Virginia is for lovers (of slavery)

[Kuya]

Oh man, Nazi history month in Germany, possibly among the top ten things that will never happen in this universe.

[Cadsuane]

English commonwealth colonialism month

Japanese invasion of indo china week

Itallian Mussolini memorial park

Portuguese Antonio Salazar bridge

Oh wait they actually had that one but I guess the socialists renamed it the 25th of April bridge so it's coo'

[Mojo]

Apparently the civil war was about slavery

[Ghost_Wheel22]

Well duh some president dude freed the slaves and like a year later the war was over. vwala

[Tankjr]

Antebellum History Month is much less confrontational.

Aren't 11 months out of the year being anti-black history months enough for these people?

[Cochise]

Just because people owned slaves doesn't mean they hated them. Think of it as a thank you for all your hard work!

[Meian]

Apparently the civil war was about slavery

Glad I wasn't the only one who thought this heh.

Has a good idea in terms of tourism but not the best way to go about it. Rather do enjoy how everything confederate has to mean racist like Georgia's original national flag that was changed several years ago, which I found rather silly as it really didn't directly tie to slavery. That and they wanted to change the airport after a black person when it was named after a previous Mayor who helped build it

[Dolmen]

It's a touchy subject, definitely, but I don't have a problem with it. We have numerous plantations throughout the state, and they're always interesting to visit. Our state is broke, and this would be a good vehicle for tourism. Considering the Confederacy lasted for four years, I really don't think a whole freaking month needs to be devoted to it. I'm not going to deny the nation's past, as the Civil War is definitely an important part of the country's history.

Edit - Tim Kaine was a complete moron. he spent more time working on DNC matters than he did on state matters.

[Rothbardian]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYzt1ao81jU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7a0mqKs_GE

"In my tent last night, after a fatiguing day's service, I remembered that I failed to send a contribution for our colored Sunday school. Enclosed you will find a check for that object, which please acknowledge at your earliest convenience and oblige yours faithfully." -- Gen. Stonewall Jackson

"Headquarters Army of Northern Virginia
January 11, 1865
Hon. Andrew Hunter
Richmond, Va.:

Dear Sir:

I have received your letter of the 7th instant, and without confining myself to the order of your interrogatories, will endeavor to answer them by a statement of my views on the subject. I shall be most happy if I can contribute to the solution of a question in which I feel an interest commensurate with my desire for the welfare and happiness of our people.

Considering the relation of master and slave, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country, I would deprecate any sudden disturbance of that relation unless it be necessary to avert a greater calamity to both. I should therefore prefer to rely upon our white population to preserve the ratio between our forces and those of the enemy, which experience has shown to be safe. But in view of the preparations of our enemies, it is our duty to provide for continued war and not for a battle or a campaign, and I fear that we cannot accomplish this without overtaxing the capacity of our white population.

Should the war continue under the existing circumstances, the enemy may in course of time penetrate our country and get access to a large part of our negro population. It is his avowed policy to convert the able-bodied men among them into soldiers, and to emancipate all. The success of the Federal arms in the South was followed by a proclamation of President Lincoln for 280,000 men, the effect of which will be to stimulate the Northern States to procure as substitutes for their own people negroes thus brought within their reach. Many have already been obtained in Virginia, and should the fortune of war expose more of her territory, the enemy would gain a large accession to his strength. His progress will thus add to his numbers, and at the same time destroy slavery in a manner most pernicious to the welfare of our people. Their negroes will be used to hold them in subjection, leaving the remaining force of the enemy free to extend his conquest. Whatever may be the effect of our employing negro troops, it cannot be as mischievous as this. If it end in subverting slavery it will be accomplished by ourselves, and we can devise the means of alleviating the evil consequences to both races. I think, therefore, we must decide whether slavery shall be extinguished by our enemies and the slaves be used against us, or use them ourselves at the risk of the effects which must be produced upon our social institutions. My opinion is that we should employ them without delay. I believe that with proper regulations they can be made efficient soldiers. They possess the physical qualifications in an eminent degree. Long habits of obedience and subordination, coupled with the moral influence which in our country the white man possesses over the black, furnish an excellent foundation for that discipline which is the best guaranty of military efficiency. Our chief aim should be to secure their fidelity.

