wjrii comments on The South has many legitimate heroes!

[–] wjrii@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

Hell, at this point I'd settle for their praising Longstreet.

The bar for being lionized is still gonna be pretty low in America, but I think it needs to be above the line where your one and only notable contribution to history is fighting a war to explicitly to preserve slavery, and one where most of the officers had taken an oath that would give them an easy out. Hell, the North was barely even trying to end slavery, just to kind of begin the process of winding it down through the natural progression the contemporary "democratic" process. That milquetoast bullshit was what southern elites thought was worth full-scale war. SMH.

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[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

Hey! They had their reasons!

A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

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[–] wjrii@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago*

I think literally 9 or 10 of the 11 official declarations of secession mentioned slavery explicitly, to say nothing of the public statements by their founding traitors, to wit:

The prevailing ideas entertained by [Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away.

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago.

Motherfucker actually argued with a straight face that race-based chattel slavery was good and right and progressive.

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