The Confederate Constitution and Slavery. It was enshrined in the document.

[neverforget]

Here it is and it's ugly.
http://www.law.ou.edu/ushistory/csaconstitution/article.i.shtml

Article I

Section IX

1. The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

2. Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy.

4. No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.

Article IV

Section II

1. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.

3. No slave or other person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the Confederate States, under the laws thereof, escaping or lawfully carried into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such slave belongs; or to whom such service or labor may be due.

Section III

3. The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.

[JVS]

1. Flame me if you must, but it is my informed opinion that the CSA was a very bad thing.

[sudopod]

11. WHY DO YOU HATE AMERIC....

oh, wait, never mind! It's good. :D

[B Calm]

2. This should bring out a few Confederate Flag Waving Freepers!

[neverforget]

3. They're around here

[Taverner]

6. Yes indeed

Someone here even tried to convince me that it was really about cotton rights :eyes:

[MellowDem]

42. Was it a metaltarian?

I overheard one at the Olive Garden. Apparantly they don't eat any organic matter at all because they consider it immoral. Hence why they were at Olive Garden. Those metaltarians, always raving about cotton rights. Never hear them get on about the thistles, because really, who likes thistles?

[Recursion]

4. How does this keep coming up?

I feel like growing up in Mississippi in the 80s we were more honest about this than the national sentiment now (then again I went to a majority-African American public school; the kids in the all-white private school probably got the "states rights" BS).

[Taverner]

5. Antebellum Apologists

They think there is something right and honorable in owning another human being

And there's tons of them here

[ngant17]

7. Article I

Section IX, 1. The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country...

Unless I'm reading this wrong, that would suggest to me that the Old South was at least trying to put government controls on the slave trade, perhaps to reduce it or eliminate it eventually, by prohibiting the introduction of new slaves coming from Africa or outside the CSA/USA.

Or maybe they were afraid of too large a Negro population, thus creating larger insurrections against this inhumane institution.

OTOH black soldiers in the CSA estimates run anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000.

[JVS]

9. Protective barrier for the domestic slave industry.

[K8-EEE]

10. It's true, they were trying to REGULATE and CONTROL slavery

But certainly not end it....in fact they wanted to expand it to new territories.

[mudplanet]

16. It was cheaper to import new slaves than to increase your "stock" through

"breeding" so it was a move to protect their "property rights" and "property values"

[Synicus Maximus]

41. The importation or export of slaves was banned

on 1 January 1808;<201> but not the internal slave trade.

[eallen]

23. A sop. The slave trade had been banned internationally & CSA was looking for British support.

[sofa king]

30. The trade had become mostly internal by 1860.

In an unusual show of solidarity between neutrals in a war-wracked time, both the U.S. and the U.K. passed slave trade prohibition acts in March, 1807.

Unfortunately for the United States, that actually created a huge and highly valuable slave breeding and trade operation within the country, which helped to further institutionalize the "peculiar institution."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_breeding_in_the_United_States

This is not my area of expertise, but I've seen numerous articles in recent years which suggest that Virginia in particular had an enormous breeding operation completely out of proportion to the labor pool.

However, what is within my area of expertise is the order of battle of Stonewall Jackson's army during the Valley Campaign of 1862, on which I teach an adult education class. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/19/AR2010101907974.html">In October there was a dust-up over a fourth-grade textbook which claimed Jackson had two battalions of black soldiers in his command.

What I found (by coincidence at virtually the same time, because I was teaching my class on the subject that very week) was that a guy named Claiborne R. Mason, "The Napoleon of the Railroad," offered 200-300 slaves to the Confederate government through military channels which meant the offer must have crossed Jackson's desk. A few months later, Jackson absorbed Edward Johnson's command into his own, inheriting a black "labor battalion" under Mason's command, also around 200-300 strong.

It's shooting fish in a barrel to guess that the "labor battalion" and the "slaves" offered up by Mason are one and the same.

