Before you read this section I
suggest you read the quote section because I refer to it in this
section as proof of what I am saying or to make my point. You may
not agree with me, but that is one reason this country, southern or
northern is so great.
Why does the South talk about the war. The North says that it is
over, about 140 years ago, and they won, get over it. Well that
is all true except for one thing. Remember Pearl Harbor, or the
day Kennedy was shot, MLK, Oklahoma City bombing, or 9/11? That
is what went on in the South almost daily during the
war. The South had close to 4.5 million white people
in 1860 and in 1870 about 3.9 million whites. The Afro-American
population fell some but that may be to the movement west. Most
Southerners who moved went to Texas and about 300 families went to
South America. Therefore the South was not only empty shells of
buildings but a large number of graves as well. People don't
forget things
like that very quickly. In my family tree I have at least 3
direct and 4 indirect ancestors who wore gray, and a couple who wore
blue. Of the 7 who wore gray 4 didn't come home. Not one of
these 7 people had a slave! So, why were they fighting? The
answer took me 25 years to find because it isn't written down where one
can find it easily, and the
answer is not going to make anyone happy. Weather you are from
the North or the South you will not like what I am going to tell you
when it
comes to the reasons why this country split.
Yet, it must be remembered that there was no conspiracy on either side
or by any one group. All of this happens out of circumstance.
.
Cause 1: Sectionalism
Cause 2: States Rights
Cause 3: The Tariff
Cause 4: Loss of Political Power by the
South
Cause 5: Failed Compromises
Cause 6: Slavery
Cause number one: Sectionalism,
connections with a past.
In 1607, the colony of Jamestown was founded on the Virginia cost
. The men that came to settle this spot were gentlemen of the
court. They were adventurers who had never had to work in their
life and were more interested in finding wealth then food. They
brought with them this idea that there were people better then you were
and that there are people who can be a King. They will bring this
view with them and even though they will drop their titles and leave
them in Europe, they will still think that a person can rise above the
common people. Captain John Smith, a commoner, would save this
colony by forcing the people to work. “ If you don't work you
don't eat.” he said. This made these small nobles mad, so they
shot Captain Smith, and he was taken back to England with a leg
wound. But the philosophy of nobility would move west from all
the southern colonies.
In 1620, one of my forefathers would step off the Mayflower, and help
settle New England. These people were not nobles (they were
middle class), and they came to
worship the way they wanted to worship. When they got here they
said anyone who followed them to had to worship the way they
worshipped. This holier then thou, do as I say, not as I do,
philosophy will fill the North with it's attitude. It is a small
difference in high handness, but this
small difference will be the start of sectionalism in the
country. This sectionalism will slowly pull the country apart as
other differences are added to the mix of the United States.
Past war - These two groups of people will fight each other in England
in what is
called the English Civil War. It is a true Civil War. Our
war is not a civil war! A Civil War is were two groups of people
are fighting for the control of the government of the country.
Our war had two groups of people fighting each other, one to force the
other back into the Union and the other trying to become a free and
independent country. The 13 colonies trying to gain their freedom
is not called a civil war, is it? Lincoln calls it a Civil War to
try to keep
others out of the conflict, and to use as propaganda. He can then
claim that the war was for one thing and one thing only and stop
outsiders from coming in on the side of the South. Smart
thinking, but very harmful to the Southern people as a whole. It
has branded them all as evil people and frankly we are getting tired of
it.
Back to England's Civil War. The King said that God had made him
king and he was going to rule by divine right. Parliament said
that he would not rule that way, and they went to war. Parliament
(House of Commons) was composed of upper middle class Puritans, lead by
a man by the name of Cromwell, and because of their haircuts, were
called Roundheads. The people who supported the King, were called
Royalist or Cavaliers.