There have been formidable armies composed of men having no interest in the cause for which they fought beyond their pay or the hope of plunder. But it is certain that the surest foundation upon which the fidelity of an army can rest, especially in a service which imposes peculiar hardships and privations, is the personal interest of the soldier in the issue of the contest. Such an interest we can give our negroes by giving immediate freedom to all who enlist, and freedom at the end of the war to the families of those who discharge their duties faithfully (whether they survive or not), together with the privilege of residing at the South. To this might be added a bounty for faithful service.

We should not expect slaves to fight for prospective freedom when they can secure it at once by going to the enemy, in whose service they will incur no greater risk than in ours. The reasons that induce me to recommend the employment of negro troops at all render the effect of the measures I have suggested upon slavery immaterial, and in my opinion the best means of securing the efficiency and fidelity of this auxiliary force would be to accompany the measure with a well-digested plan of gradual and general emancipation. As that will be the result of the continuance of the war, and will certainly occur if the enemy succeed, it seems to me most advisable to adopt it at once, and thereby obtain all the benefits that will accrue to our cause.

The employment of negro troops under regulations similar in principle to those above indicated would, in my opinion, greatly increase our military strength and enable us to relieve our white population to some extent. I think we could dispense with the reserve forces except in cases of necessity.

It would disappoint the hopes which our enemies base upon our exhaustion, deprive them in a great measure of the aid they now derive from black troops, and thus throw the burden of the war upon their own people. In addition to the great political advantages that would result to our cause from the adoption of a system of emancipation, it would exercise a salutary influence upon our whole negro population, by rendering more secure the fidelity of those who become soldiers, and diminishing the inducements to the rest to abscond.

I can only say in conclusion that whatever measures are to be adopted should be adopted at once. Every day's delay increases the difficulty. Much time will be required to organize and discipline the men, and action may be deferred until it is too late.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R.E. Lee,
General "

General Lee, Johnson, and the rest of the Confederate Generals of both Virginia and the rest of the Confederacy displayed immense respect for the rights of persons in the war, that too being blacks in the North and South. Many Blacks fought alongside their southern brethren guaranteed freedom, and indeed, even most Southerners at the time 1861 saw the end of Slavery upon them after winning their War of Independance. Moreover, comparing the Souths conduct within the war abiding by all tenets of the Just War Theory, and on a purely defensive War refusing to march onto DC after the first battle of Manasses, only intent on defending their own land from the illegal and immoral aggressive war by the North. As a Southerner there is scarcely someone I deplore more than General Sherman who raped and pillaged everywhere and everyone on his march to Atlanta, not caring one respect for the Natural Law, and Natural Rights of all persons. Burning every city, every farm, every piece of property, raping and murdering women, children, men. It was not only him, but all other Northern Generals displayed a lack of general conduct.

I will make no excuses for chattel slavery, and tax slavery otherwise, for it is the worse atrocity man-kind has perpetuated on others, and it is a grave-sin that tarnished the Founders noble ideals of liberty, for which they compromised on an issue that is as uncompromising as possible for lovers of liberty. There were more abolitionists and more anti-slavery leagues in the South than the North. The Cherokee Nation and many other Indian Nations fought alongside the South also for their Independance which was guaranteed in the Southern Charter and Constitution. Moreover, only the very wealthy of the wealthy plantation owners owned slaves, as despicable as it was, and to paint every Southerner as a hater of blacks, is outright slander and libel. Consider this, if you read many black journals of the day, they tell of their outright hatred and animosity presented to them by Northern Whites, whereas, Southern Whites treated them with kindness and affection, on the whole. You want to know why after the War that blacks and whites were more antagonistic to each other? Have you ever studied the effects of Reconstruction and forced occupation? Outright corruption, theft, and a political tyranny the South did not want. Indeed, the South was forced into submission and slavery themselves to DC. Being re-admitted to the Union they had to acqueisce to coerced demands, that violated their ideals of liberty. Was the South perfect? Of course not. Preferrable? Yes. For they had free-trade (real free-trade). For they had respect of private property rights (very very very little taxation & no public works of any kind for any reason & no Welfare, etc.), and Natural Law. I also would like to submit this little known fact:

The Emancipation Proc. did not free Northern Slaves (As there were still 4 States in the North that allowed slavery), only Southern Slaves unto which Lincoln had no authority to do. The South was a free and Independant Nation. Indeed, it is ironic that the South freed all their slaves, before the North did, isn't it? I will repeat: Slavery is a Pox on the entire Nation. Not just the South or North, but both. It is however fitting that Virginia being the most liberal of States during that time -- Jefferson, R. H. Lee, Patrick Henry, did seek to free slaves leading up to and at the time of the Revolution, but thwarted once the talks in both AoC and Constitution sprung up. I place blame not on the South for the institution of slavery, but on all leaders and regions of the USA, and I too look up to the staunch abolitionists & Natural Law-ists such as Lysander Spooner. Indeed, the greatest minarchist experiment was thwarted for a lust of political power by our Founders. Those ordaining slavery should have never signed or agreed to a compact with those who saw its institution as vile, ominous, and tyrannous and vice versa.

Let us also take a look at a few Declarations of the day:

Kentucky:

Whereas, the Federal Constitution, which created the Government of the United States, was declared by the framers thereof to be the supreme law of the land, and was intended to limit and did expressly limit the powers of said Government to certain general specified purposes, and did expressly reserve to the States and people all other powers whatever, and the President and Congress have treated this supreme law of the Union with contempt and usurped to themselves the power to interfere with the rights and liberties of the States and the people against the expressed provisions of the Constitution, and have thus substituted for the highest forms of national liberty and constitutional government a central despotism founded upon the ignorant prejudices of the masses of Northern society, and instead of giving protection with the Constitution to the people of fifteen States of this Union have turned loose upon them the unrestrained and raging passions of mobs and fanatics, and because we now seek to hold our liberties, our property, our homes, and our families under the protection of the reserved powers of the States, have blockaded our ports, invaded our soil, and waged war upon our people for the purpose of subjugating us to their will; and



Whereas, our honor and our duty to posterity demand that we shall not relinquish our own liberty and shall not abandon the right of our descendants and the world to the inestimable blessings of constitutional government: Therefore,



Be it ordained, That we do hereby forever sever our connection with the Government of the United States, and in the name of the people we do hereby declare Kentucky to be a free and independent State, clothed with all power to fix her own destiny and to secure her own rights and liberties.



And whereas, the majority of the Legislature of Kentucky have violated their most solemn pledges made before the election, and deceived and betrayed the people; have abandoned the position of neutrality assumed by themselves and the people, and invited into the State the organized armies of Lincoln; have abdicated the Government in favor of a military despotism which they have placed around themselves, but cannot control, and have abandoned the duty of shielding the citizen with their protection; have thrown upon our people and the State the horrors and ravages of war, instead of attempting to preserve the peace, and have voted men and money for the war waged by the North for the destruction of our constitutional rights; have violated the expressed words of the constitution by borrowing five millions of money for the support of the war without a vote of the people; have permitted the arrest and imprisonment of our citizens, and transferred the constitutional prerogatives of the Executive to a military commission of partisans; have seen the writ of habeas corpus suspended without an effort for its preservation, and permitted our people to be driven in exile from their homes; have subjected our property to confiscation and our persons to confinement in the penitentiary as felons, because we may choose to take part in a cause for civil liberty and constitutional government against a sectional majority waging war against the people and institutions of fifteen independent States of the old Federal Union, and have done all these things deliberately against the warnings and vetoes of the Governor and the solemn remonstrance's of the minority in the Senate and House of Representatives: Therefore,



Be it further ordained, That the unconstitutional edicts of a factious majority of a Legislature thus false to their pledges, their honor, and their interests are not law, and that such a government is unworthy of the support of a brave and free people, and that we do therefore declare that the people are thereby absolved from all allegiance to said government, and that they have a right to establish any government which to them may seem best adapted to the preservation of their rights and liberties.





