I have not read the article and was simply basing my comments on general
knowledge rather than on the work of specific historians (although there
could be an indirect influence).
RLS
On 4/15/2011 11:44 AM, Linda Derry wrote:
> Dr. Schuyler,
>
> Will you please satisfy my curiosity about something: did you read the
> entire Time article, "150 years after Fort Sumter" suggested on the
> listserve before you crafted your response?
>
> I ask because after reading that article, I see your comments as fitting
> well into one of the historian "camps" suggested by the Drehle in his
> summary of historical views of the War. In fact it seems such a good fit,
> that I'm thinking that you must not have read this, otherwise, you'd have
> commented on it.
>
> It reminds me of when I took my tests upon entrance to graduate school, and
> based on my answers, my professors knew that I had been greatly influenced
> by Marvin Harris's history of anthropological thought. I had to plead guilty
> as charged.
>
> I'd love to know if there is one historian mentioned in this article that
> you see as an influence in your early career.
>
>
> Linda Derry
> Site Director
> Old Cahawba
> 719 Tremont St.
> Selma, AL 36701
> ph. 334/875-2529
> fax. 334/877-4253
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robert
> L. Schuyler
> Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2011 10:15 PM
> To: [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
>
>
>
>
>
>
> At 07:52 PM 4/14/2011, you wrote:
>
>> Charles Dew's *Apostles of Disunion *does an excellent job of covering the
>> secession movement and the various secession commissions that were sent
>>
> from
>
>> the deep South to the states of the upper South. It's a great place to
>>
> start
>
>> and provides a pretty thorough examination of the various secession
>> statements.
>>
>> Travis Shaw, M.A.
>> Archaeologist/Historian
>> R. Christopher Goodwin& Associates
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 7:38 PM, Sean Doyle<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Bloody smart phone. Sorry about the odd sentence at the end.
>>>
>>> Robert Leavitt<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>> The secession statements of Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and
>>> Texas are available at htttp://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html
>>> and are most interesting. Georgia's is almost solely a rant in favor
>>> of slavery and against the anti-slavery attitudes of the north.
>>> Slavery is a significant issue in the statements of Mississippi and
>>> South Carolina, and, along with the attitude that "y'all are against
>>> us just because we hold slaves"," is well represented in the Texas
>>> statement. I've not found on-line sources for statements of the other
>>> nine seceding states, but I'd be willing to bet that slavery was, at
>>> the very least, one of the major concerns they all addresse.
>>>
>>> Robert
>>>
>>>
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>>>> From: "Linda Derry"<[log in to unmask]>
>>>> To: "'HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY'"<[log in to unmask]>
>>>> Subject: RE: FW: Today in history
>>>> Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 17:05:00 -0500
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>>>>
>>>> Hi Ya'll,
>>>>
>>>> As historical archaeologists, we should all agree that it is always good
>>>>
>> to
>>
>>>> work with PRIMARY documents, right?
>>>>
>>>> With that in mind, I have to say that from where I'm sitting, the old
>>>>
>> Black
>>
>>>> Belt or cotton belt of Alabama, it sure does appear that slaveholding
>>>>
> took
>
>>>> center stage in the primary documents that speak to this issue. ( as
>>>> opposed to the rationalization that appeared along with the "Lost Cause"
>>>> narrative in the late 19th/ early 20th century.)
>>>>
>>>> Nothing could be more primary that Alabama's secession ordinance, so I
>>>> looked it up, and it does state a need for a union of "Slave holding
>>>> States of the South" and then at the convention they refer to the new
>>>>
>> nation
>>
>>>> as "a Southern slaveholding Confederacy."
>>>>
>>>> I'm betting that secession documents in most Southern states have
>>>>
> similar
>
>>>> statements - So, if you hold to the state's rights point of view, why
>>>>
> not
>
>>>> test your theory by locating this ordinance for your state. (& find the
>>>> complete ordinance, not something excerpted by folks with agendas).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Just thought it was worth throwing out to the list - I REALLY don't
>>>>
> want
>
>> to
>>
>>>> argue about the cause of the war (since I live with this rhetoric on a
>>>> daily basis) but was just thinking that in our professional community,
>>>> these secession documents ought to be our reference point rather than
>>>>
>> stuff
>>
>>>> silly old arm chair historians or journalists write!<SMILE>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Linda Derry
>>>> Site Director
>>>> Old Cahawba
>>>> 719 Tremont St.
>>>> Selma, AL 36701
>>>> ph. 334/875-2529
>>>> fax. 334/877-4253
>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
>>>>
> geoff
>
>>>> carver
>>>> Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2011 12:40 PM
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>> Subject: Re: FW: Today in history
>>>>
>>>> I keep wondering what rights other than the "right to own slaves" was
>>>> covered under "states rights" anyway.
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>
>>>> He contends that the war was always about slavery from the very
>>>>
> beginning
>
>>>> but why after the war concluded, historians, politicians, and the media
>>>> ignored or downplayed that reality, be they northerners or southerners
>>>>
>>>
>
--
Robert L. Schuyler
University of Pennsylvania Museum
3260 South Street
Philadelphia, PA l9l04-6324
Tel: (215) 898-6965
Fax: (215) 898-0657
[log in to unmask]
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