Side bar The Yankees did it too

W. Richardson

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Mt. Gilead, North Carolina
It would be helpful to quantify and define in detail that "racism". On the eve of the rebellion, there were no slaves in the 'northern states'. There was prejudice, based largely on the unfamiliarity you mention: many had never seen a Black man or woman. There was prejudice based on 'scientific' studies, that 'proved' through various questionable means that Blacks were mentally inferior to Whites. Still, in general, free Blacks lived their lives, raised their families, worked and prayed unmolested by their White neighbors.
We certainly can call it "racism": it was. But it was a far more benevolent "racism", a far less dangerous "racism", than that practiced in the Southern states.



So there was "good" racism" and bad "racism". , and the North's racism was "good" racism?

Ask's those Black's that were killed in the race riots of July 1863, if the North's racism was "good" or less dangerous.

Ask those Blacks, who were hampered by laws to live in certain Northern states, ask them how friendly and unmolested they were.....................

"good" racism........................That is a new one.................Spin on.

"I will say then, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way, the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of making voters of the negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, or having them to marry with white people. I will say in addition, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I suppose, will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of social and political equality, and inasmuch, as they cannot so live, that while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, that I as much as any other man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man. I say in this connection, that I do not perceive, however, that because the white man is to have the superior position, that it requires that the negro should be denied everything."
Source: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The First Complete, Unexpurgated Text, p. 189, Editor Harold Holzer. Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.


Respectfully,
William
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Well, that didn't take long... the implication that most USCT were forced to fight for their own freedom, the happy sambo wishful thinking rears its head. What's next in the drive to trivialize the service of USCT? We already know the usual suspects like to claim the USCT men were "... adept at dodging bullets" along with other such charges of cowardice.

As there is no doubt the majority of USCT men were southerners why on earth would proud southerners work so hard to minimize the service of southern men? The answer is two fold: they served the US instead of the CS and they were black. Of the two I'll let the gentle reader decide which is factor drives the usual suspects in their effort to tarnish the memory of men who were far better than they.


IF you are speaking of my post.............................I can't find where I said ALL, or even MOST,...........

What I said was................"I wonder how many of those were forced to serve? I recall reading several sources on some instances they were hunted down and forced to join.

You are right, if you are speaking about my post...........That it didn't take long.............Take long for you to twist it into ALL.............

I simply asked a question about what I had read.............

I will add this also.............About it not taking long.........Not taking long in one trying to claim that Northern racism was "good"..................lol.............TOV again.

If you were not speaking of my post...................Then carry on.

Respectfully,
William
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***edit by Lnwlf: modern politics***

Those people during the Civil War that wanted Blacks to be free but I am willing to say that they would oppose them living next door or marrying their sister or brother... They could be free just not free enough to stand on an equal social footing.


Totally correct.............I guess that is that "good" racism................lol.............I can see some of them now, "Welcome to the North you are free my child, I hear Canada is nice this time of the year..............lol

TOV again..........

Respectfully,
William
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So there was "good" racism" and bad "racism". , and the North's racism was "good" racism?View attachment 166402
Thanks for your response.
As you recall, you asserted that there was an "intensity of northern racism" which you appear to have been suggesting was different from that in the South, because of "the low percentage of blacks living in northern states."
I acknowledged that there was racism in the North. I did not suggest that there was "good" racism" and bad "racism", though the evidence of our history clearly shows it was better to be a free Black in the North than a slave in the South. To be clear, in my view, all racism is intrinsically bad.
However, when one draws our attention to the "intensity of northern racism", clarification is required. So I'll ask again, what specifically was it that made northern racism intense?
 
Those who are unable to comprehend Lincoln's careful language will often think he was saying blacks were inherently inferior. He was not. He was talking there about political and social rights, which are granted by society. Society can treat one group worse than another without that group being inherently inferior. Notice in the part carefully left out of the above, Lincoln says blacks and whites all share the same unalienable rights, which they couldn't do if one were inherently inferior to the other.


Cash you must have MISSED this part.............

And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any of her man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

There is that word..................INFERIOR..............Lincoln views the white man as SUPERIOR and the Black man as INFERIOR...............

What some cannot, and will not comprehend is the truth..............Lincoln was a racist, and a self proclaimed ****, that Northerners, like Southerners were racist.

Some here wish to treat truth like a pizza, toss it up, spin it around..................

This Treasure of Virtual nonsense that there is "good" racism, and that there is "good" slavery is a bunch of crock.

There is NO "good" racism and NO "good" slavery.........................But there are those who wish to wear those yankee blue blinders, and cling to that make believe world, the North is without sin, is pure and good.............