During our war the North had a large number of infantry companies that
called
themselves Roundheads, and the 100th Penn. Vol. Infantry call
themselves Roundheads. All the Confederate Cavalry was called
Cavaliers and today the University of Virginia's mascot is The
Cavaliers. There is the quote from the movie “Glory” were
there is a comment by the drill instructor about Bonnie Prince
Charles. This reference is to the son of the King and points out
Roundhead thinking. The king, had his head removed by the men of
Parliament, and then when Cromwell rules as a protector of the country,
Cromwell would do the same things the king had done. Remember
what I said about the Mayflower people? Then there is this quote
taken from a yankee, who writes in a
letter the following:
“Your very interesting letter,
with the ‘lines,’ which I hereby acknowledge duly to have received this
time, reached this knighted region last Thursday and my humble self
shortly after. {Halsey always referred to Virginia as the
“knighted region” with sarcasm or wrote that he was on “sacred soil” to
poke fun at the haughtiness of the “cavalier” attitude he felt most
Virginians carried.}
When New Jersey passes a peace resolution he writes;
…agreeing to support what they consider
constitutional measures made the thing a party slur unworthy to issue
from the state which furnished the heroes of Gaines Hill, Crampton’s
Pass, or Williamsburg. I can see now Cromwell’s excuse for his
hasty or too often condensed style of timing and the long parliament.
These quotes come from the book, Brother Against Brother, The
Lost Civil War Diary of Lt. Edmund Halsey. He is the grandfather
of the World War II naval hero Admiral William “Bull”
Halsey. Lt. Halsey’s brother will wear gray and become
friends with Robert E. Lee.
It is clear that the English Civil War was a war over how the country
of England was to be ruled. It is clear that the philosophies
that brought on that war, and had been brought to this country by
the two groups, will again fight it out here in the 1860’s.
This sectionalism will push the sections wider apart until the nation
splits. During the War of 1812, the quote (in the quote section),
by Webster, was spoken. At that time, New England was being
blockaded by England, and New England was saying they would leave the
Union if the war was not stopped. The war ended within a few
weeks
but the words were already spoken. They would be a reminder to
Webster each time the North did something that hurt the South. It
illuminates that the split in the Union could have happened sooner and
was over more then one cause. It also proves that the people in
the north do have the mind set of, do as I say not as I do.
As I said, this will not make anyone happy. The North
will not like this already because they are seeing that there is some
blame for the war, which they have, for so long, been told was
over other things and they were “saving” the Union. Get over it,
I have. But this is not the whole story. The
South will not like it for other reasons that will appear latter.
Cause Number Two -
States Rights
States Rights, is connected to the Constitution and to the fact that
each colony became a member of this country as a “state.” The
word “state” means country. Therefore each colony felt that is
was a country by itself and joined the United States because there was
strength in numbers. As a free state they felt that they should
hold on to some of the power they had and not give all of that power to
the central government in whatever form it would take. We
therefore get the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution which reads as
follows:
The powers not delegated to the
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states,
are reserved to
the States or to the people.
After the war the Tenth amendment goes away, like a salt pill dropped
into a glass of water. It is not removed by the people, it just
goes away, because the power in the country totally shifts to the
Federal
government and we lost control in our states when it happened.
States Rights can be described in the following manner. Alpine,
Texas is over 250 miles from where I live. I think that someone
who is elected to state government from Alpine, Texas, and sets in
Austin, knows more about what I need as a citizen of this state, then
someone elected in L.A., New York, or Boston, to set in the government,
in
Washington, D. C. Read that again and let it sink in. They
know more about spending my tax money here then those people
there. The problems at Little Rock High School in 1954 were
racial and states rights. It was not the school board, or the
local government, or the state government that ordered the
desegregation of the school district. It was a ruling that came
from the Federal Courts, and ordered by someone from who-knows-where,
out of
Washington, D.C. This does not mean that the order should not
have been given, it was about time, but it shows that the states right
is still one of the issues. Look for a Myth Section on this web
site in the future and there will be more on understanding the complex
problems we face
today from all of this.
Not long ago someone made a comment on how we handle murders in
Texas. We (the state government) kills some of them.
It does not stop murder,
it is not vengeance, it is the price you pay for doing the crime you
did
in this state. The crime was so bad that we don't want you around to do
it
again. It is our business what we do here not yours. If you
do not like it, just thank God it is not your state and go on.
And
I do not necessarily want to hear your opinion, you are not my neighbor
or my conscience.