Adopted 20 Nov 1861, by a Convention of the People of Kentucky.

Missouri:

An act declaring the political ties heretofore existing between the State of Missouri and the United States of America dissolved.



Whereas the Government of the United States, in the possession and under the control of a sectional party, has wantonly violated the compact originally made between said Government and the State of Missouri, by invading with hostile armies the soil of the State, attacking and making prisoners the militia while legally assembled under the State laws, forcibly occupying the State capitol, and attempting through the instrumentality of domestic traitors to usurp the State government, seizing and destroying private property, and murdering with fiendish malignity peaceable citizens, men, women, and children, together with other acts of atrocity, indicating a deep-settled hostility toward the people of Missouri and their institutions; and


Whereas the present Administration of the Government of the United States has utterly ignored the Constitution, subverted the Government as constructed and intended by its makers, and established a despotic and arbitrary power instead thereof: Now, therefore,



Be it enacted by the general assembly of the State of Missouri, That all political ties of every character new existing between the Government of the United States of America and the people and government of the State of Missouri are hereby dissolved, and the State of Missouri, resuming the sovereignty granted by compact to the said United States upon admission of said State into the Federal Union, does again take its place as a free and independent republic amongst the nations of the earth.



This act to take effect and be in force from and after its passage.



Approved by the Missouri Legislature on October 31, 1861.


TN:

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AND ORDINANCE dissolving the federal relations between the State of Tennessee and the United States of America.



First. We, the people of the State of Tennessee, waiving any expression of opinion as to the abstract doctrine of secession, but asserting the right, as a free and independent people, to alter, reform, or abolish our form of government in such manner as we think proper, do ordain and declare that all the laws and ordinances by which the State of Tennessee became a member of the Federal Union of the United States of America are hereby abrogated and annulled, and that all the rights, functions, and powers which by any of said laws and ordinances were conveyed to the Government of the United States, and to absolve ourselves from all the obligations, restraints, and duties incurred thereto; and do hereby henceforth become a free, sovereign, and independent State.



Second. We furthermore declare and ordain that article 10, sections 1 and 2, of the constitution of the State of Tennessee, which requires members of the General Assembly and all officers, civil and military, to take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States be, and the same are hereby, abrogated and annulled, and all parts of the constitution of the State of Tennessee making citizenship of the United States a qualification for office and recognizing the Constitution of the United States as the supreme law of this State are in like manner abrogated and annulled.



Third. We furthermore ordain and declare that all rights acquired and vested under the Constitution of the United States, or under any act of Congress passed in pursuance thereof, or under any laws of this State, and not incompatible with this ordinance, shall remain in force and have the same effect as if this ordinance had not been passed.



Sent to referendum 6 May 1861 by the legislature, and approved by the voters by a vote of 104,471 to 47,183 on 8 June 1861.


It was also shown as soon as Lincoln refused to leave Fort Sumter that he intended War upon the South for political power. Indeed his words and rhetoric leading up to that time were solely that intention. I presume that most here are against imperialism, hence our Military being stationed in other countries, correct? Well, South Carolina was an independant Nation-State and no longer apart of the US, just like the 13 colonies upon the Declaration of Independance were no longer British. Might does not make right, as much as you would like it to be so. He wanted the war. He goaded SC. So I too blame Lincoln as much, and moreso than our Founders. The South & North should have never been in compact in the first place! Hence, as soon as the North marshalled forces, many other States sent their secession declarations to DC.

Let us look a bit further:

Cherokee Declaration:

Declaration by the People of the Cherokee Nation of the Causes Which Have Impelled Them to Unite Their Fortunes With Those of the Confederate States of America.

When circumstances beyond their control compel one people to sever the ties which have long existed between them and another state or confederacy, and to contract new alliances and establish new relations for the security of their rights and liberties, it is fit that they should publicly declare the reasons by which their action is justified.

The Cherokee people had its origin in the South; its institutions are similar to those of the Southern States, and their interests identical with theirs. Long since it accepted the protection of the United States of America, contracted with them treaties of alliance and friendship, and allowed themselves to be to a great extent governed by their laws.

