Questions about the Civil War?????

Question

I spent most of my years in Richmond Virginia. Richmond is a GRAND LOVER of confederate icons. We have statues of Robert E. Lee that is displayed promantely on the Blvd. (I won't even get into all of that)

HERE IS MY QUESTION: Why do SO MANY AMERICANS idolize the confederacy? I know that many peoples forefathers fought in that war, but mine did as well and I do not idolize them. One very important reason is b/c 75% of my family tree were the African slaves who were crippled & made to live lower than dogs under the cruel system of slavery. (The culture of slavery was the worst form of terrorism that exists)

FOLLOW UP QUESTIONS
1. Why wasn't Jeff Davis and the confed. soldiers tried for treason and put to death at the end of the war?\
2. Why wasn't the reconstruction plan followed thru? The Confed. states were restored to their with loyal gov. but the south found a new way slave Africans thru Jim Crow Laws.
3. What is it about the Confederacy that causes so much idolization?

Answer 1

the first question is complex, and there is no one true answer that fits the entire question. some idolize the Confederacy out of a form of racism that is easier to express in a socially acceptable way by having Confederate bumper stickers, etc. some are paying homage to their ancestors, and some are bemoaning a break with the faith of the Constitution. As an anciliary point on this, if you study the culture of the antebellum South, you will find that slaves were treated better than free sharecroppers who worked the same land.

to the follow up questions:

1) it wasn't practical nor would it have been just.
2) there was no concept of blacks being equal anywhere in the US. encoded laws like the Jim Crow Laws weren't in place in the North primarily because there were so few blacks there until after WW II. but there was real segregation, look at Chicago to this day, or NYC into the 1970s. the bussing battles in Boston were just as vicious as the battles 20 years earlier to integrate public institutions in the south.
3) see ? 1.

Answer 2

The Southern Confederacy is seen by some as the ultimate sign of American Individualism. The True America power to the States and little power to the central government. I say that the Confederacy shows what happens when you have too much power with the States and a weak Central Government. The tail ended up wagging the dog.

Jeff Davis and the Confed. soldiers were not charged with treason because of two things. Robert E Lee and Abraham Lincoln. As a term of capitulation for the Army of Northern Virgina Grant paroled every soldier and sent them home When Marse Robert took the oath of allegiance to the US other Confederate soldiers did the same. As for Jeff Davis the North really didn't care about him. In 1864 Abraham Lincoln meet with his war leaders, Gen.s Grant and Sherman and Admiral Porter, about how the post war country would be set up Lincoln wish was to "let them down easy" and when asked about Davis he said " I'm of the mind of the man who took a temperance oath and was offered a drink of lemonade by a Friend to whom the man said is some of that whiskey was to get into this glass without my knowing it I would not mind." or let him escape into exile.

As for Reconstruction the nation was devastated by the war and the people just wanted to disband the army and get on with life. The war was not really about Slavery but about presevation of the Union even the Abolitionist's could not keep that cause alive because ther was no plan as to what to do after the slaves were freed. So the south just began to go back to the way that things had been before the war the ****** became what they had always been second class citizens with no one to speak for them in the government. Also the Federal Courts stating that women had no rights to vote under the 14th Amendment opened the door for the South to pass the Jim Crow Laws.


As I said in the begining the South is seen as the one thing americans love so much the underdog. In all my years of studing the war I have never found a time when I can see how the South could have won the Civil War It was much weaker than the North and the North was able to keep sending armies into the South and the SOuth was unable to rebuild it own Armies. All colleges held courses during the Civil War in the North and Harvard and Princeton had a boat race in 1864 in the South all colleges were closed all young men were expected to be fighting in the war, The South is the lost cause that somepeople look at an see as being very American.

I hope that this gave you some answers to your questions, Alsdo you should see some Northern cities New York, Washington, Philadelphia and Chicago have their share of Civl War Monuments too.

Answer 3

Before lincoln was assassinated he felt that the conderates weren't a seperate union, they were just rebels. During the end of war he realized that to get the South he must compromise. When booth killed lincoln, the south realized how horrible it accuatly was because Lincolns vision of reconstruction also died with him. Davis and the other confederate soldiers were not tried or treason because they surendered but suffered in a different way, the pain of reconstruction destroyed them and the spirit of the South. Lee had a great respect for Grant at the end of the war, and vice versa. The idolization of the confederacy, is possible the fact of a longing for a past culture destroyed by reconstruction. Im not saying the south didnt do wrong and didn't deserve to be punished, yet they were abused, and now still a little resentful.

Answer 4

1. Most Confederates were US citizens and some not all took the Oath of Allegiance. Jefferson Davis was captured in 1865, he was held in a federal prison for two years, then released as the treason charges against him were dropped.

2. Both former slaves and whites returned to sharecropping read Barn burning by Faulkner. The Confederate States was over in 1865. Slavery goes on today to the tune of 27 million. Where there is money to be made slavery will continue.

3. I don't know about idolizing but I have 7 ancestors who fought for the Confederacy and the real story is these soldiers fought so hard with so little. Some of them walked home with no shoes. As far as slavery is concerned my ancestors owned no slaves.

