What are your thoughts on the Confederate memorials being taken down in NOLA?

Memphis raises $50K+ after state pulls funding — now what?

Wendi Thomas, a journalist, and one of the local activists Block said she's reached out to, said on Twitter that she understands the spirit of the fundraiser — but would rather see the money given to black progressive groups than to the city. "It’s funny — funny sad, not haha — that folks are falling over themselves to help the city PLAN a birthday party when 52 percent of black children here are poor," she wrote.

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gtowntide said:

That's on you. I said what I was proud of.

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No doubt.
I am curious what evidence you have that these were "symbols of slavery."
Was it carved on the monuments? (e.g. "This monument is dedicated to commemorating what a great idea slavery was.") Was it declared at the speeches when they were dedicated?

Tidewater said:

No doubt.
I am curious what evidence you have that these were "symbols of slavery."
Was it carved on the monuments? (e.g. "This monument is dedicated to commemorating what a great idea slavery was.") Was it declared at the speeches when they were dedicated?

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Look TW, you obviously have a different view of Confederate memorials than I do. Please don't insult my intelligence with your comments. We will probably never agree on this subject. To a lot of people, the Civil War was fought about slavery.

gtowntide said:

[/B]Look TW, you obviously have a different view of Confederate memorials than I do. Please don't insult my intelligence with your comments. We will probably never agree on this subject. To a lot of people, the Civil War was fought about slavery.

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I honestly was not trying to insult your intelligence.
Why a state might want to leave the Union* is different from why the Federal government might invade that state, why men might volunteer to fight, and why a city after the fact might want to erect a monument to his memory.

I have read the transcript of the speech given at the dedication and what was said was that Forrest fought to defend Memphis, rose from the rank of private to 3-star general and was almost uniformly successful as a cavalry commander. I thought maybe you had other evidence that it was erected as a “monument to slavery” and wanted to read it. My mind is open to new evidence.

* In January 1861, the voters of Tennessee voted (by a 2 to 1 vote) not to even hold a state convention to discussion responding to Lincoln's election, yet in June 1861 once Lincoln called for troops to invade and overthrow elected state governments, Tennesseans voted 2 to 1 in favor of leaving a Union held together by force. Slavery had not changed between January and June, the Union had, and the voters of Tennessee wanted nothing to do with this change.

Tidewater said:

I honestly was not trying to insult your intelligence.
Why a state might want to leave the Union* is different from why the Federal government might invade that state, why men might volunteer to fight, and why a city after the fact might want to erect a monument to his memory.

I have read the transcript of the speech given at the dedication and what was said was that Forrest fought to defend Memphis, rose from the rank of private to 3-star general and was almost uniformly successful as a cavalry commander. I thought maybe you had other evidence that it was erected as a “monument to slavery” and wanted to read it. My mind is open to new evidence.

* In January 1861, the voters of Tennessee voted (by a 2 to 1 vote) not to even hold a state convention to discussion responding to Lincoln's election, yet in June 1861 once Lincoln called for troops to invade and overthrow elected state governments, Tennesseans voted 2 to 1 in favor of leaving a Union held together by force. Slavery had not changed between January and June, the Union had, and the voters of Tennessee wanted nothing to do with this change.

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Thanks for the history lesson.

Outsiders view from someone with an interest in the history of the ACW.

History is written by the victors and whilst I'm sure that for some in the South the war was in defence of slavery, I do not believe that to have been the primary motivator for the vast majority who fought - I agree with TW and think it was State v Country for them, and they chose state, not really outlandish given the American relationship with distant governance

I think its far more likely that abolition was a stronger motivator for those on Northern side. The North won and the narrative was set for future generations.

On the memorials, I can see both sides and feel that maybe individuals shouldn't be highlighted but that the hundreds of thousands on both sides who gave everything in the name of state/country have a right to be remembered and those on the Southern side should be remembered as more than just those who died defending slavery.

crimsonaudio said:

I think the point gtowntide is making is that it really doesn't matter if the memorials mention the ill deeds of these men. If someone made a statue of Hitler mentioning only the good things he did, I doubt many people would agree with it.

I get that these men weren't just evil savages - I also understand that Forrest, for example, really changed his attitude (regarding black people and their treatment) after the war.

The point I've tried to make over and over is this - it doesn't matter. Just as a statue of Hitler that only mentioned his positive traits would be offensive to many people, memorials for men who actively participated in slave trading isn't going to be accepted by some folks.

I have a ton of respect for you, Tidewater, but you honestly seem to be missing the salient point here, intentionally or not...

