I have to be honest here I certainly cannot understand the logic behind tearing down every single Confederate Memorial/Monument that is known to man. It is rather Naive and foolish to do so. Not to mention it is a degradation to the country. It is the same concept of banning the Confederate Flag. I certainly do not condone that War by any means nor am I choosing a side. I think what happened during that time was tragic and disgusting, but we shouldn't go around tearing down monuments just because the person supported Slavery. By doing so you are essentially saying that the Civil War was fought solely for slavery and that would be an inaccurate assessment. Also, you are indirectly saying that anyone that supported slavery should have their Memorials removed. The reason this concerns me so much is because it is the beginning of what could be a a dramatic over-liberalization of the country. Are we trying to make the entire country a cushioned safe space that has forgotten about free speech? What is the logic behind the tearing down of these sites? Is it because they " supported slavery " ? If that is the case then we have a lot of re-modeling to do when it comes to what needs to be taken down. Here is a list of Politicians who owned and supported slave owning ( with their actions ) : George Washington had over 317 slaves. Thomas Jefferson had over 600 slaves. James Madison had over 100 slaves. James Monroe had over 75 slaves. Andrew Jackson had more than 150 slaves. William Henry Harrison had over 11 slaves. John Tyler had over 70. James K Pol had over 25. Zachary Taylor had over 100. Andrew Johnson had over 10. Lastly, Ulysses S Grant ( Yes the Union Commanding General ). If we are using the same logic then I whole heartedly believe every single monument/memorial of anyone who has ever owned a slave ( even just one ) should be torn down and removed. Period. Not that I actually want that to happen, but I need to stress the irrational logic here... Now you may be saying, but they fought with the North they weren't supporting slavery, but it is kind of hard to say you don't support this or that when you are wholeheartedly engaged in the slavery practice. When is the date we first started tearing down Memorials here in the US? I would argue it wasn't until the last 5 years or so we started engaging in this. If this was truly such a huge concern would not the public have lashed out decades ago if not half centuries ago.... I believe they would have, but it wasn't a concern then. It wasn't even a concern until the few news media networks starting creating more and more race problems here in the country. This country does not have race problems and talking about it only perpetuates the falsehood that their is. When in reality their is not and really hasn't been much since the 70's. I am not saying I want to start tearing down every single memorial because of one thing these people did bad, but at least to bring some light to the Logic that is being used here. Furthermore, I believe the media and everyone else should stop labeling people by their race in news stories. If a police officer shoots an American citizen then it should be titled " Officer shoots unarmed citizen" not " White officer shoots unarmed Black man". What do you think is the goal of a title like that? If an African American Police Officer shot an unarmed white man we would not see the same inflammatory heading. It would be to the tone of " Officer shoots unarmed man ". I am simply trying to bring some light to the fact that majority of this country is being stirred up to resent and hate each other to negate the fact we have turned into an Imperialistic nation who invades countries at our own free will and kills innocent citizens indiscriminately. When can you ever really have a conversation with anyone under 30 about anything other than what is going on in this country? It is like they have no clue what is going on around the world and this allows a Government to politically move unencumbered. We need to get out of the Snow globe of a world we are living in here folks. I apologize in advance if this thread offends anyone that was not my intention. I am not trying to cause some type of race relation here on GC I am simply bringing up a point. I believe we are all the same and that race is an optical illusion. Thank you for your time.
very well said. but you made one huge mistake....Liberals and Logic...don't work together. Water and oil. Fire and ice.
Funny, that must be why progressives always seem to melt when I expose them to logic and reasoned debate
Dude I was kidding. I could care less. But should they be up in front of a government building or in a museum?
I was kidding too. There is some truth in your joke. Neo Nazis and the Confederacy did have one thing in common, they were both losers. So now, them playing the victim should be second nature.
He's probably responsible for more death around the world than Lee. I believe it was Jesus himself who told gw Bush to blow up Iraq.
