Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter

Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Community Discussions] >> Dungeon of Political and Religious Discussion

Message

slvemike4u -> Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 8:01:14 AM)
150 years ago it began,one nation attempting to render itself into two....the result being the 4 bloodiest years of our nations existence. At the end of it...we had if nothing else put to sleep for all time the idea that secession was a legal possibility.......unless you are from Texas....or married to the governor of Alaska. Anyway here is Burns on the subject.... http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/a-conflicts-acoustic-shadows/?ref=opinion Discuss...in any old way you like [:)]

slvemike4u -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 8:05:56 AM)
Another op-ed piece on the anniversary http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/an-american-tragedy/ Viewed thru a different perspective

slvemike4u -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 9:15:41 AM)
So 150 years after this countries greatest crisis.....and no one is of the mind to discuss it? Really.....I am more than a little surprised [8\|]

Kana -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 9:25:42 AM)
Shelby Foote's trilogy should be required reading for all American students. The single most comprehensive, yet reasonably concise, study on the war I've yet read. Beats the snot out of these op-ed pieces. Ken Burns may make a nice film or two, but as a Historian, he's crap. That is all.

slvemike4u -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 9:31:34 AM)
Couldn't actually link to the Foote trilogy though,could I ? Ken Burns has never pretended to be anything more than he is....a film maker...and a damm fine one at that.

slvemike4u -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 1:05:15 PM)
Perhaps the thread tittle should have simply been.....WAR.....that might have garnered some interest....lol.

FatDomDaddy -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 1:30:35 PM)
Here's one for you slvey Take all of the abolitionist literature of the area and replace the word slave with abortion. The similarity is amazing. Then compare the responses from the Right to own Slaves movement and replace slavery with abortion there too. I do not wish to hijack only to point out the amazing similarities to the rhetoric of groups who regraded Negros as sub/non human and fetuses as non Human as well as the groups that felt a Right to Freedom for all Mankind and a Right to Life, There will be those who argue that the American Civil War was not about Slavery but the simple fact is, that without the issue of slavery, had the founding fathers dealt with the issue and not punted to the their children, grand children and great great grand children to deal with, there never would have been an American Civil War. Hmmm... speaking of letting our kids deal with the issue....The Deficit.... ...what was it that guy said about history and being doomed to repeat it.....

rulemylife -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 2:55:34 PM)
I don't really think slavery was the cause, I think the cause had more to do with economics and slavery was a side issue. Of course, you could also argue that the southern economy depended on slavery, but I don't think that was the root cause of the war. I think it's telling that that Lincoln did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation until well into the war. *Was Abraham Lincoln* a Racist?** In his new book, Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream, black American author, Lerone Bennett, presents historic evidence supporting the theory that Abraham Lincoln was, in fact, a devoted racist harboring a life-long desire to see all black Americans deported to Africa. Bennett suggests that as a young politician in Illinois, Lincoln regularly used racial slurs in speeches, told racial jokes to his black servants, and vocally opposed any new laws that would have bettered the lives of black Americans. Key to Bennett's thesis is the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation which, Bennett argues, Lincoln was forced into issuing by the powerful abolitionist wing of his own party. Bennett asserts that Lincoln carefully worded the document to apply only to the rebel Southern states, which were not under Union control at the time, thus resulting in an Emancipation Proclamation that did not in itself free a single slave. At one point, Bennett quotes William Henry Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state, who referred to the proclamation as a hollow, meaningless document showing no more than, "our sympathy with the slaves by emancipating the slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."

jlf1961 -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 3:08:55 PM)
The war between the states was about states rights, slavery became the issue only to keep support for the war in the Northern States after a few major defeats of the Union Army in Virginia.

Fightdirecto -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 3:20:21 PM)
The Civil War WAS about State's Rights - the "right" of the White citizens of an individual state to hold non-Whites as non-consensual slaves, the "right" to live off the fruits of their slaves' labor and the "right" to rape their female (or male, if so inclined) non-White slaves whenever they felt like it - and the belief that no one outside their state had the Constitutional authority to forbid them from doing so. And it took over 4 years and thousands of lives to show them they were wrong... But today we still have fools and moral degenerates who believe the Confederate slave owners were "right"... At least my slave is my slave by her own free will...