We want to believe that we are a free people and have a large amount of
control on our own lives. But when the Federal Government
controls all, as it has since the war, we have a great deal less power
over our affairs then we believe. If you do not believe me just
ask someone who has had an IRS audit, or was pulled into court by some
group who wants to save a bird, which isn’t endangered in the first
place. Or told they can not build that home of their dreams
because of the last reason. Do not put words into my mouth; I did
not say that we should kill off any group of animals, but that the same
time we must use good thinking, not knee jerk reactions.
Part of States Rights was the right to own a slave, and a slave was
considered property. I do not like the fact that at one time our
government and its people believed that a human being could be called
property, but that is the way it was. In the 5th Amendment it is
written that the government can not take your property without due
process of law and just compensation. This means there must be a
process of courts and hearings which will determine what happens to
what you own and then, if the government takes your property they must
pay you a just and fair market price for said property. If the
government can just take away a slave owners slaves, without the above,
when will it happen that they come for anything else they deem harmful
to the country? They tried it with beer and failed, they are
trying it with drugs, and are failing, they are trying with guns and
are having some success, they are, with the help of the non-believers,
trying to take our faith and
our
customs of faith out of our lives and
are having some success. I am not saying that the end of slavery
was a bad thing. It was how it was ended, because once the
government gets a right to do something….let’s
just say it is hard to put the cat back into the bag once he gets out.
Cause Number Three:
The Tariff
The argument over the tariff (import tax) lasted nearly 60 years.
The South supported Northern business by supporting a small
tariff. The southern congressmen have gone down on record
for a 30% tax on a number of items. That means that thirty cents
was needed to import a item with a value of one dollar. The north
would try to raise that tax every chance they could. Now if you
have read my quotes you know that the south was paying about 70% of the
taxes collected by the Federal Government by paying that tariff.
When the north was by itself during the conflict, the north raised that
tax to about 80% on all items. It was part of the Republican
Party Platform.
The problem with this tariff is that it caused inflated prices for all
buyers. Let us say that you wanted to buy a plow, and all the
plows made in the U.S. are being sold at $100.00. Since they have
been in business for a much longer time period, the plows in England
are cheaper. The land, building, and machinery have been paid for
and their price is $90.00. So U.S. manufactures get congress to
pass a 30% tax on plows. That means that the English plow is now
priced at $120.00. The new price for the U.S. made plow is
$115.00. The price went up for no reason other then the tariff
was put into place. Being that most industry was in the
North, that had the tendency to make the south believe that the North
was just picking their pocket.
Understand that most of the problems listed were not a joint effort by
any group. All this happened more or less by accident. The
northern business men nor congressmen got together and said we are
going to make the South so upset they will leave the Union and then we
will go beat them up. The plow example is just an example were
North and South working together, to help each other, really hurt each
other. So in the long run this tax thing helped in the mistrust
between the sections.
Cause Number Four:
Loss of Political Power
by the South
If you have forgotten your civics lessons from high school we get one
seat in the House of Representatives for X number of people in the
state. When the Erie Canal was completed the draw to New York
increased for nearly all emigrants who came to the U.S. That
cause the population of the North to surpass the South
by 1840. That put control of the House in Northern pockets.
If the Democratic Party had not voted across sectional lines, the South
would have had no power in the House. In 1845, Texas became a
state and soon we were at war with Mexico. From that war we got a
large part of the Southwest United States. Which brought on the
California gold rush, and in 1850 that state entered the Union.
With that the South lost power in the Senate of the United
States.
Each state gets two senators and there were 30 states in 1849.
When California started voting with the North, (there were 32 votes vs.
30) the South lost all power in Congress. As time progressed,
even the Democratic Party crossing the
sectional lines (on a rare occasion) would not keep the South from the
realization that they had lost all power in Congress. That shows
up in the money spending department. Most of the Federal Budget
was spent in the North and the South was not happy about
it. You have heard of “taxation without representation,” how
about
“taxation regardless of representation.” It does not help to have
a person in congress if they have nothing more then a place to set
while those who have power rule. Is there any surprise,
now that you know this, that the South tried to break away from the
Union and form a new country? Just like the colonies tried to
break away from England to form a new country.