Nope. Jesus was a righteous dude. All that falls on the shoulders of those who later bastardized his words, especially Paul. btw, I am an atheist.
How about you recognize some logic that saying the civil war was not fought over slavery is total revisionist history. The north did not fight the war to end slavery they fought to reunite the union. But the south most definitely seceded because of issues they had with the north pertaining to slavery. You don't have to go any further than the declarations of secession which were very clear. Heres a nice snippet from the South Carolina declaration of secession. Very clear one of the biggest reasons they seceded was because the north did not uphold the fugitive slave law. To claim the biggest issue which caused the civil war wasn't slavery is fucking ridiculous. But I'm sure several people in this thread will pretend otherwise. "In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof. The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." [editor's note: this is the Fugitive Slave Clause in the original Constitution whereby the North promised to return escaped slaves to their "owners" in the South] This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River. The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation."
Man.... That took me a minute to get through.. I should have known the word Logic was going to get thrown back at me. I did not mean that as a slam or a degradation to the Left/Liberal side. Nor did I mean that the Right uses Logic and the Left doesn't. Just a way of addressing the Left sides defense of something ( this case being memorial removals ) and their argumentative reasoning for said removals. Saying the Civil War was fought over slavery is really just an oversimplification of what happened. No offense meant. Yes, slavery was a concern as was the right to own them, but not the sole factor. One of the main reasons they were pushed into the war was because of the Morrill Tarriff of 1861 as well as Lincolns invasion of Fort Sumter. Abraham Lincoln has several quotes that pertain to this: " "My policy sought only to collect the Revenue (a 40 percent federal sales tax on imports to Southern States under the Morrill Tariff Act of 1861)." Lincoln's first message to Congress July 4th 1861. "I have no purpose, directly or in-directly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so," First Inaugural March 4th 1861. Furthermore, no quote can be found with Lincoln every saying or insinuating that the War was fought over Slavery. One more quote for you " "as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said (tax) rebellion." Moreover, on April 8th 1861 Lincoln launched a surprise attack on Charleston Harbor with a fleet of warships. With the main objective of occupying Fort Sumter on the grounds of Federal Tax collection. So it can be argued that the Civil War was instigated by Lincoln and started with the South only trying to protect itself. Honestly, this is really a topic of discussion for historians and has been for over a century. We certainly aren't going to come to a consensus in this forum. Remember the Original topic of this thread. I was kind of worried when I posted it that it would stray off into a Left Right argument and also bring up the causes of the War. Which are irrelevant to the topic of this thread. So, for that I take full responsibility, but for the meantime we can respectfully agree to disagree.
I'm sorry to sidetrack. I don't think we're going to agree but I would at least like to know your evidence for this claim that a tariff was a leading cause of the civil war. Can you provide me quotes from primary sources that back this up. Don't see a tariff mentioned in any of the several decalsrarjon of secessions. You think if it was a big motivating factor they would have at least mentioned it amongst the dozens of paragraphs detailing their gripes with the north's actions pertaining to slavery. As I stated before the north didn't fight to end slavery they fought to restore the union. But the south for sure fought because they took several issues with the north's treatment of slavery like not upholding the fugitive slave law.
No worries, I should probably clarify. The cause of the war ( in my opinion ) was Lincoln's invasion of Charleston Harbor.If he had never took such force against the South the War would have never started in the first place. Which was caused by the Morrill Tarriff of 1861 and the South's resistance towards it. Because if they would have complied there wouldn't have been any reason for Lincoln to invade on the grounds of Federal Taxes collections. So it was caused by the Morrill Tariff in the sense that Abraham Lincoln used that as a justification for the invasion. I also believe and this is pure conjecture that Abraham Lincoln knew full well what the South's reaction would be and what the repercussions of his actions could cause. I mean you pull warships up to the South's lawn and not expect things to go any other way? And we all know everyone hates the tax man. Just my opinion though.