Respectfully,
William
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Thank you for your response. I'm glad you understand this.

I am convinced that the South is a prism through which the North looks at racial issues. This absolves the latter of any responsibility. That is my opinion and I'm entitled to it. YMMV.


It is called their Treasury of Virtue, It is a"shield" of the Pro-Northern blamer's. It is used to distort the truth, deflect anything negative that is associated with Pro Northerners.

Example 1: When Northern slavery is discussed.............Their contribution to the history of Northern Slavery is......We freed our slaves so we are innocent and can not be held responsible for anything bad.

Example 2: John Brown, They turn a blind eye to him being a murderer, kidnapper, thief, and that he attacked a United States Federal Facility..............That does not matter.

Example 3: Northern Slavery was good slavery............Northern racism was good racism.



Not all are guilty of it, but the few who are, have lost all credibility with me.

Respectfully,
William

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The Treasury of Virtue

Excerpted from The Legacy of the Civil War, By Robert Penn Warren, pp. 60-65


The Treasury of Virtue, which is the psychological heritage left to the North by the Civil War, may not be as comic or vicious as the Great Alibi, but it is equally unlovely. It may even be, in the end, equally corrosive of national, and personal, integrity. If the Southerner, with his Great Alibi, feels trapped by history, the Northerner, with his Treasury of Virtue feels redeemed by history, automatically redeemed. He has in his pocket, not a Papal indulgence peddled by some wandering pardoner of the Middle Ages, but an indulgence, a plenary indulgence, for all sins past, present, and future, freely given by the hand of history.

The Northerner feels redeemed, for he, being human tends to rewrite history to suit his own deep needs, he may not, in fact, publish this history, but it lies open on a lectern in some arcane recess of his being, ready for his devotional perusal. He knows, as everybody knows—and as Lincoln, with sardonic understatement, said—that slavery was the sine qua non of the war. But that sine qua non is not enough for the deep need of justification. Even “almost all,” if the all is salted with psychological and historical realism, is not enough. The sine qua non has to become a secretly enshrined icon of a boy in blue striking off, with one hand, iron shackles from a grizzle-headed Uncle Tom weeping in gratitude, and with the other passing out McGuffey’s First Reader to a roly-poly pickaninny laughing in hope.


When one is happy in forgetfulness, facts get forgotten. In the happy contemplation of the Treasury of Virtue.


• It is forgotten that the Republican platform of 1860 pledged protection to the institution of slavery where it existed, and that the Republicans were ready, in 1861, to guarantee slavery in the South, as bait for a return to the Union.

• It is forgotten that in July, 1861, both houses of Congress, by an almost unanimous vote, affirmed that the war was waged not to interfere with the institutions of any state but to only maintain the Union. The War, in the words of the House resolution, should cease “as soon as these objects are accomplished.”

• It is forgotten that the Emancipation Proclamation, issued on September 23, 1862, was limited and provisional: slavery was to be abolished only in the seceded states and only if they did not return to the Union before the first of the next January (1863).

• It is forgotten that the Proclamation was widely disapproved and even contributed to the serious setbacks to Republican candidates for office in the subsequent election.

• It is forgotten that, as Lincoln himself freely admitted, the proclamation itself was of doubtful constitutional warrant and was forced by circumstances; that only after a bitter and prolonged struggle in Congress was the Thirteenth Amendment sent, as late as January, 1865, to the States for ratification; and that all of Lincoln's genius as a horse trader (here the deal was Federal patronage swapped for Democratic votes) was needed to get Nevada admitted to Statehood, with its guaranteed support of the Amendment.

• It is forgotten that even after the Fourteenth Amendment, not only Southern States, but Northern ones, refused to adopt Negro suffrage, and that Connecticut had formally rejected it a late as July, 1865.

• It is forgotten that Sherman, and not only Sherman, was violently opposed to arming Negroes against white troops.

• It is forgotten that, as Bell Irvin Wiley has amply documented in The Life of Billy Yank, racism was all too common in the liberating army.

• It is forgotten that only the failure of Northern volunteering overcame the powerful prejudice against accepting Negro troops, and allowed "Sambo's Right to be Kilt," -- as the title of a contemporary song had it.

• It is forgotten that racism and Abolitionism might, and often did, go hand in hand. This was true even in the most instructed circles [as James T. Ayers, a clergyman, and a committed abolitionist acting as a recruiting officer for Negro troops confided to his diary his fear that freed Negroes would push North and "soon they will be in every whole and Corner, and the Bucks will be wanting to galant our Daughters Round."