mnottertail -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 3:24:13 PM)
The two big things that caused the civil war were the expansion to the west and the Whigs and Whig Republicans trying to keep slavery out of the territories becoming new states even those north of the Mason Dixon, and simultaneously keeping the south from invading Cuba and all the South American countries to expand slavery. At the same time, the states rights issue was popular sovereignty where Northern free states felt that since they did not truck in slaves if a slave escaped north they were not bound to return them to the south, and then it even went as far as since a slave might have 'sojourned' thru the north (a famous case of a southern west pointer being assigned to fort snelling in Minnesota brought his slave with him, but was not allowed to bring him back to the south) since as the north saw it he was free....... And there is so much more.....But fuck, everyone is a racist in some way or another even today, (including black folk as well) , it is a matter of the ickyness of it or the scope and purpose of it. And Lincoln had no desire to free slaves (a constitutional issue, and did free them begrudgingly in a measure to help win the war) and didnt want millions of unemployed black folk milling around the good ol usa. (had to do with 'free-labor') and did want to ship them off. Note that importing slaves was illegal since 1807 and the slave breeding grounds in the upper south sold slaves 'down-river' to the deep south. Lincoln coming from Ill bordered those states and was in some pain about taking away that livlihood as well, after all, he was eventually a republican.... Tons more but thats enough for now.

kdsub -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 3:26:58 PM)
Rule it makes no difference if you say economics or slavery...they are one in the same for the south . There was a growing antislavery movement in the US and remember there was the ongoing debate on free or slave states as they enter the union so there was sentiment to abolish slavery long before the war. But I will agree that for most fighting the war it was not about slavery. I think the north just wanted to hold the union together and the southern fighters fought because the northern troops were invading their homeland. Few slaves were owned by northerners and perhaps less known, relatively few southerners owned slaves either. I’ll bet if those men and women that died in the war for the union were alive today they would not say freeing the slaves was why they fought but would be proud it was the outcome. Southern soldiers would say it was state rights and homeland Butch

slvemike4u -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 3:31:35 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: rulemylife I don't really think slavery was the cause, I think the cause had more to do with economics and slavery was a side issue. Slavery was the economics of the South,well the landed gentry anyway amd how the gentry went so went the south Of course, you could also argue that the southern economy depended on slavery, but I don't think that was the root cause of the war. The economic issue involved far more than the continuation of the slave system,intelligent southern leaders knew that was not really an issue(it was protected by the Constitution and as such inviolate as things stood),what was an issue and deeply in question was whether slavery would be allowed to spread with the new nation. To say that the status quo would be left unchallenged was a disingenuous statement by slavery's opponents .Slavery that did not expand with the nation could not continue to exist....as the nation grew slave states political power would dissipate.As the slave population in the slave holding states exploded.....the value of the slave plummeted.Slavery either expanded or it became the noose around the South's neck.What was a state like Virginia to do if there were not new territories in which to ship,at a profit ,it's excess slave population.They could not afford to free the slaves....but unchecked they would have been incapable of keeping such a booming population in bondage I think it's telling that that Lincoln did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation until well into the war. Lincoln's views on race were no better and probably no worse than most educated men of his time....all that is needed to know about Lincoln as the Great Emancipator can be gleaned from this quote...." My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause." Nothing I have ever read about the period,the man or the events has ever led me to disbelieve the sentiments expressed above.To Lincoln it was all about the Union....the Glorious Union he took an Oath to protect against all enemies foreign and domestic. *Was Abraham Lincoln* a Racist?** In his new book, Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream, black American author, Lerone Bennett, presents historic evidence supporting the theory that Abraham Lincoln was, in fact, a devoted racist harboring a life-long desire to see all black Americans deported to Africa. Bennett suggests that as a young politician in Illinois, Lincoln regularly used racial slurs in speeches, told racial jokes to his black servants, and vocally opposed any new laws that would have bettered the lives of black Americans. Key to Bennett's thesis is the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation which, Bennett argues, Lincoln was forced into issuing by the powerful abolitionist wing of his own party. Bennett asserts that Lincoln carefully worded the document to apply only to the rebel Southern states, which were not under Union control at the time, thus resulting in an Emancipation Proclamation that did not in itself free a single slave. At one point, Bennett quotes William Henry Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state, who referred to the proclamation as a hollow, meaningless document showing no more than, "our sympathy with the slaves by emancipating the slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."