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I don't think so. As I understand your position, Forrest was a slave trader (which is about as bad a career as you can have, even in antebellum southern society) and given the choice between leaving a statue of the guy up and offending neighbors of today, real flesh and blood people or removing the statue and saving the feelings/respecting the wishes of those real flesh and blood neighbors, you err on the side of the latter position. Did I fairly restate your position?
Two problems come in the manner in which the argument is advanced. First, the "these are monuments to slavery" argument lack evidentiary support (and thus accepting them at face value is more than a little patronizing to those who advance them). Second, the same argument will be deployed as the rationale for taking down soldiers' monuments wherever they are found, including in cemeteries. "Well, you accepted the argument when we urged the removal of Lee from New Orleans and Forrest from Memphis, how can you be consistent and deny its efficacy in this case?" The problem is that soldiers (including Forrest) went into the army because the voters withdrew their sovereign states from the Union and those states asked (and then ordered) them to fight.
The southern states all had their dark sin (chattel slavery) which everybody knows about. The northern cause also had its dark sins (the northern war effort was undeniably antidemocratic and arguably unconstitutional and indubitably laid the groundwork for today's imperial presidency which you decry, correctly, in my view.) Very few today are even aware of that side of the equation (although Confederate soldiers were keenly aware of it).
So, yes, I have a soft spot in my heart for dead soldiers, and no American soldiers ever fought better and under more disadvantages than Confederate soldiers fought for their cause. Union veterans eventually came to reconcile with their former opponents and were happy to have them back in a common country (which is what most Union veterans were fighting for), I cannot understand why people who have never had a shot fired at them in anger cannot be equally magnanimous.

Tidewater said:

I don't think so. As I understand your position, Forrest was a slave trader (which is about as bad a career as you can have, even in antebellum southern society) and given the choice between leaving a statue of the guy up and offending neighbors of today, real flesh and blood people or removing the statue and saving the feelings/respecting the wishes of those real flesh and blood neighbors, you err on the side of the latter position. Did I fairly restate your position?
Two problems come in the manner in which the argument is advanced. First, the "these are monuments to slavery" argument lack evidentiary support (and thus accepting them at face value is more than a little patronizing to those who advance them). Second, the same argument will be deployed as the rationale for taking down soldiers' monuments wherever they are found, including in cemeteries. "Well, you accepted the argument when we urged the removal of Lee from New Orleans and Forrest from Memphis, how can you be consistent and deny its efficacy in this case?" The problem is that soldiers (including Forrest) went into the army because the voters withdrew their sovereign states from the Union and those states asked (and then ordered) them to fight.
The southern states all had their dark sin (chattel slavery) which everybody knows about. The northern cause also had its dark sins (the northern war effort was undeniably antidemocratic and arguably unconstitutional and indubitably laid the groundwork for today's imperial presidency which you decry, correctly, in my view.) Very few today are even aware of that side of the equation (although Confederate soldiers were keenly aware of it).
So, yes, I have a soft spot in my heart for dead soldiers, and no American soldiers ever fought better and under more disadvantages than Confederate soldiers fought for their cause. Union veterans eventually came to reconcile with their former opponents and were happy to have them back in a common country (which is what most Union veterans were fighting for), I cannot understand why people who have never had a shot fired at them in anger cannot be equally magnanimous.

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I think you might be lumping me into a group where I don't belong. I'm a veteran and have had shots fired at me by people in anger. It happened in a lovely little country called Vietnam. Those guys were real angry at me.
Oddly enough it was that experience that eventually changed my politics forever. You may like or love these civil war monuments and that's your right. I see them as memorials to a war about slavery.

TIDE-HSV said:

LOL! Like being governed from London? Wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that almost all of us in the South are at least part Scot or Scot-Irish.

Earle Boyd Self

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The section I hail from is peopled with descendants of Ulster-Scots (Scotch-Irish as they are called here) invited to find lodgings elsewhere in the mid-eighteenth century.
They settled where they did (on the Virginia frontier) because it was beyond the grasp of the Church of England (Virginia's established church at the time) and they did not take kindly to paying a tithe to the CoE. Ulsters-Scots can be a ornery bunch.

gtowntide said:

I think you might be lumping me into a group where I don't belong. I'm a veteran and have had shots fired at me by people in anger. It happened in a lovely little country called Vietnam. Those guys were real angry at me.
Oddly enough it was that experience that eventually changed my politics forever. You may like or love these civil war monuments and that's your right. I see them as memorials to a war about slavery.

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Good for you. Tough opponent.
The fact remains that veterans of the war of the 1860s saw fit to join Confederate veterans in commemorating the service in the war.
The people pulling down monuments in North Carolina, Virginia and Louisiana tend never to have had a shot fired at them in anger and somehow cannot rise to the level of magnanimity and nobility of spirit that Union veterans did.


The actions of the federal government in April 1861 were antidemocratic and unconstitutional, which is the proximate cause of Tennesseans (and Virginians and Tarheels and Arkansans) fighting.

Tennessee Governor Isham Harris said:

I am nevertheless encouraged with the belief that we are at last, practically, a united people. Whatever differences may have heretofore existed amongst us, growing out of party divisions, as to the right of Secession as a Constitutional remedy against Federal usurpation, all admit the moral right asserted by our fathers, of each and every people to resist wrong, and to maintain their liberties by whatever means may be necessary; 'that Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was created, it is the right of the people to alter and abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as shall to them seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.' Standing by this common sentiment, with the bloody and tyrannical policy of the Presidential usurper fully before us; in the face of his hordes of armed soldiery, marching to the work of Southern subjugation; the people of the proud Commonwealth of Tennessee - true to their honor, true to the great principles of free institutions, true to the lessons of their fathers, and true to their brethren of the South, the subjects of a common oppression - have united, almost with one voice, in declaring their fixed resolve to resist the tyrant; and in pledging their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the maintenance of their rights, and the rights of their sister States of the South.

