Were Confederates mainly fighting to maintain slavery?

[fromderinside]

Trump ‘Sad’ Over Removal of ‘Our Beautiful Statues’ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/us/politics/trump-charlottesville-confederate-statues.html

Most of the statues were erected in the 1890s, as Jim Crow laws were being established, and in the 1950s, during a period of Southern resistance to the civil rights movement.

So there it is. Are they beautiful statues glorifying heroism of those fighting on the Confederate side as Alt-POTUS claims, or, are the statues signs of racial hatred.

More broadly do we need a middle ground of museums with these statues for history's sake? Or, should we, like Russians after the fall of the Soviet Union, rip the disgusting things out and carry them to a dump heap?

 

[LordKiran]

Trump ‘Sad’ Over Removal of ‘Our Beautiful Statues’ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/us/politics/trump-charlottesville-confederate-statues.html

Most of the statues were erected in the 1890s, as Jim Crow laws were being established, and in the 1950s, during a period of Southern resistance to the civil rights movement.

So there it is. Are they beautiful statues glorifying heroism of those fighting on the Confederate side as Alt-POTUS claims, or, are the statues signs of racial hatred.

More broadly do we need a middle ground of museums with these statues for history's sake? Or, should we, like Russians after the fall of the Soviet Union, rip the disgusting things out and carry them to a dump heap?

Depends on your view of statues in general. Statues are three things:

Expressive works of art

Historic objects

Symbols

Your answer to the question you ask depends on which order you would put these in. For my part, it looks like this:

Symbols

Historic objects

Expressive works of art



Save some of them, but not all of them. Leave the ones from the actual war era. Any such statues located next to a government building should be removed immediately, ESPECIALLY courthouses...

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Confederate states were fighting primarily to maintain their slaves as property, and there was mucho money tied up in those slaves.

 

[LordKiran]

Confederate states were fighting primarily to maintain their slaves as property, and there was mucho money tied up in those slaves.

Slavery wasn't just an economic institution, it was a social institution, the confederates COULD NOT TOLERATE the idea of blacks becoming equal to whites.

 

[Mumbles]

Wait, are you asking about the Confederacy (which was very clearly fighting to maintain and expand chattel slavery), or are you discussing the statues (which were primarily placed in the 1920s at the height of the second KKK and the nadir of US race relations)?

 

[repoman]

There is some evidence that the Revolutionary War was partially fought to prevent the 1772 British ruling that outlawed slavery to be put in place in the Colonies.

If so, then Washington and Jefferson have great similarity to Robert E Lee.

Also I wanna see the shitshow that dummy Angela Rye would bring about by having their statues removed.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/05/23/was-the-american-revolution-fought-to-save-slavery/

 

[RVonse]

This guy makes a very convincing argument that the confederate soldiers modeled by their statues had nothing at all to do with slavery:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/08/15/america-propaganda-vanquished-truth/

 

[LordKiran]

There is some evidence that the Revolutionary War was partially fought to prevent the 1772 British ruling that outlawed slavery to be put in place in the Colonies.

If so, then Washington and Jefferson have great similarity to Robert E Lee.

Also I wanna see the shitshow that dummy Angela Rye would bring about by having their statues removed.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/05/23/was-the-american-revolution-fought-to-save-slavery/

Oh I'm sure that slavery had something to do with it, but then to be fair, the founding fathers don't strike me as men particularly keen on erecting statues that glorify political figures. But I wasn't there so /shrug

 

[whichphilosophy]

Trump ‘Sad’ Over Removal of ‘Our Beautiful Statues’ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/us/politics/trump-charlottesville-confederate-statues.html



So there it is. Are they beautiful statues glorifying heroism of those fighting on the Confederate side as Alt-POTUS claims, or, are the statues signs of racial hatred.

More broadly do we need a middle ground of museums with these statues for history's sake? Or, should we, like Russians after the fall of the Soviet Union, rip the disgusting things out and carry them to a dump heap?

Depends on your view of statues in general. Statues are three things:

Expressive works of art

Historic objects

Symbols

Your answer to the question you ask depends on which order you would put these in. For my part, it looks like this:

Symbols

Historic objects

Expressive works of art



Save some of them, but not all of them. Leave the ones from the actual war era. Any such statues located next to a government building should be removed immediately, ESPECIALLY courthouses...

The perception of these statues I would agree are different from person to person. Moving them from any government buildings does sound a good idea.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Wait, are you asking about the Confederacy (which was very clearly fighting to maintain and expand chattel slavery), or are you discussing the statues (which were primarily placed in the 1920s at the height of the second KKK and the nadir of US race relations)?

This seems to be a good case to consider their removal if the local governments wish to debate this. The only question is why all of a sudden there is concern 97 years later. Also it would be erroneous to destroy them rather than move them.

