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Date: | Fri, 15 Apr 2011 07:21:34 -0500 |
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Thank you Dr. Schuyler! Well said!
Marybeth S.F. Tomka, M.A.
Laboratory Director and Curator
Center for Archaeological Research
The University of Texas at San Antonio
State Certified Curatorial Repository
One UTSA Circle
San Antonio, Texas 78249
(210) 458-7822
(210) 458-4397 Fax
http://car.utsa.edu/
. . . herding cats in a forest of catnip . . .
-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of HISTARCH automatic digest system
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2011 2:00 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: HISTARCH Digest - 13 Apr 2011 to 14 Apr 2011 (#2011-24)
There are 15 messages totaling 1288 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. FW: Today in history (8)
2. invisible designs (2)
3. Today in history (4)
4. War (1861-1865)
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Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 23:14:44 -0400
From: "Robert L. Schuyler" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: War (1861-1865)
I find the entire discussion a bit odd. Why is fighting the Civil War
over slavery (which was clearly the immediate and emotional issue
that set the stage) and over states rights mutually exclusive. One of
the basic rights of the Southern states was the right to practice the
basis of their economy - plantation agriculture based on slave labor.
As far as the South not recognizing the slavery issue it was clearly
incorporated into their new constitution (based on the US
Constitution but with changes (e.g. one term presidency)) although
the Slave Trade was still outlawed.
Some points for the South and for the North:
(1) All known civilizations since ancient times practiced slavery
and only rare voices were ever raised against it. When someone did
speak against slavery it was usually only to say "do not enslave your
own kind" (e.g. Greeks enslaving Greeks or Moslems enslaving other
Moslems). As far as I know Jesus Christ, for example, never said
anything about slavery
or spoke out against it. In the Ten Commandments I do not think
another's 'man servant' or 'maid servant' meant salaried employees.
(2) All the American British colonies and most of the new American
states had slaves and continued to practice slavery although by 1783
a movement was underway against it. The South found the northern
states hypocritical in their newly found abolitionist stand (which
was a minority view even in the North).
(3) The states had entered the new American union (Constitution)
voluntarily and nothing in that document says they could not withdraw
the same way they came into it. Groups in New England, for example,
had earlier discussed succession at the time of the War of 1812.
(4) States Rights was critical because the South was afraid they
would be eventually outvoted in Congress as new states came into the
Union and the government might outlaw slavery as it was clearly
already trying to block it geographical expansion.
(5) The South (lower Southern states) did withdraw peacefully and
amazed everyone by successfully forming a new and viable government
with a President, Congress, Constitution and election (CSA).
(6) Technically the South started the war by firing on a federal fort
but it is clear the North set the stage and forced the issue.
(7) The War was not fought to destroy slavery. The federal government
and the President (Lincoln) clearly said it was initiated to save the
Union, not to destroy slavery in the southern states.
*************************************************************
(1) No federal President (Buchanan - Democrat or Lincoln -
Republican) could allow the South to leave the Union and expect the
USA to survive. Lincoln was not the President who refused to remove
federal forces from Charleston harbor. That had already happened
before he took office.
(2) In the past other Presidents made it clear what would happen
(e.g. Andrew Jackson - a slave owning southerner) - WAR.
(3) If the South had been allowed to withdraw peacefully (and if so
the Upper South might have stayed in the Union) war might well have
already started over who would control the western part of North
America or other issues.
**************************************************************
The War was a major disaster for America brought on by a bunch of
fanatics in the North (immediate abolitionists) and fanatics in the
South ("fire eaters") while a slower and compromising approach would
have gotten rid of slavery. All national legal slavery was gone on
Earth by 1890. Slavery, of course, still survives in illegal pockets
all around the world.
The equal disaster was the assassination of Lincoln which allowed the
Radical Republicans to make revenge-war on the South and eventually
fail at Reconstruction and set the country back for a century. If
Lincoln had lived with the victory in the war, with firmness but
fairness toward the South, things might (??) have been quite different.
Back to Historical Archaeology: How do all these changes show up in,
say, a county in the "Black Belt" in settlement patterns and in the
landscape. What was county "X" like in 1860 vs. 1870 and later how
did Reconstruction impact the county, and then how did things change
again when the "Redeemers" created the segregated South between 1880
and 1960? Are there major changes generated by these changes or just
ripples in the pond?
Bob Schuyler
End of HISTARCH Digest - 13 Apr 2011 to 14 Apr 2011 (#2011-24)
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