I have a question for you then. If slavery continues today to the tune of 27 Million in India, Brazil, Africa and the USA why are folks so fixated on the American slavery that existed 140 years ago and was supposedly ended?

PS Davis never escaped to Mexico he died at his home in Mississippi. I have read about his mother and she raised a fine Constitutionalist.
Another note is you characters can flag this post as much as you want I can back all my info with facts.

Answer 5

For question 1, Lincoln what the country to recover and come together as fast as it can.
By putting the Confederacy leader ship and soldier on trial would just put a bigger rip between the North and the South. #3 I guess it feeling rebellion make some people feel good so icons confederate. # 2 I don't know to much about it so wouldn't reply on it.

Answer 6

1. Jefferson Davis wasn't tried for treason because the United States government knew full well that the states who had seceded from the Union had full authority to do so under the United States Constitution. Indeed, Virginia only signed the Constitution with the proviso that any state who subsequently wished to do so could secede. Not long after the Louisiana Purchase, the New England states under John Quincy Adams threated to secede when the new states coming into the Union added to the political power of the South. Ergo, as Lincoln had waged war against the Confederacy on the pretense of it being 'unconstitutional' for any state to secede, the U.S. government could not afford to try Davis as a traitor as the judges trying him would have had to find that he was, in fact, no such thing and Lincoln's rationale for waging war against the South would have been exposed as fraudulent.

2. The former slaves - or freedmen - were abandoned by the national government when the South chose to follow a path of separatism delineated by the myth of the 'Lost Cause'. Had the South energetically attempted to regain its place in the Union, it would have been politically necessary for the Republicans and their Democrat allies to foster ***** voting, especially in the deep South where the number of blacks vs. whites was such that black votes could have carried some states for the Republicans and/or 'Northern Democrats'. However, once it was obvious that the South was going to pursue a separatist path, it was effectively marginalized as a political power in the nation and there was no more need to seek the support of the freedmen. Hence, the South was left to 'seek its own salvation' by the rest of the Union and the newly freed ***** was effectively abandoned to his fate.

You must remember that the North was no bastion of egalitarianism and tolerance no matter what the 'history books' say. Northern whites were every bit as 'bigoted' as Southern whites - indeed, more so because states like Illinois and Ohio had passed ordinances prior to the War preventing the migration of Negroes into those territories. If you read the statements made by Northerners, they were every bit as 'anti-black' as anything said by the most virulent 'slaver' in the South. Even the abolitionists in the North did not want the ***** in his state but he wished him to either remain in the South or, as Lincoln wished, have him sent back to Africa or to colonies that were to be established in the West Indies. Indeed, the Union government hired a New York firm to seek out a suitable Caribbean Island upon which to found such a colony for newly freed slaves, effectively removing them from the United States.

Despite the hysteria about slavery, the Southern states fought more for individual and states rights against an ever growing and more powerful federal government which Southerners believed would eventually take away their freedoms. Not all Southerners wanted to secede, but once the Union attacked their homes, they had no choice but to fight or become colonies under a government ruled by the old Northeast power structure. Of course, in the end, that is what happened. During the war, the goal was changed from a forcible reunion (sort of a shot-gun wedding) to an actual reformation of the South, it's culture and it's heritage by virtue of the destruction of its prior civilization during the war and the buying up of its lands and industries by Northerners during 'reconstruction'. What happened after the War of Secession was not 'reconstruction' and still less was it 'reunion' or 'reconciliation', but COLONIZATION and many Southerners hold to that opinion to this day.

3. Why is the Confederacy idolized? Because it is an American trait to 'root for the underdog' and certainly, eleven states with relatively small populations and no heavy industry to speak of or vast infrastructure or navy or standing army or money, armed only with courage, idealism and pride held at bay a power far greater than itself for four long, bloody years. Most people think that such ideals, courage and self-sacrifice deserve a bit of idolization in an era of apathy, selfishness and greed. I know that I do.

Answer 7

I think the Confederacy was politically always divided but in military terms they were quite brilliant.

They had a drive and determination that was lacking in the North. Their top layer of Generals was bordering on genius level. Nathan Bedford Forrest was especially feared for this reason.

Tragically they lacked someone with the flair of Abraham Lincoln to keep the political area together.

Answer 8

They idolize it because some of them fought for a gallant cause.
1:Do you really want to put to death hundreds of thousands of people?
3: The cause. Some fought for their states rights.They were very gallant and they probably would have won the war if they hadnt screwed up in July of 1863.

I dont idolize them but these are just some reasons someone might.

Answer 9

I admire the courage, valor and military strategies of the confederates. I despise the racism, slavery and treatment of Union prisoners at Andersonville. I admire Chamberlain's bayonet charge on Little Round Top and idolize those that fell on the slopes of Cemetery Ridge....

Answer 10

The South stood up for freedom against the tyranny of Federal Rule.

Same thing happened in 1776, but that time the underdog won.

The South's message was one we should all read today. I don't think it will be long until Federal rule will becomes so restrictive that our freedoms will be a thing of the past. They are stripping it away in the name of "security." How long until good Americans rebel against such oppressive rule?



-K