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For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act of Northern Aggression

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Re: For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act of Northern Aggression

#51

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Delmania wrote: post #46
greglindahl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is main way that States Rights affected the Civil War: northern states ignoring federal law and federal court rulings about returning escaped slaves. I can see several folks in this very discussion who might be surprised by this bit of history. Edit: so far two different people think I am mischaracterizing what Southern states said at the time about their state's rights. I wasn't talking about that at all.…

This is also wrong. The Civil War was about slavery. There's a speech in which a defining characteristic of the confederacy is slavery. Keep playing revisionist history.

> The Civil War was about slavery

I believe the "Civil War was about states' rights" line began in the 19th century [1], around the same time as "the number of Confederate memorial installations peaking around 1910 — 50 years after the end of the Civil War and at the height of Jim Crow" [2].

In reality, "Confederate states did claim the right to secede, but no state claimed to be seceding for that right. In fact, Confederates opposed states’ rights — that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery" in "Northern states [failing] to 'fulfill their constitutional obligations' by interfering with the return of fugitive slaves to bondage" [3].

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2011/04/12/13535...

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/confederate-statues-meaning-...

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths-about-why-...

Re: For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act of Northern Aggression

#52

Post by [deleted] »

aylmao wrote: post #3

tldr; Thanksgiving was traditionally celebrated in the north, with "northern" food, and after it was made a national holiday by Lincoln the confederate states refused to acknowledge it. I'm curious about Native Americans though. A lot of their culture and resistance has been lost today, but back around the birth of the holiday I can imagine them finding it offensive and being vocal about it, if not due to politics an…

[deleted]

Re: For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act of Northern Aggression

#53

Post by gizmo686 »

Delmania wrote: post #46
greglindahl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is main way that States Rights affected the Civil War: northern states ignoring federal law and federal court rulings about returning escaped slaves. I can see several folks in this very discussion who might be surprised by this bit of history. Edit: so far two different people think I am mischaracterizing what Southern states said at the time about their state's rights. I wasn't talking about that at all.…

This is also wrong. The Civil War was about slavery. There's a speech in which a defining characteristic of the confederacy is slavery. Keep playing revisionist history.

The North was willing to let the South keep slaves. Why then did the South feel it necessary to secede? A major grievance of the South was the North's failure to honor the fugitive slave act. Had the Northern states not exercised this right (weather they legally had it or not), we might not have had a civil war.

Granted, I doubt this is what the South has in mind when citing State's rights as a justification.

Re: For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act of Northern Aggression

#54

Post by JumpCrisscross »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #4

The Fourth of July wasn’t strongly celebrated until the 90s (after Gulf War I) in the small southern town I was living in during the 80s/90s. Something about still being bitter about the Civil War (which we were taught was not about slavery, but states rights, ugh).

> The Fourth of July wasn’t strongly celebrated until the 90s (after Gulf War I) in the small southern town I was living in during the 80s/90s

Vacationed in Charleston a few months ago. Dropped into the Old Slave Mart Museum [1]. I learned something, there, that for the first time made the Civil War make sense (from the Southern perspective).

Imagine a Southern plantation owner's balance sheet. What do you think would be the most valuable asset? I used to think it would be land, buildings and equipment. But it wasn't. It was enslaved people. Something like 90% of the wealth of Southern land owners was in their human capital.

Most of those enslaved people weren't owned outright–they were leveraged. Most bills of sale I saw said 1/3 cash down with the rest to be paid in installments. Much of the down payment, it turns out, was also borrowed. (Enslaved people being mobile, fungible assets meant creditors valued them as collateral.)

So, in summary, you had the wealthiest people in these states being leveraged to the point of ruin on their enslaved populations. That meant their banking system depended on the continuing value of the South's enslaved people. (New York, too, though to a lesser degree, but I digress.) So the calculus wasn't "we keep slaves and stay very rich, or give them up and become less rich." It was "slaves or bust." This is why the Gettysburg address hit like a thermobaric blast front--it amounted to a rebooting of the South's elite ranks.

[1] http://www.oldslavemartmuseum.com

Re: For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act of Northern Aggression

#55

Post by bobwaycott »

paulddraper wrote: post #24
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be more correct to say that there were slave states that didn't succede from the USA. The president couldn't free slaves within the USA by executive order because they were not at war with the USA (enemy territory being where the president could use their power as commander-in-chief)...that instead required the 13th amendment. I went to school in the North as well, and in my opinion, they simply didn't dwell…

> It would be more correct to say that there were slave states that didn't succeded from the USA. Absolutely. Succession (being part of issue of "states' rights") was a huge part of the Civil War. > The president couldn't free slaves within the USA by executive order Indeed; I pointed that fact out myself. There's no question that the man Abraham Lincoln was anti-slavery but could not himself end it. There's also no…

PS: you mean secession, not succession.