That's not to say that Mason's "black pioneers," as they were apparently styled, were not essential to the success of Jackson in the Valley Campaign. In one night they perfected the design and implementation of a so-called "wagon bridge" to cross the rain-swollen rivers of the Upper Shenandoah, and built such bridges on at least two occasions, most importantly on the night between the battles of Cross Keys and Port Republic. That one rickety wagon bridge across the South River was the key to Jackson's ultimate success in the campaign.

But unfortunately for southern apologists, as skilled and successful as Mason's pioneers were, they were not soldiers and they probably weren't even volunteers--except in the sense that they were "volunteered" by their owner.

[neverforget]

31. Do you have anything to back up those numbers?

I found numbers for black soldiers in the Union Army, but nothing for the Confederacy.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2967.html
By the end of the war more than 186,000 black soldiers had joined the Union army; 93,000 from the Confederate states, 40,000 from the border slave states, and 53,000 from the free states.

[JVS]

34. The wikipedia article about black confederates paints a picture devoid of heroics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_African_Americans_in_the_American_Civil_War#Confederate_States_Army

Evidently being black in the CSA army involved a lot of hauling and digging for the white combatants. Actual combat roles were barred to slaves and black freemen alike.

[neverforget]

36. I realize that but I keep hearing about blacks serving a combat role in the Confederate

Army yet I never get a link to anything.

[JVS]

38. I'm going to have to assume that such accounts are bullshit. The wikipedia undergoes review and...

has scholarly sources.

Other places look to be CSA apologists.

[neverforget]

39. I agree. If it was true that they fought for the Confederacy, then there would be

after action reports on the Union side about encountering black Confederate soldiers.

[ngant17]

44. the number of negroes in the Confederate army

Some claim the numbers are in the thousands but I'm thinking those are embellishments, it's more likely in the hundreds.

OTOH: Dr. Lewis Steiner, Chief Inspector of the United States Sanitary Commission, observed General Stonewall Jackson’s occupation of Frederick, Maryland, in 1862. He wrote:

"Over 3,000 Negroes must be included in this number . These were clad in all kinds of uniforms, not only in cast-off or captured United States uniforms, but in coats with Southern buttons, State buttons, etc. Most of the Negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabers, bowie knives, dirks, etc. … and were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederate Army" (in Barrow, et al., 2001).

Report of Frederick Douglass:

“There are at the present moment many Colored men in the Confederate Army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but real soldiers, having musket on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down any loyal troops and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government and build up that of the rebels” (In Williams “On Black Confederates”).

Probably the largest historical record of enlisted blacks in the Confederacy were in the Louisiana Native Guards, aka the Corps du Afrique. On Nov. 23, 1861 made their debut with 33 black officers and 731 black enlisted men. These were probably creoles, lighter-complexioned blacks ("hommes de couleur libre") with civil rights slightly above that of the common Negro of the day.

[bullwinkle428]

50. A high school textbook author made the same claim about black

confederate soldiers, and when questioned on her source, stated "The Internet"!

This was actually discussed on tonight's edition of "The Rachel Maddow Show".

[K8-EEE]

8. Also that Constitution was "ordained by God" nt

[jody]

12. Good points all but spread the blame because ship owners and speculators from New England & England

became obscenely wealthy by buying African captives, carrying them to America, and selling the few survivors to plantation owners.

[mudplanet]

17. read Brown University

[jody]

19. Sorry but I don't understand. Do you have a link? n/t

[mudplanet]

20. Brown's endowment is from the slave trade, some ot the most

successful and prolific slave traders were ship owners out of Providence.

[jody]

24. I knew that. I thought you had something new that I had not read. Thanks. n/t

[TexasObserver]

13. It was a fun loving group that only wanted economic parity!

The War of Northern Aggression stopped their otherwise benign effort at self rule.

I read that somewhere.