In peace and war they have been faithful to their engagements with the United States. With much of hardship and injustice to complain of, they resorted to no other means than solicitation and argument to obtain redress. Loyal and obedient to the laws and the stipulations of their treaties, they served under the flag of the United States, shared the common dangers, and were entitled to a share in the common glory, to gain which their blood was freely shed on the battlefield.

When the dissensions between the Southern and Northern States culminated in a separation of State after State from the Union they watched the progress of events with anxiety and consternation. While their institutions and the contiguity of their territory to the States of Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri made the cause of the seceding States necessarily their own cause, their treaties had been made with the United States, and they felt the utmost reluctance even in appearance to violate their engagements or set at naught the obligations of good faith.

Conscious that they were a people few in numbers compared with either of the contending parties, and that their country might with no considerable force be easily overrun and devastated and desolation and ruin be the result if they took up arms for either side, their authorities determined that no other course was consistent with the dictates of prudence or could secure the safety of their people and immunity from the horrors of a war waged by an invading enemy than a strict neutrality, and in this decision they were sustained by a majority of the nation.

That policy was accordingly adopted and faithfully adhered to. Early in the month of June of the present year the authorities of the nation declined to enter into negotiations for an alliance with the Confederate States, and protested against the occupation of the Cherokee country by their troops, or any other violation of their neutrality. No act was allowed that could be construed by the United States to be a violation of the faith of treaties.

But Providence rules the destinies of nations, and events, by inexorable necessity, overrule human resolutions. The number of the Confederate States has increased to eleven, and their Government is firmly established and consolidated. Maintaining in the field an army of 200,000 men, the war became for them but a succession of victories. Disclaiming any intention to invade the Northern States, they sought only to repel invaders from their own soil and to secure the right of governing themselves. They claimed only the privilege asserted by the Declaration of American Independence, and on which the right of the Northern States themselves to self-government is founded, of altering their form of government when it became no longer tolerable and establishing new forms for the security of their liberties.

Throughout the Confederate States we saw this great revolution effected without violence or the suspension of the laws or the closing of the courts. The military power was nowhere placed above the civil authorities. None were seized and imprisoned at the mandate of arbitrary power. All division among the people disappeared, and the determination became unanimous that there should never again be any union with the Northern States. Almost as one man all who were able to bear arms rushed to the defense of an invaded country, and nowhere has it been found necessary to compel men to serve or to enlist mercenaries by the offer of extraordinary bounties.

But in the Northern States the Cherokee people saw with alarm a violated Constitution, all civil liberty put in peril, and all the rules of civilized warfare and the dictates of common humanity and decency unhesitatingly disregarded. In States which still adhered to the Union a military despotism has displaced the civil power and the laws became silent amid arms. Free speech and almost free thought became a crime. The right to the writ of habeas corpus, guaranteed by the Constitution, disappeared at the nod of a Secretary of State or a general of the lowest grade. The mandate of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was set at naught by the military power, and this outrage on common right approved by a President sworn to support the Constitution. War on the largest scale was waged, and the immense bodies of troops called into the field in the absence of any law warranting it under the pretense of suppressing unlawful combination of men. The humanities of war, which even barbarians respect, were no longer thought worthy to be observed. Foreign mercenaries and the scum of cities and the inmates of prisons were enlisted and organized into regiments and brigades and sent into Southern States to aid in subjugating a people struggling for freedom, to burn, to plunder, and to commit the basest of outrages on women; while the heels of armed tyranny trod upon the necks of Maryland and Missouri, and men of the highest character and position were incarcerated upon suspicion and without process of law in jails, in forts, and in prison-ships, and even women were imprisoned by the arbitrary order of a President and Cabinet ministers; while the press ceased to be free, the publication of newspapers was suspended and their issues seized and destroyed; the officers and men taken prisoners in battle were allowed to remain in captivity by the refusal of their Government to consent to an exchange of prisoners; as they had left their dead on more than one field of battle that had witnessed their defeat to be buried and their wounded to be cared for by Southern hands.