joether -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 3:37:03 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kdsub I’ll bet if those men and women that died in the war for the union were alive today they would not say freeing the slaves was why they fought but would be proud it was the outcome. Southern soldiers would say it was state rights and homeland Maybe we should ask the members of the 54th Massachusetts your question. What do you think they would say?

kdsub -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 3:41:19 PM)
You do know that blacks fought for the south too don't you... but of course I should have said "most"...even then it is just a opinion

slvemike4u -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 3:42:15 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: jlf1961 The war between the states was about states rights, slavery became the issue only to keep support for the war in the Northern States after a few major defeats of the Union Army in Virginia. I'm sure you were told that.....if you grew up in the south.The only states rights issue that mattered was slavery.And to say otherwise is to cling to the same lies that drove young southern boys to die for the cause.Most of which did not come from slave holding families.To admit,to state or to proclaim that it was a war over slavery might have led to an awful lot of cannon fodder to stay home. Couldn't have that now could we ?

kdsub -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 3:51:24 PM)
So Mike what you are saying is the war was a conspiracy of big business and the wealthy in the south. They were afraid of loosing their wealth with the abolition of slavery and states rights was just the excuse they used. Sorta like Carl Rove and gay marriage. If so I agree with you. Butch

jlf1961 -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 3:56:49 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: slvemike4u quote: ORIGINAL: jlf1961 The war between the states was about states rights, slavery became the issue only to keep support for the war in the Northern States after a few major defeats of the Union Army in Virginia. I'm sure you were told that.....if you grew up in the south.The only states rights issue that mattered was slavery.And to say otherwise is to cling to the same lies that drove young southern boys to die for the cause.Most of which did not come from slave holding families.To admit,to state or to proclaim that it was a war over slavery might have led to an awful lot of cannon fodder to stay home. Couldn't have that now could we ? Actually, in High School, here in Texas we were told the war was about slavery. In college, after doing a research paper on the subject, with all the reading, research and what I learned in class, it boiled down to state's rights. I would like to point out that there was the suggestion, made in congress BEFORE 1860 that the US use the same plan as Great Britain did to abolish slavery in the British Empire. That plan involved the government using the idea of Eminent Domain to purchase all the slaves, then outlaw slavery and release the slaves. This would have preserved the wealth of the southern plantation owners who's slaves were a capital investment.

MrRodgers -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 3:57:09 PM)
The civil war was about slavery. The mere fact that the secession was never tried legally or in the courts or that there was never an attempt to codify it proves that it was a radical reaction to the threat of abolition. Nowhere in the south had there ever been any kind of debate at all about secession until after Lincoln election where upon 9 states did...before he was even inaugurated. To succeed to protect a way of life...stealing the labor of millions, for the protection of the 'right' to hold people as chattel was the prime central cause of the war. This is proven by what happened on this date in history...firing on Fort Sumter. Why go to war over a states legal question as demonstrated by Sumter ? If succession was a right, then all that was needed was to just exercise it. BTW Slavery was the entire economy of the south and even all of its output was a small fraction of the economy of the north. The EP was written long before issued because the north needed back it up on the battlefield and to turn back the south before it meant anything. If it hadn't been for either the cowardice or treason some said of McClellan, the war would have been over at Antietam before it was even announced.

FatDomDaddy -> RE: Ken Burns muses on the 150 th anniversary of Fort Sumpter (4/12/2011 3:59:10 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: mnottertail Lincoln coming from Ill bordered those states and was in some pain about taking away that livlihood as well, after all, he was eventually a republican.... Lincoln was never a supporter of slavery and famously said if he could save the union by freeing some, all or no slaves, that's what he would do. So from the beginning he was at least open too the idea that it might take the elimination of slavery to win the war. I suspect deep down he knew that the war would abolish slavery and that eventually by defending the Union, the Negro Race would also earn their rights for citizenship. Also, for Lincoln. it was not a begrudging decision, it was a practical one. Lincoln was one of the most practical men ever to hold the Office of President. That said, he was too a man of his time and if he believed, as he did, that a Negro man had the right to the bread that his arms had earned, he too believed that the Country was a white man's country and that Negros were not ever meant to be brought here. By today's standards that is a very backward way to look at things but some of the leading progressives on the matter thought that way as well in the 1820's through 1850's and that is why they tried to set in place colonization efforts like Liberia.

Page: [1] 2 3 next > >>

Collarchat.com © 2025

Terms of Service

0.046875