Americans... educate me about the confederacy

[BradM]

What did/does it mean to you? It's long gone now but what did/does the flag still represent to YOU?

I love history and want to learn more about this period. Doing some google reading right now. I want to buy some books too.

So tell me... what was this group of people all about?

[punker barbie]

Originally posted by BradM
What did/does it mean to you? It's long gone now but what did/does the flag still represent to YOU?

I love history and want to learn more about this period. Doing some google reading right now. I want to buy some books too.

So tell me... what was this group of people all about?

i would suggest you read up on Stonewall Jackson, he was very intelligent man and his tactics were so ahead of his time! He had a very big contribution to the civil war.....
So when you ask me what i think of the confederacy i think of him! A great man !

[Shonine]

Read up on General Lee. A brilliant man who turned down an offer to lead the entire union army to go fight alongside his southern countrymen. I think he was the only American in history to go through West Point flawlessly.

[pxxx]

They were practically slave states that wanted to save the institution of slavery. When things did not go their way, they decided to break out of the Union and became the Confedrate states, Virginia became their capital and Jefferson Davis was declared their President. The first action of breaking away and the cornerstone state of the confederacy was South Carolina, as they were the first state to break off the Union. They based their economic system around the institution of slavery.


This is what i can tell you from the top of my head. If more come around i will for sure post it here and fill you in. If some of my information here is rusty then forgive me, but i doubt it is.

[scoobydookc]

Originally posted by Shonine
Read up on General Lee. A brilliant man who turned down an offer to lead the entire union army to go fight alongside his southern countrymen. I think he was the only American in history to go through West Point flawlessly.

Wasn't he a drunk? It would seem now all history scholars say this about everyone that doesn't have someone to defend them.

Seriously, most pontificators believe most people wave their confederate flags in some sort of "WHITE POWER" fashion. Sure, some people put out the confederate flag to display their racism, but for the most part I've found it's not true. The people who display them that I've talked to say they wave it just because it means "TO BE A REBEL." What they're rebelling against I don't know, and the majority of these people originally come from the south and are over 40 years old.

I was going to say that all of them are racists in secret in one form or another, but then again, I'm yet to find one example of someone who isn't, no matter the ethnicity.

[BradM]

Interesting... yeah there were a bunch of moron kids in highschool that had a massive confederate flag flying in the back of their jacked up pickup trucks.

First of all... they are Canadian.. second I really doubt they knew what it meant. Shit I don't!

[Shonine]

Canadians with rebel flags ?

[BradM]

Originally posted by Shonine
Canadians with rebel flags ?

Yup. Pretty stupid kids though. They are 20 and probably still play fort and tonka trucks.

[genomega]

You can start reading here.
They will try and tell you it was just about freeing the slaves but as usual it was about the same old thing money and power.

http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html

[<IMX>]

I've beaten this one to death already....do a search on the best/worst presidents I have a long post on the civil war. So, if you are serious and not a troll....here goes...

Basically to get a good answer, you need to read on American history from religious, social and economic perspective. One single disipline, history, for example, doesn't give you enough background on the forces that not only shaped both the Union and Confederate forces, but also their battle for the _historical representation_ of the war--and therefore the flag.

After all, history is a living and breathing subject that is constantly revised on the basis of new material. More importantly with the case of the civil war and the south, new intellectuals whose personal agendas dissapate as the historical period fades take a more critical view of the Northern and Southern representation of the war.

To start, you need to get a good background in antebellum american religious history, and studies of indenutered servitude and slavery in both the U.S., N. Africa, W. Africa, W. Indies and in Ancient (Greek & Roman as well as biblical) from an economic, social and religous perspective.

In addition, you need to read on international history, especially the major European powers who stood by in interest as the U.S. principles of democracy were tested. (Governance in the south was far more similar to aristocrisy/church/political structure of Europe than the North.)

pxxx had a good summary, I'd only add that slavery was _the_ economic system in the south, you could actually get loans on your slaves...therefore if slavery ended, the south's capital stock would be ruined.

The actual war didn't have as much to do with racist intentions rather it was a battle over cold hard cash. (like most wars ;)

However, the religious and racist sentiment was derived during and after the war itself--mainly to justify the huge price the average southerner would pay to secure the economic well-being of the gentleman-planter aristocrats taht dominated southern society on every level (religious, social and political).

That's the part that always makes me laugh about poor whites appropriating the use of the confederacy for racist intentions--it was never to help poor whites--only the rich aristocrats LOL!!!!!!!

Anyway the racism takes root heavily mainly during the reconstruction when blacks were given equal rights in the south...tthen all those rights were yanked away to help appease the newly humbled south by president's with shit for brains... that's when you have the rebirth of the KKK, birth of Jim crow laws, lynchings etc...

All those rights "granted by the constitution" were fought for until the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s...kind of fucked up huh?

Originally posted by BradM
What did/does it mean to you? It's long gone now but what did/does the flag still represent to YOU?

I love history and want to learn more about this period. Doing some google reading right now. I want to buy some books too.

So tell me... what was this group of people all about?

[BradM]

Holy shit IMX. Had no idea it was that complex. A lot to do with religion (as always) and money (no doubt...)

Thanks for the post though I found it really interesting. Especially how some other countries sort of played a watch dog and waited for the outcome. Very interesting.

[Jason Fromm]

Yeah, that is a fairly complex question...to say that it is dead now I think is wrong. There are people both in the north and south that display the confederate flag; although they often don't know what it means anymore. It is true though (and I forget the name of the city)...the town in the south where the last battle took place and where the south was defeated...they until the 1970's continued to use the confederate flag and refused to celebrate the 4th of July. There are people down there that are still sore about the whole war.

[NickPapageorgio]

My first name is Lee and my middle name is Davis. I was named after Robert E. LEE and Jefferson DAVIS lol. Naw, my peoples ain't from teh south. When you read up on it a bit too, you will realize that Abraham Lincoln wasn't the big great guy he was made out to be. The Emancapation Proclamation was put out for his own political purposes. Slavery was just a crowbar for him to use to his own advantage. The civil war era is great reading as well. Try reading Antietam and Cloudsplitter. Both interesting reads. I prefer reading WW2 history but Civil war is my close second.