Rise And Fall

[CynanMachae]

"The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government" - Jefferson Davis

I dont know everyones position on the [American] Civil War, but this book will change your mind, completly. If you side with the North, you will change. If you side with the South, you will change your view on slavery.

[calixar]

No, I wouldn't.

Everyone was wrong at some point in that war. It only happened because both sides were too full of themselves.

[CynanMachae]

Calixar said:

No, I wouldn't.

Everyone was wrong at some point in that war. It only happened because both sides were too full of themselves.

Neither side was willing to give up, were they?

[dinadan]

No, they weren't--and in some ways, both lost. The South suffered the regression that Reconstruction under an occupation force caused. The North had to deal with an influx of people moving from the South to the North to find work.

Isn't it interesting, too, that most of the histories written about the Civil War come from the Southerners--perhaps the first time in history that history was not written by the victors (at least, the victors of the armed conflict).

[Inkling]

CynanMachae said:

I dont know everyones position on the [American] Civil War, but this book will change your mind, completly. If you side with the North, you will change. If you side with the South, you will change your view on slavery.

Mmmm...I like reading about different views regarding the Civil War. For the longest time I was told that North=Good, South= Bad...until a year or so ago when I read about it from a different persepective. That tought me a lesson I won't soon forget...

[dinadan]

Well, I suppose growing up in the South makes you start out with a different opinion of the war...but it was about so much more than slavery. In fact, slavery didn't even become the focus until 1863...and it's unfortunate that the South didn't take Stonewall Jackson's advice and offer freedom to all southern slaves who would fight for the Confederacy--I mean, unfortunate for the South, that is.

What really amazes me is how so many Northerners think that we're all (I mean Southerners) still backwater, racist, good-for-nothing blights on the country. I mean, it's like they don't even realize that the reason the South was so far behind development of the North is because the Union armies torched all the major urban centers, and then treated the South like a colony for the next...oh, I don't know, in some ways they still are (if you don't believe me, U.S. Steel, a Pennsylvania based company, has been responsible more than 50% of the economic sector in Birmingham for over a century).

I'm not saying that there aren't backwater bigots still in the South, but the North needs to learn that antagonizing and namecalling ("stupid morons in red states") just serves to piss those kind of people off--and a pissed off somebody won't listen to your wonderfully eloquent reasoning.

I didn't mean to turn this into a rant, but it just amazes me how, still, 140 years later there are still these HUGE misconceptions about (and, maybe, prejudices against) Southerners.