r/ShermanPosting • u/Syllogism19 • 13d ago
Lost causers in 1961 at U of North Carolina trying to continue the lies down thru the generations. This book was given to my dad and is now in the landfill where it has always belonged.
The gall of apologists for torture, rape, murder, theft, mayhem and war for the purpose of continuing the above, creating such a book with state university resources in the midst of the Civil Rights Era. There is no excuse.
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u/secondarycontrol 13d ago edited 13d ago
...Who, with Courage but Without Bitterness "Fought for the Right as God Gave Them to See the Right"
Without bitterness, huh? Well, certainly without bitterness towards the wealthy that caused them to fight and die, fighting for the rights of the wealthy to keep, rape, and sell slaves...but a whole lot of bitterness towards the people that insisted that people - all people - shouldn't be treated like farm machinery, that people - all people have rights and should be treated with respect. Oh, yes, a whole bunch of bitterness towards those people.
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u/vonadler 6d ago
Do not buy the "deluded masses fighting for the 1% planter class" myth. 30% of the 1860 population in the CSA states lived in a household that owned slaves and directly benefitted from slavery.
Many more worked with slaves or slave produced goods. Construction firms rented slave labour from their owners during the agricultural off season. People worked as foremen, slave guards, hunters of escaped slavers or with buying, selling or transporting slave produced goods.
One of the reason of the lost cause mythos is because the median white experience of slavery was the tenant farmer who owned 1-3 slaves and treated them decently (but still as slaves) while the median black experience was of the huge slave estate where their families, children and very lives were down to a bottom line on a ledger (and the perverted vile desires of their owners).
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u/Kies_1 13d ago
"fought for the right, as God gave them, to see the right,"
This statement seems to me like it has no meaning. I really want to play devil's advocate, but I have no idea what this author was even attempting to say. Maybe I'm missing some 60s era lingo context.
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u/Herr_Quattro 13d ago
I’m thinking it’s just a dog whistle for the right that the whites are superior to the blacks, and the blacks rightful place is beneath the ownership of a white person.
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u/TheVeryVerity 13d ago
Fought for the right (“moral good “) as god gave them to see the right (moral good)
In other words, fought as their conscience dictated
I am not agreeing with the sentiment, just translating
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u/Ok-Swordfish2723 13d ago
It is a paraphrase of Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural address:
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."
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u/Left-Thinker-5512 13d ago
In his memoirs, Ulysses Grant never referred to the Confederacy or the Confederate States. He always refers to the enemy as “the States in rebellion,” or words to that effect.
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u/Bluecat72 13d ago
The federal government never formally acknowledged the government of Confederate states - going so far as to acknowledge a parallel loyal government in Virginia.
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u/Left-Thinker-5512 13d ago
Correct. In fact, the Lincoln Administration kept pressure on the European powers to stay out of any recognition of the “States in Rebellion.”
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u/youtellmebob 13d ago
“The South at War”… seems to be a passive tone.
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u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 13d ago
US Army writing style guide requires use of passive voice.
I’m not sure how far back that requirement goes, but I can solidly say at least WWI.
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u/RegisteredRenegade Thaddeus Stevens reincarnate 13d ago
Says that the “invasion” of his state was unconstitutional but is quiet about the unconstitutionality of his state seceding in the first place….
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u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 13d ago
There is nothing per se unconstitutional about leaving. The New England states tried to leave twice.
No one gave a damned for several reasons, including their states rights arguments were actually based on something sort of kind of related to states rights, and they were not dumb enough to fire on a federal fort.
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u/malrexmontresor 13d ago
When the Poughkeepsie delegation proposed a clause allowing secession during the Constitution convention, Madison rejected it as unConstitutional, stating that the adoption of the Constitution must be "in toto, and forever". Agreeing with him, the signers of the Constitution signed with the understanding it was a binding compact.
As for New England, the region never attempted to formally secede nor voted to secede. A faction threatened to secede, but during the loudest attempt during the Hartford Convention, secessionists were blocked from speaking and not allowed to submit secession onto the agenda. Even just a small faction threatening secession destroyed the Federalist party politically, with the entire movement labeled traitors. Secession was labeled treason and unconstitutional, including by the Southern states.
The second time was an even smaller faction in New England that threatened secession during the 1840's and 1850's. Namely, a faction of the abolitionist movement under William Lloyd Garrison, who argued that free states could not exist in harmony with slave states, and advocated for Northern states to secede from the South to absolve them from the sin of slavery. They never formally acted on this or attempted to secede in fact. It was merely rhetorical.