Whatever causes the Cherokee people may have had in the past, to complain of some of the Southern States, they cannot but feel that their interests and their destiny are inseparably connected with those of the South. The war now raging is a war of Northern cupidity and fanaticism against the institution of African servitude; against the commercial freedom of the South, and against the political freedom of the States, and its objects are to annihilate the sovereignty of those States and utterly change the nature of the General Government.

The Cherokee people and their neighbors were warned before the war commenced that the first object of the party which now holds the powers of government of the United States would be to annul the institution of slavery in the whole Indian country, and make it what they term free territory and after a time a free State; and they have been also warned by the fate which has befallen those of their race in Kansas, Nebraska, and Oregon that at no distant day they too would be compelled to surrender their country at the demand of Northern rapacity, and be content with an extinct nationality, and with reserves of limited extent for individuals, of which their people would soon be despoiled by speculators, if not plundered unscrupulously by the State.

Urged by these considerations, the Cherokees, long divided in opinion, became unanimous, and like their brethren, the Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, determined, by the undivided voice of a General Convention of all the people, held at Tahlequah, on the 21st day of August, in the present year, to make common cause with the South and share its fortunes.

In now carrying this resolution into effect and consummating a treaty of alliance and friendship with the Confederate States of America the Cherokee people declares that it has been faithful and loyal to is engagements with the United States until, by placing its safety and even its national existence in imminent peril, those States have released them from those engagements.

Menaced by a great danger, they exercise the inalienable right of self-defense, and declare themselves a free people, independent of the Northern States of America, and at war with them by their own act. Obeying the dictates of prudence and providing for the general safety and welfare, confident of the rectitude of their intentions and true to the obligations of duty and honor, they accept the issue thus forced upon them, unite their fortunes now and forever with those of the Confederate States, and take up arms for the common cause, and with entire confidence in the justice of that cause and with a firm reliance upon Divine Providence, will resolutely abide the consequences.

Tahlequah, C. N., October 28, 1861.

THOMAS PEGG,
President National Committee.

JOSHUA ROSS,
Clerk National Committee.

Concurred.
LACY MOUSE,
Speaker of Council.

THOMAS B. WOLFE,
Clerk Council.

Approved.
JNO. ROSS.


You might want to take a second and wonder why the Federal Government would teach you that the North was a saint, and the Government is a saint. That secession is tied to slavery (smear tactic), and that political self-determination is looked upon with a frown. It is said, the victors write history, and they sure did. You might want to read up instead of being lectured to by State-educators (or indoctrinators). They don't even teach about Nullification vis a vis and other Pro-Liberty, Anti-State measures. It is not in their interest!

With all that said, I am against a State Holiday on these grounds: That no man, no Nation should ever be celebrated by Civil Governments who hold Natural Law & individuality as sacred and self-evident. For this same reason Jefferson abhorred the regality thrown onto Government, and wished it only at most to protect life, liberty, and property, it's only delegated powers. Now, as a Voluntaryist that is my principled take. I don't ever expect a State to comply to that simple creed though, since it is Utopic, but nevertheless that's my take.

[Absolutely Virtue]

ideology

My family landed in Virginia more than 350 years ago. You've listened to a couple of Ron Paul lectures. Obviously you're better qualified to discuss the legacy of the Confederacy in the South than me.

Thanks for the laugh, though.

[Rothbardian]

My family landed in Virginia more than 350 years ago. You've listened to a couple of Ron Paul lectures. Obviously you're better qualified to discuss the legacy of the Confederacy in the South than me.

Thanks for the laugh, though.

Actually I have large volumes of personal letters and journals from both the North and South, and have read quite extensively on the subject matter. Being a Southerner myself, I also have quite a lot of history passed down through the family.

Anyways, would you like to critique my response or post shallow snide remarks?

Besides, we all know as a flag design the Stars & Bars are one of the best looking. I though prefer the 9 red and white vertical stripes of the Sons of Liberty as the most gracious of flags. ~.^

It is fitting you would abhorr Lee and Jackson two most honorable men who abided by Just War tenets, and from your location find yourself in DC which houses no sane person, and who institute vile aggressive wars of Imperialism. Ironic...eh?