Now, it has been asked how could the South fight to be free when they
had slaves? The answer is: the same way the original colonies,
all 13, fought for freedom, with slaves in each one.
There is one other thing that is built within our government, and it
was the final reason the South broke from the Union. Every four
years
we elect a President; sort of. We vote and then the Electoral
College is who elects the President. (They need 270 votes today
to get the office.) The number of seats in the House is the same
as the number of seats in the Collage. When the South loss power
in the House, it also lost the power to have a voice in electing the
President. Lincoln will not be on the ballot in the South for
there is no Republican Party in the South. In fact, historians in
the past have said that Lincoln won because the
Democratic Party was split three ways. That isn’t really the
reason Lincoln won. He gets 38.2% of the popular vote. That
means 6 out of 10 voters, voted for someone else. But Lincoln
gets 56% of the Electoral College. That means that the Democratic
Party could be running God for President, and God would not have
won. As long as Lincoln gets his 4 out of 10 votes, he
wins! That is not majority rule. ( By the way, Bush's red states, are
the same states that
voted for the Democratic Party in 1860, plus two that voted for
Lincoln. Those two states were Ohio and Indiana. If
those two states had voted for Kerry in 2004, Kerry would have won with
the same states that Lincoln won, and he would be the President.)
California, and those
states between the Atlantic Ocean, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and
Canada is all a candidate needs even today to become the President of
the United
States. Nearly all the West and all the South doesn't need to
vote. When did this country become a country of the
North? My vote still doesn’t count unless who I vote for is able
to break up the Blue states. ( Funny thing is that on maps of the
war, the south is usually red and the North is usually blue.)
So what we have is a election that proved to the south that they had no
power to elect or defeat any thing the North wanted. And all the
tax money the South was putting into the government was being spent in
the North. How long would you stay in this type of Union?
How long would you stand for someone punching you before you strike
back? And the South still has little or no power in the
government, today.
Cause Number Five:
Compromises that fail in
the long run.
When we study history high school, or middle school history on the
United States
we find the books tell the students about the compromises of
1820, 1850, and 1854. The teachers tell the students that
compromise shows that our government works, and that is a good sign for
the world.
That is a feel good lie about the compromises that we had in the
1800’s. There were more the 10 other compromises that are not
studied by the students because they have nothing to do with slavery
and don't prove
Reconstructionist
History as it is in the history book.
(I call it a lie because it is a half truth, and a half truth is a
whole lie.) So, let us look at what a compromise really is.
For this, let us say that I am going into business and plan to make
millions of dollars by the time I die. I tell you and someone
else, that I will give you five million dollars each when I die.
About six months later, while in New York on business, I meet Mr.
Bus. Thump, thump!!! The will is read, and it says that you
and the other person was to get two million dollars each on my
death. When you check the bank account there is only two million
dollars there. What do you do? Split the money, and each
gets a million dollars. But are you really happy? You
compromised and are you happy with what you got. Yes, that is
more then what you would have had and your happy about that, but it is
not five million dollars, which would have paid the taxes and left you
with a great deal more. So your really not happy, but you do what
a forefathers did, get out the drum, light up the torches, march around
the town, cheering about how good we are to each other, and then go
home and sulk.
Cause Number Six:
Slavery
Everyone has by now read the quote in my quote section from Lincoln,
during “The Debates.” It shows that Lincoln was a racist in
today’s terms and that on the issue of slavery the North is not as
clean as they would like everyone to believe. They were up to
their ears in the slave trade. One the eve of the war, January 1,
1860 to August 31, 1861, a thousand slave ships left New York Harbor to
bring slaves to the “New World” slave market. The U.S. had a
treaty with England (1847) which called for the posting of armed ships
off the African coast to stop that trade and hang anyone shipping
slaves on the high sea. In 1863, at the height of the war, one
man was hung for trying to sneak slaves into New York. The
last ship, flying the U.S. flag to go get slaves for South America, did
so in 1880.
The war was over in 1865.
The textbooks in school also teach students about slave codes in the
South, but don’t say a word about the slave codes in the North.
Lincoln’s state had a slave code that was enforced so that in 1860
there were no “Freemen” in the state. Virginia had slave codes
like that also, but choose not to enforce it. In 1860 there were
53,000 “Freemen” living in Virginia.