[quickesst]

14. This thread embodies the (my theory)..

....that the better than thou, and the ugly part of the south, and it's history do not want the Civil War to ever end. Instead of working toward bridging the gap of the past, it seems egos, "I'm better than you because I'm not from the south", and ignorance on both sides are working overtime to keep the controversey going. I'm from the south, born and mostly raised, and believe it or not, I'm a Democrat/progressive. I know it offends some here, but I won't let you stop me from being who I am. I'm not better than you, and I'm not worse than you, but I get goddamned tired of being covered by the broad blanket the "holier than thou" like to cast. Thanks.
quickesst

[TexasObserver]

15. If you'd told me 40 years ago, I'd still be hearing "The War of Northern Aggression" meme ...

I would not have believed it.

Of course, I didn't think we would stupid enough to get in another Vietnam, either.

[JVS]

18. If you had told me that I'd hear that meme on DU of all places, I'd have laughed.

[neverforget]

21. I posted this not as an affront to the South but to those that have said that

slavery was not a cause of the war and those that defend the Confederacy.

[oneshooter]

35. According to the Diaries of my G-Grandfather and his 5 brothers

They were from Mississippi and joined the Army to fight...................For Mississippi. They were not slave owners, they were loggers, sawmill workers, and small business men. They joined the Army to fight at Vicksburg, because the Yankees were there. They were patriots and Sons of Mississippi who did not own slaves.
Two were captured and spent 3 years in a POW camp, the other three were mustered out in late 1864, having been wounded in battle.

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[neverforget]

37. My great, great grandfather fought at Vicksburg with the 21st Iowa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Iowa_Volunteer_Infantry_Regiment

I'm sure for the average Confederate it was about what you said because the vast majority of people in the South didn't own slaves.

[hootinholler]

22. Damn I'm late for the show

:popcorn:

-Hoot

[Rage for Order]

25. I love the South. n/t

[cordelia]

26. Flamebait

[JVS]

27. Why would anyone flame the OP?

[neverforget]

29. How is this historical document flamebait? A war was fought over it.

[Kingofalldems]

28. It is still being fought

[struggle4progress]

32. Slavery? Wait ... what? I thought the civil war was about minty julips and cotillion balls and

gracious southern living and southern belles having fits of the vapors when their gallant menfolk cussed and happy barefoot people hoeing the fields while they sang about old man river and y'know ... stuff like that

[hootinholler]

33. Funny that

My understanding of the vapors is it's a farting fit.

-Hoot

[Scruffy1]

40. Excerpt from one of Lee's slaves statement

General Lee was required to free the slaves of his in-laws the in the will of his father-in-law, but instead stalled to get free labor. Wesley Norris and his sister fled and were recaptured in 1859. He considered himself a free man by the terms of the will.

His own account. "General Lee demanded the reason we ran away; we frankly told him we considered ourselves free; he then told us he would teach us a lesson we would never forget;he then ordered us to the barn, where in his presence, were firmly tied to posts by Mr. Gwin, our overseer, who was ordered by General Lee to strip us to the waist and give us fifty lashes each, except my sister who received only twenty." The overseer refused so Lee called in the county constable, Dick Williams. "Who gave us the number of lashes ordered; General Lee stood by and enjoined Williams to "lay it on well"...."General Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine."

Wesley Norris escaped in 1863 after having been sent too work in Alabama and back to Virginia.

Any apologists for these criminals are just assholes. There still all over the country and even here on DU. The Confederacy has many defenders but no defense.

This incident has been well researched and even the evil traitor Lee did not refute it.

[Ilsa]

43. So much for secession being all about states' rights.

To me, this clearly defines slavery as a Confederate national issue.

[neverforget]

45. The economics of free slave labor....

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

46. Bingo time!

[neverforget]

48. You finished it! Good job!

[Iggo]

49. That's a Bingo card? I thought it was Creative's Greatest Hits. (n/t)

[bullwinkle428]

51. New monitor, please!!! I just...

:spray: :spray: :spray:

[neverforget]

52. The dude lost while fighting the Lost Cause.

[demwing]

47. I need to take a stand here, damn it!

I am against slavery.

There, I said it.

Flame on...
















































Do I really need to use the :sarcasm: tag? Wait, who am I kidding? This is the Internets...Of COURSE I do. The real question now is about what, exactly, I am being sarcastic?