 

[Mumbles]

Wait, are you asking about the Confederacy (which was very clearly fighting to maintain and expand chattel slavery), or are you discussing the statues (which were primarily placed in the 1920s at the height of the second KKK and the nadir of US race relations)?

This seems to be a good case to consider their removal if the local governments wish to debate this. The only question is why all of a sudden there is concern 97 years later. Also it would be erroneous to destroy them rather than move them.

Who said it was sudden? There have been proposals to remove these things for years, particularly since one would have to be dense not to realize the meaning of a Confederate soldier, or a General, sitting directly outside of a courthouse or town hall (which is where many of these were located). Even in Bmore, whee they're mostly located nowhere near either, it had been hotly debated for years, passed a while back - and then sat on. These pseudo-nazis in Virginia managed to speed things up, and eventually...well, as I said, the city was given a choice to lose the Jackson-Lee statue one way, or the other, and so they chose the one way.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Who said it was sudden? There have been proposals to remove these things for years, particularly since one would have to be dense not to realize the meaning of a Confederate soldier, or a General, sitting directly outside of a courthouse or town hall (which is where many of these were located). Even in Bmore, whee they're mostly located nowhere near either, it had been hotly debated for years, passed a while back - and then sat on.

Yes, but WP heard about the Civil War, and JUST heard about debate over the statues... So it's a 97-years-after sort of thing.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Are there public statues in Germany commemorating Nazis?

 

[KeepTalking]

This guy makes a very convincing argument that the confederate soldiers modeled by their statues had nothing at all to do with slavery:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/08/15/america-propaganda-vanquished-truth/

No.

First, it's Paul Craig Roberts, so I won't give his website any hits by clicking on that link.

Second, it's Paul Craig Roberts, so it is wrong.

 

[Sarpedon]

Again, just look at the public statements that were made at the time of the secession. Several states made clear allusions to slavery and white supremacy in their ordinances of secession. Vice President and chief demagogue Alexander Stephens also explicitly cited it in his remarks at the time. He was also the first to change his tune and pretend that the Confederacy wasn't about slavery after they lost.

 

[Underseer]

Trump ‘Sad’ Over Removal of ‘Our Beautiful Statues’ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/us/politics/trump-charlottesville-confederate-statues.html

Most of the statues were erected in the 1890s, as Jim Crow laws were being established, and in the 1950s, during a period of Southern resistance to the civil rights movement.

So there it is. Are they beautiful statues glorifying heroism of those fighting on the Confederate side as Alt-POTUS claims, or, are the statues signs of racial hatred.

More broadly do we need a middle ground of museums with these statues for history's sake? Or, should we, like Russians after the fall of the Soviet Union, rip the disgusting things out and carry them to a dump heap?

That depends.

Do you believe the leaders of the rebellion, or do you believe modern ideologues who will tell any lie to excuse evil?

If you believe the leaders of the rebellion, it wasn't about slavery. It was about slavery and white supremacy. They started the bloodiest war in American history and committed treason in order to preserve slavery and promote white supremacism.

If you believe the latter, then the war happened because a sinister conspiracy in the North, run by alien lizard people, deliberately persecuted the South, forcing them to commit treason as part of a nefarious plot to steal everyone's left socks and to stop Southern cotton plantations from showing the world a better way to live.

 

[Angry Floof]

I'd like to see them marked for what they really are and surrounded by statues of slaves breaking chains and people who fought for equality and humane values.

I view demolishing statues as just more cultural destruction, even if it is a made-up culture of losers with inhumane, stunted views. However, if they end up being removed completely, it won't hurt my feelings in the least. It'll be a case of removing statues that represent the worst and stupidest of humanity, nothing more. No one will forget the Civil War or what the confederacy fought for. We have books, film, memories. Those statues were put there to misinform.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Again, just look at the public statements that were made at the time of the secession. Several states made clear allusions to slavery and white supremacy in their ordinances of secession. Vice President and chief demagogue Alexander Stephens also explicitly cited it in his remarks at the time. He was also the first to change his tune and pretend that the Confederacy wasn't about slavery after they lost.

Actually, when you call yourselves the slave holding states and mention multiple times that you're seceding because of the issue of slavery, you're not alluding to slavery being a cause, you're clearly stating it.

 

[faded_Glory]

The war was about State rights, specifically the right for new territories to be slave states. So yes, the Confederates were pro-slavery. So were many in the Union. Mr. Lincoln was no abolitionist and he had to fight hard to get support for his Emancipation Declaration, which for him was mainly a means to undermine the Confederacy in his fight to preserve the Union. Ending slavery was by no means meant to create equality between whites and blacks. Pretty much everybody in those times was white supremacist, including Mr. Lincoln himself. He proposed to send the ex-slaves back to Africa because he didn't want a mixed society.

Those were very different times.

 

[Elixir]

Pretty much everybody in those times was white supremacist

Uh... only if they were white.