Textbooks tell of Jim Crow laws coming into effect in the South during
Reconstruction. Well let’s see, during Reconstruction the former
Confederates did not have any power in their own state. The state
governments were ran by “carpet baggers” (northern people who came
south with nothing more then a carpet bag full of clothes) and pro
northern southerners. They were not the majority. So
northern people with the pro north southerner put Jim Crow in, not “The
South.”
Slavery was one of the reasons for the war, as well as
the argument
over slavery as a reason. The South had a tiger by the tail
and could not let go of it. The South was in debt for the slave,
and it really is a question of who was more a slave to the system, the
master or the slave himself. With that said, it must be said that
only one of four families had slaves, and that 56% of all slave owners
had five or less slaves. That means that most slave owners were
in the field working next to his slave. That when lunch was on
the table the slave would have eaten with the master. That the
slave would more then likely slept in the same house as the
master. Since rich families tend to have fewer children then poor
families, it is reasoned that there would be four to six kids at the
slave owners house and six, eight, to twelve kids at the non slave
owner house. What that means is that it is more then likely that
75% of the South had no slaves and therefore would not have fought and
died as they did if this war was just about slavery. Even the
North did not fight this war because of slavery. Check out the
quote from Grant, in the quote section. With that
said, Slavery was still one of the causes of the War. I told you
the South would not like this, either.
We find slavery being defended in the South by those who held political
office, because they were the slave owners who had the time to play in
politics (the other 44% of the slave owners). Jeff Davis had
three plantations with over 800 slaves in 1860 (two were rented,
while
he was buying the other). They would also be the people who held
office in state government and local post. So they will argue and
make speeches that slavery was good.
Your average Southern
was not making any speeches and was not much better then Lincoln in his
attitude toward the Black. It isn’t clear what most
people
in the South thought by what has been written, because there were not
enough people of lower standing to record their feelings. What is
clear is there were just enough slave revolts that the South feared the
slave as much as they need him to work in the fields. (As it is a
surprise to some that many slaves had guns to hunt with and did so on
some regular bases. They were old guns and only the most trusted
slave on the plantation, and sometimes there was not even a shotgun in
the big house.) So things in the South were strange and not quiet
what we have been given to believe in movies and in some text
books. For example, many of the slave owners in some parts of the
South were black, and a number were female. As true as all of
this is, it still isn't right to own somebody. And the
South must face that fact. Does not mean we still can't have some
pride in our people as a whole, or in our section, or in our courage,
or in our past.
The only thing to add is that I don't believe in slavery, it is
wrong, and I think
at anyone who is born in this country should have all the rights I
have.
So, we have a two sections of the country that has pulled itself apart
trying to help each other. They went as far as compromise after
compromise, failing to please themselves, much less the other.
They argued over taxation, and slaves while one section was losing
power and becoming nothing more then a step child to the bigger
section. Lincoln's election was the last straw for the South, and
they left the
Union. (Jeff Davis quote in my quote section.)
Here is the kicker to the whole picture. If the South becomes a
free country, freeing the slave becomes a moot point (means ending
slavery is not
the
factor.) So the number one war aim of the North
is and always has been, to force the South back into the Union at the
point of a gun. But this brings up a very important
question. Where is the land of the free and home of the brave, if
it takes a gun to keep it together?
At the start of this I said no one will like this. The South will
have to face the fact that slavery did have something to do with the
war. It is a cause and not the smallest one at that. The
North will not like this because it will have to take on the
responsibility for what it did to the South and for it's actions
that helped bring the war on as well. There were some minor
things not
mentioned like the book Uncle Tom's Cabin, but that was just another
problem in the problem of slavery, as is John Brown, Dred Scott,
and several other items that were connected to slavery.
So this is how I break it down.
Sectionalism (which is “blown up” like a
balloon by all the problems) 10%
The Tariff, arguments over 60 years
15%
Slavery and the arguments over
slavery
20%
Loss of political power by the
South
25%
Failure of the Compromises in
Congress
05%
States
Rights
20%
I will say right now most of you reading this are in total disagreement
with it. Your not happy with what has been written, but I told
you so.