[Cyn]

My family landed in Virginia more than 350 years ago.

NC wasn't even going to join the confederacy until VA lost their grip on reality and effectively trapped us between two confederate states. And while the Union went a bit easier on us than the states that joined willingly, we ended up supplying more troops than any other state and took some of the heaviest economic blows.

Thanks VA <3

[Absolutely Virtue]

etc

Oh you're a real charmer. Do you really expect me to get into an argument over a subject that was put to bed literally 150 years ago? In other news breaking news, antibiotics > leeches.

[Rothbardian]

Oh you're a real charmer. Do you really expect me to get into an argument over a subject that was put to bed literally 150 years ago? In other news breaking news, antibiotics > leeches.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8hPo6mYnks

Yeah, like AGW is fact. No debate. No discussion. You know-it all. Shall I call you God?

[Absolutely Virtue]

Yeah, like AGW is fact. No debate. No discussion. You know-it all. Shall I call you God?

Sure, the last thing in the world I would want to do is trample your sovereign right to worship me. This is America, after all.

[Day]

VA ftw

[Kyreth]

Apparently the civil war was about slavery

One of the reasons I just look at this and chuckle.

Average northern person: CIVLE WARZ WUZ ABOUT TEH SLAVEZ!

No. It was used to give the North a sense of moral legitimacy.

Average southern person: Civil War was about wanting to go our own way, so the North decided to put the boot down when we declared independence. Slavery was the spark that set off the tinder pile, but it wasn't the core.

The slave economy was a dying process even as the 1860's progressed- without room to expand, slavery would have died a well-deserved death inside another two generations. Was it good to get rid of it 40 years early? Sure. Was it worth about a million deaths on both sides of the armed forces, plus tens of thousands more civilians for that moral victory?

Instead, the already crappy farm-based economy and infrastructure of the South was Shermanized (read: burnt to the ground), Reconstruction kicked them in the balls even harder, and over a century later the South STILL hasn't really dragged itself out of the depths of poverty in much of the region.

It was a bloody, horrible, fratricidal massacre caused by two groups of Americans disagreeing over their freedom and rights as such. If people forget that (or as a fuckton of people clearly don't even know to begin with), we really DO need shit like a Confederate History Month.

The South maintained with the depth of religious conviction that the Union formed under the Constitution was a Union of consent and not of force; that the original States were not the creatures but the creators of the Union; that these States had gained their independence, their freedom, and their sovereignty from the mother country, and had not surrendered these on entering the Union; that by the express terms of the Constitution all rights and powers not delegated were reserved to the States; and the South challenged the North to find one trace of authority in that Constitution for invading and coercing a sovereign State.
The North, on the other hand, maintained with the utmost confidence in the correctness of her position that the Union formed under the Constitution was intended to be perpetual; that sovereignty was a unit and could not be divided; that whether or not there was any express power granted in the Constitution for invading a State, the right of self-preservation was inherent in all governments; that the life of the Union was essential to the life of liberty; or, in the words of Webster, "liberty and union are one and inseparable." -John B. Gordon, Maj. Gen. CSA

[Lucavi]

^ Whities deserved it. Don't talk about the deaths of white soldiers (especially southerners) as if it were some tragedy when they never cared about the deaths of the slaves or any other non-white race.

Justice.

[Absolutely Virtue]

Here's the world's smallest violin playing Dixie for all the Confederate soldiers who died. In the span of two hundred years you massacred the indigenous race of people in the South, and shipped in another race to enslave them.

Nobody gives a shit that you have turned this into an argument about states' rights. Your ancestors (and many of mine) are in hell where they fucking belong. Deal with it.

[Bladen]

I've lived in Richmond, VA for the past 20 years of my life.

I have no problems with Confederate history month. This is a state that played a heavy part in the Civil War. Confederates played their part. It's history not a boast for slavery. Slavery happened, get over it. How can learning about something that happened almost 150 years ago be a bad thing?

I've been to most of the battle fields. I am a history buff, I see nothing wrong with people (black, white, Asian, etc.) learning about it. Maybe, just maybe, educating some people might actually help.

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Sir Winston Churchill