Re: For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act of Northern Aggression

#56

Post by sudosteph »

danielvf wrote: post #18
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #4

The Fourth of July wasn’t strongly celebrated until the 90s (after Gulf War I) in the small southern town I was living in during the 80s/90s. Something about still being bitter about the Civil War (which we were taught was not about slavery, but states rights, ugh).

The first day I saw more US flags than Confederate flags in my small southern town was the day after 9/11. As you said, the fervently believed myth was that the confederacy was about states rights - growing up I only met one person in twenty years who even went so far as making a rasict joke, and I knew plenty who flew a Confederate flag and absolutely believed that all men were created equal. I think maybe the myth…

Yeah, that's consistent with what I've experienced too. Though I almost wonder if its association with Dukes of Hazzard that really cemented it's place as an "identity" symbol for a certain group of southerners (lower/working class white male).

The run on US flags after 9/11 was something else. I remember when my mom begrudgingly bought a flag magnet 2 weeks after it all. Apparently the neighbors were giving her side-eye for having the only flagless pickup truck on the street.

Re: For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act of Northern Aggression

#57

Post by bobwaycott »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #36
paulddraper wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be more correct to say that there were slave states that didn't succeded from the USA. Absolutely. Succession (being part of issue of "states' rights") was a huge part of the Civil War. > The president couldn't free slaves within the USA by executive order Indeed; I pointed that fact out myself. There's no question that the man Abraham Lincoln was anti-slavery but could not himself end it. There's also no…

> The fact remains that as a whole the Union still had slaves, and that didn't change for the entirety of the Civil War. If you believe in rule of law, this makes complete sense. They had no way to outlaw slavery without an amendment. > My point is there's obviously things going on here other than just a war to end slavery, and it's important not to downplay that either. It is true that the USA would have held onto s…

Friendly historian nitpick: you mean to be discussing secession, seceding, and that the South seceded, not succession or succeeding. Had the South succeeded, we’d be having a wholly different conversation about the Civil War.

Re: For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act of Northern Aggression

#58

Post by cma »

alexpw wrote: post #9

"Modern Thanksgiving was first officially called for in all states in 1863 by a presidential proclamation of Abraham Lincoln. [...]Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving on the final Thursday in November, explicitly in celebration of the bounties that had continued to fall on the Union and for the military successes in the war." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving It's easy to see why the "Southern State…

In the actual words he seems to say notwithstanding the loss of life from war:

>Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

Freedom only decreased if you saw black slaves as non-human. They were a majority of the population in many southern states.

"Southern states saw" in the headline is probably ignoring the black population, but I'm not sure. It was only many years later that there were large migrations, after the reconstruction promises passed them over, "vagrancy" was heavily outlawed, and they effectively lost the vote.

Re: For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act of Northern Aggression

#59

Post by paulddraper »

FlyMoreRockets wrote: post #39
bunderbunder wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has always seemed like such an odd and obvious bit of sophistry to me. States' right to do do what now?

No doubt, it was about slavery. However, it was also about economics. Slave labor really changes the equation when manual labor is needed for production. This is especially relevant in the current model, where businesses of a certain size can afford to overcome shipping costs and enjoy lowered costs of production in emerging economies.

Indeed. Tariffs (primarily affecting manufactured goods) was a huge point of contention, rivaled only by the slavery issue.

During the Civil War there was "Cotton diplomacy" [1] where the South tried to pull Britain and France onto its side, under the presumption that their need for cotton would win out. Despite the cotton famine [2] they managed to stay neutral.

Anyway...economics (then and now) are king.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_diplomacy

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancashire_Cotton_Famine

Re: For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act of Northern Aggression

#60

Post by jonnycomputer »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #54
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #4

The Fourth of July wasn’t strongly celebrated until the 90s (after Gulf War I) in the small southern town I was living in during the 80s/90s. Something about still being bitter about the Civil War (which we were taught was not about slavery, but states rights, ugh).

> The Fourth of July wasn’t strongly celebrated until the 90s (after Gulf War I) in the small southern town I was living in during the 80s/90s Vacationed in Charleston a few months ago. Dropped into the Old Slave Mart Museum [1]. I learned something, there, that for the first time made the Civil War make sense (from the Southern perspective). Imagine a Southern plantation owner's balance sheet. What do you think woul…

I knew, of course, that slaves were integral to the economy of the south, and to the wealth of elites. But I had not known, though it is obvious in retrospect, how intertwined the trade was in the banking sector (like the real-estate market). All the more perverse.
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