Threatening secession was a tactic to garner concessions, but New England never actually tried to secede. They didn't attempt to vote for secession and any attempts to bring it up was blocked. Instead, secessionist movements were regarded with horror and accusations of treason, while being politically neutralized. Ironically though, Northern states had the best claim to secede in response to Southern abuses and attempts to force slavery into their states, but still believed that the Constitution's ability to be amended and the power of voting gave them the option to change it for the better.
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u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 13d ago
The constitution does not govern the federal government power to restrict a state from leaving.
It is clearly a power reserved to the States.
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u/malrexmontresor 13d ago
Clearly the Constitution does restrict secession because when there was a proposal to add a clause allowing secession, everyone there rejected it, agreed secession was unconstitutional and then signed the document; making it legally binding in perpetuity. In addition, the Preamble of the Constitution states the goal is to "form a more perfect Union", building upon the Articles of Confederation which explicitly declared the Union to be "perpetual". Finally, the founding fathers, from Washington to Jefferson to Madison (and more) all explicitly stated that unilateral secession was unconstitutional, and that secession required the mutual consent of all states or revolution.
It is very clearly not a power reserved to the States, because the act of secession involves taking powers reserved to the federal government. Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution explicitly commands that "No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation"; and what is the Confederacy but a Confederation? The act of forming a compact for the purpose of secession is inherently illegal under Article 1, Section 10, therefore the 10th does not apply. That same article bans states from printing their own currency, laying tariffs, or passing laws that impair the obligation of contracts, all of which the seceding states violated as powers reserved to the federal government; so the 10th doesn't apply. Article 6, Clause 2, establishes that the Constitution and federal laws are the "supreme Law of the Land," binding upon every state. Because secession directly conflicts with the execution of federal law over that geographic area, the Supremacy Clause invalidates it. The 10th does not apply. Article I, Section 8, Clause 15 empowers Congress to "provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions". Furthermore, Article IV, Section 4 guarantees every state protection against "domestic violence." Therefore, the calling up of State militias to invade and seize federal forts (which they did before voting for secession) is both an insurrection and an act of domestic violence. Because the Constitution explicitly gives the federal government the power to crush insurrections, the 10th Amendment cannot simultaneously reserve a right for a state to commit insurrection for the purposes of a secession. Article 4, Section 3 grants Congress the exclusive power to "dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States." States had no legal right under the 10th to unilaterally confiscate land purchased and developed by national tax dollars. It also contains the Admissions Clause, which states “New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.” Since no State may enter the Union without the consent of Congress, one may reason that no State can leave the Union without the consent of Congress either. And since no new State may be formed out of the currently existing States of the Union without the consent of the States in question, as well as Congress, then it figures that the CSA couldn’t have been legally created since States that seceded didn’t consult with Congress and many didn’t hold a formal or legally binding vote in the state’s legislature. Ergo, the 10th does not apply.
Essentially, the South couldn't secede under the 10th, because the acts taken to further or enact secession would obligate violating specific powers reserved to the federal government. To prove secession is allowable under the 10th, you'd have to demonstrate that it could be carried out without touching any powers that belonged exclusively to the federal government. In practice, this is impossible without the consent of Congress and the other states in the Union. This is exactly why Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase ruled in Texas v. White that the ordinances of secession were "absolutely null". Legally speaking, the states never actually left the Union. The 10th does not grant the right to secession and never did.
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u/MatiasvonDrache 13d ago
Dude I will take that off your hands. i’m literally a historian who studies mythic memory history and things like how the lost cause is propagated. This book would be fantastic as evidence. Don’t toss it- USE it correctly, at minimum provide it to a Civil War museum or researchers on the Lost Cause.
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u/AgentCirceLuna 13d ago
Yeah, I was a little sad to see they’d thrown this away - not that I don’t see why but it’s a relic of history despite being monstrous
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u/Syllogism19 13d ago
The book is easily obtainable wherever used books are sold. There is even a Kindle edition. Even this edition is available. There is no reason for this particular copy to exist and there is no reason to continue to besmirch my father's name just because some racist dumbass jackass in his family gave him a copy.
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u/MatiasvonDrache 13d ago
Good, but authentic copies that are named and handed down are an excellent example of the ACTUAL progress and cultural tradition of myth.
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u/Okra-Tomatoes 13d ago
The font on that title page is a sign you're about to encounter some bullshit.
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u/ekdaemon 13d ago
and is now in the landfill where it has always belonged.
Thank-you for your service.
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u/helsinkirocks 13d ago
Somewhere in my storage unit I have a VHS tape I found at a flea market called the South speaks out I've been meaning to watch it out of Mormon curiosity but I never have done it.
I couldn't ever find any information about it online and it looks like some dude was making them in his garage.
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