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Tidewater said:

Good for you. Tough opponent.
The fact remains that veterans of the war of the 1860s saw fit to join Confederate veterans in commemorating the service in the war.
The people pulling down monuments in North Carolina, Virginia and Louisiana tend never to have had a shot fired at them in anger and somehow cannot rise to the level of magnanimity and nobility of spirit that Union veterans did.

The actions of the federal government in April 1861 were antidemocratic and unconstitutional, which is the proximate cause of Tennesseans (and Virginians and Tarheels and Arkansans) fighting.

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from gov harris jan 7, 1861

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This decision [dred scott] of the highest judicial tribunal, known to our Government, settles the question, beyond the possibility of doubt, that slave property rests upon the same basis, and is entitled to the same protection, as every other description of property; that the General Government has no power to circumscribe or confine it within any given boundary; to determine where it shall, or shall not exist, or in any manner to impair its value. And certainly it will not be contended, in this enlightened age, that any member of the Confederacy can exercise higher powers, in this respect, beyond the limits of its own boundary, than those delegated to the General Government.

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92tide said:

from gov harris jan 7, 1861

link

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And yet, after Gov. Harris said this, Tennesseans, on February 11, 1861, went to the polls and voted not to hold a convention to discuss how Tennessee should react to Lincoln's election. (In other words, they declined to take the initial step towards secession in February.)

Yet, the same Tennessee voters went to the polls in June 1861 and voted 105,000 to 47,000 to leave the Union. Slavery had not changed between February and June. The Union had changed.

So, which provision of the Constitution of the United States give the federal government the power to overthrow an elected state government and replace it with an appointed military governor? Is that provision of the Constitution still in force today?

just adding some much needed perspective to your lost cause discussion.

Tidewater said:

And yet, after Gov. Harris said this, Tennesseans, on February 11, 1861, went to the polls and voted not to hold a convention to discuss how Tennessee should react to Lincoln's election. (In other words, they declined to take the initial step towards secession in February.)

Yet, the same Tennessee voters went to the polls in June 1861 and voted 105,000 to 47,000 to leave the Union. Slavery had not changed between February and June. The Union had changed.

So, which provision of the Constitution of the United States give the federal government the power to overthrow an elected state government and replace it with an appointed military governor? Is that provision of the Constitution still in force today?

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You won't change the narrative no matter how hard you try, even with a mountain of documented facts. White Americans owning slaves is the foundation upon which the philosophy of white privilege and white guilt is built upon and liberals will live a conservative life before they let that philosophy die.

There had to be a pretty strong reason for your average every day Southern guy to put his life at risk and his life on hold to fight for something, and I'm sure it wasn't so the rich family down the street could keep their slaves.


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Tidewater said:

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I had seen it before, but that doesn't change how fantastic a picture that is.

AlexanderFan said:

You won't change the narrative no matter how hard you try, even with a mountain of documented facts. White Americans owning slaves is the foundation upon which the philosophy of white privilege and white guilt is built upon and liberals will live a conservative life before they let that philosophy die.

There had to be a pretty strong reason for your average every day Southern guy to put his life at risk and his life on hold to fight for something, and I'm sure it wasn't so the rich family down the street could keep their slaves.


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a big part of the lost cause mythos is the victimhood that goes along with it

AlexanderFan said:

You won't change the narrative no matter how hard you try, even with a mountain of documented facts. White Americans owning slaves is the foundation upon which the philosophy of white privilege and white guilt is built upon and liberals will live a conservative life before they let that philosophy die.

There had to be a pretty strong reason for your average every day Southern guy to put his life at risk and his life on hold to fight for something, and I'm sure it wasn't so the rich family down the street could keep their slaves.


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I agree with that, but I believe you have to try regardless.

If I was to stop random 16yr olds in Glasgow and ask them if the knew about the American Civil War I'm fairly certain of 3 things:

95% would know it happened.
100% of those would know the North Won.
100% would also think the sole cause was slavery.

That is what we are taught and is therefore what we believe, if I hadn't got involved in researching the tactics of the war I would have remained ignorant of the fact that for both sides the primary catalyst was different.

There's a scene from Ted Turner's Gettysburg that keeps springing to mind, the C Thomas Howell one, when he's discussing "why you fighting this war anyway" with the Confederate Prisoner.

"I don't know nothing about a bunch of *******, we're fighting for our rights" * Self deleted with my sincere apology to anyone whom I may have offended.

Unfortunately, Film's like Gettysburg, Lincoln or even better Ken Bate's 'The Civil War' don't reach a big enough audience here to impact on the consensus so the perception never changes and is only reinforced over time.

There's an argument to be made that those in the South were more aligned in principal with the American side of the American War of Independence than those in the North, but that get's lost because it is always brought back to slavery and that's a point that just can't be argued let alone won.