?

Kevin Dally

Obvious not, the craven thing to do would have been to submit to Northern domination. But our Confederate heroes didn't bend the knee gracefully, they dared take the chance for independence and self-rule. That is the reason the one of us that still care have Confederate Flag Days, Confederate Memorial Days, and Confederate History Month.
 
so why don't you do it?

Freedom for...what? The Jeff Davis government was sure more intrusive than the US Government!

Kevin Dally

President Davis had to deal with an invasion, a firm hand is necessary when your country is your country is invaded and its very independence is threatened. I'm not so sure Lincoln was any less intrusive, he didn't handle dissent well. In any case, I am reminded of an old adage I read somewhere that went something like: “If we are to be ruled by devils at least let them be our own devils.”
 
President Davis had to deal with an invasion, a firm hand is necessary when your country is your country is invaded and its very independence is threatened. I'm not so sure Lincoln was any less intrusive, he didn't handle dissent well. In any case, I am reminded of an old adage I read somewhere that went something like: “If we are to be ruled by devils at least let them be our own devils.”
even if i go with that fallacy confederates somehow miraculously equal the guys who started the war of independance it's not an invasion. the british did not invade northern america, they tried to keep it and so did lincoln.

try harder next time

... you wrote somewhere that you served in the us-army - i don't understand that as they are obviously a warmongering band of bloodthirty scoundrels to you - how could you 'work' for them? (this is a real question not a cheap shot)
 
so why don't you do it?

It would be too time consuming to lecture someone who knows little or nothing about ante-bellum U S history at this venue. And then again, you would never be satisfied with a pro-Southern point of view – it would only lead to repeating myself over and over again. Instead let me recommend someone in the vein of Allan Nevins and his Ordeal of the Union series. Nevins writes with a pro-Northern slant so that should suit you, but he doesn't chunter on with the anti-South rubbish of the post-1960 revisionists like James McPherson and comrades.
 
even if i go with that fallacy confederates somehow miraculously equal the guys who started the war of independance it's not an invasion. the british did not invade northern america, they tried to keep it and so did lincoln.

try harder next time

... you wrote somewhere that you served in the us-army - i don't understand that as they are obviously a warmongering band of bloodthirty scoundrels to you - how could you 'work' for them? (this is a real question not a cheap shot)

The only thing that comes to mind here is a man to man Confederate fighting superiority.

Navy. Joined to see the world including your beautiful country. How was your national service?
 
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