• It is forgotten that Lincoln, at Charlestown, Illinois, in 1858, formally affirmed: “I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.”

• It is forgotten that as late as 1862 he said to Negro leaders visiting the White House: “Even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race…It is better for us both to be separated.”

• It is forgotten, in fact, that history is history.

Despite all this, the war appears, according to the doctrine of the Treasury of Virtue, as a consciously undertaken crusade so full of righteousness that there is enough overplus stored in Heaven, like the deeds of the saints, to take care of all small failings and oversights of the descendants of the crusaders, certainly unto the present generation.

Respectfully,
William
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On the contrary, many of us have made- or tried to make- the point that racism existed throughout our country.


No, WJC, what you have tried to point out was Northern racism was good, and Southern racism was bad.

All racism is bad, the South's, the North's all bad and no one get's a pass.

Same thing is attempted with Northern Slavery, that is was good and the South's was bad, again no slavery is good.

Maybe when both sides can stop the finger pointing, stop trying to be "clean" and without sin (and I am as guilty as anyone), then perhaps CWT can get back to being fun and educational again.

Slavery was a National sin, no one get's a pass, the war is a National tragedy, no one get's a pass for their part played in it.

Slavery was, is, and always will be a veil, evil, and wrong institution. Both sides fought the war believing they were right. The North was right as to slavery, the South was right as to wanting to achieve it's independence. The North won the war, slavery, thank God, was ended. Nobody on either side was "clean" in this.


Respectfully,
William
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No, WJC, what you have tried to point out was Northern racism was good, and Southern racism was bad.[?QUOTE]
Thanks for your response.
Perhaps you are confusing me with someone else.
Please show me the comments that I have made in this forum that claim "Northern racism was good, and Southern racism was bad."
 
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No, WJC, what you have tried to point out was Northern racism was good, and Southern racism was bad.

All racism is bad, the South's, the North's all bad and no one get's a pass.

Same thing is attempted with Northern Slavery, that is was good and the South's was bad, again no slavery is good.

Maybe when both sides can stop the finger pointing, stop trying to be "clean" and without sin (and I am as guilty as anyone), then perhaps CWT can get back to being fun and educational again.

Slavery was a National sin, no one get's a pass, the war is a National tragedy, no one get's a pass for their part played in it.

Slavery was, is, and always will be a veil, evil, and wrong institution. Both sides fought the war believing they were right. The North was right as to slavery, the South was right as to wanting to achieve it's independence. The North won the war, slavery, thank God, was ended. Nobody on either side was "clean" in this.


Respectfully,
William
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I will agree with all of this, except the first sentence, which is absolutely and patently false. No one here has said any such thing. (Except you, in the quote just given.)
 
I have the same copy, I also have many books by many modern authors, who also discuss the Civil War in modern terms, Gallagher, McPherson, Sears, Holzer, Marvel, Gottfried, Guelzo.........ect...ect.

Respectfully,
William
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Good authors for sure, but they discuss the 19th century not 20th century racism.
 
They are for sure good authors but they do discuss the civil war in modern terms at times. I think it is safe to say it is a draw. At least I call it a draw, can, and will leave it at that.

Respectfully,
William
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Not yet, you have yet to quote anything from the Legacy of the Civil War referencing 19th century racism other than an editorial comment.
 
Wasn't Mr. Warren a poet? Didn't he pass away some 27 years ago?
If there are people who believe in the so called "Treasury of Virtue", I have not noticed them participating on this forum, but I could be wrong.
I could be wrong, but I think most of the northern states ratified the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments by ordinary votes of their state legislatures, while the former Confederate states seemed to have coerced into ratification when their states were subject to Congressional reconstruction.
Well, it could be that these reconstruction amendments were a bad idea, and it might have been better if identifiable African-Americans had been permanently relegated to serfdom of some sort.
It would have been a different world, with less immigration from Europe, less democratic change in Britain and France, and maybe the US remaining a pure isolationist country until much later in the 20th century.
Before the Civil War, one section of the United States permitted slavery and advocated its perpetual expansion and one section of the country, or strictly speaking the politicians and voters in the two sections, had eliminated slavery and advocated its containment within the existing slave states.
Which side could claim virtue is a matter of opinion.
However empires and nations that turned ethnic differences into political issues did not have a good trajectory in the 20th century.
Personally, I think the reconstruction program, even if unsuccessful, set the stage for a United States that was able to compete in international affairs. The consequences were worth the effort, though African-Americans paid a heavy price for the failures.
 
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