The death of a school's tradition?

[therealUT]

If you want to educate yourself beyond elementary facts there are numerous books that delve into the complex issues leading up to Sumpter. "When in the course of Human Events" (mentioned in one of my earlier post) and "Company Aytch, or a Sideshow of the Big Show" is the best narrative ever written by the common foot soldier in the War. It is a fascinating read and explains that the average Southerner was not fighting on behalf of slavery.

Elementary fact number one: there is no 'p' in Sumter.
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Is this the best you got? A spelling error?
I am declaring myself the winner of this debate.:yes:

Here is my dilemma: you state that you have read quite a bit regarding Fort Sumter; yet, you spell Sumter how it sounds (many people pronounce it as if there is a 'p' after the 'm'). From this, I deduce that you have not actually read the accounts you refer to and I lean on two evidential details to reach this conclusion: "sump" is not a commonly used word, therefore, it is probably not simple muscle-memory causing this error; I touch the 'm' by moving my right index finger down from its place on the home-row and I touch the 'p' by moving my right pinkie finger up from its place on the home-row. If you had read the word "Sumter" as much as I would presume you would have to if you read those three books covering the topic, then I cannot imagine that you would spell "Sumpter".

Signed,

Petey Boregard

 

[gasguy98]

Non-expansion of slavery into the territories meant the eventual extinction of slavery, and wealthy southerners knew it. They also knew that if a war was going to have to be fought over it, it needed to be fought sooner rather than later. Ergo Fort Sumter.



Protecting your home is a noble cause. Protecting your home because it started a war to defend its practice of keeping humans as cattle certainly muddies the water a bit.

I agree with you about the expansion of slavery.

A poor farm boy from Mississippi had nothing to do with the plantations. When his neighbors told him his state and family were under invasion he did what anyone with a sense of duty would do, take up arms to defend it.
God, why is this so hard for people to understand? Can anyone think for themselves?
Ever heard the saying "rich man's war...poor man's fight"? That is exactly what this conflict was.

Sam Watkins from Columbia Tennessee wrote the best book about what the AVERAGE soldier in the Southern Armies was fighting for. It is called Company Aytch and it was published piece meal in the local paper in the 1890's as Watkins wrote his memoirs. He was there, not a general or a politician but a farm boy from Tennessee. Before I debate this any further I must insist that those that debate the issue read the book. A much more famous book, The Red Badge of Courage, borrowed greatly from Watkins work.

 

[gasguy98]

Here is my dilemma: you state that you have read quite a bit regarding Fort Sumter; yet, you spell Sumter how it sounds (many people pronounce it as if there is a 'p' after the 'm'). From this, I deduce that you have not actually read the accounts you refer to and I lean on two evidential details to reach this conclusion: "sump" is not a commonly used word, therefore, it is probably not simple muscle-memory causing this error; I touch the 'm' by moving my right index finger down from its place on the home-row and I touch the 'p' by moving my right pinkie finger up from its place on the home-row. If you had read the word "Sumter" as much as I would presume you would have to if you read those three books covering the topic, then I cannot imagine that you would spell "Sumpter".

Signed,

Petey Boregard

I also wrote that I dropped out of school in the 8th grade. Me spelln aint so good.
Maybe you shouldn't mess with a dummy like me. Don't you have like 6 degrees and earn a lot of money? How do you find the time to debate an issue with a guy that spells Sumter like it sounds?

And yes, I picked up on your intentional misspelling of Beauregard. Aren't you clever...

 

[tvolsfan]

A poor farm boy from Mississippi had nothing to do with the plantations. When his neighbors told him his state and family were under invasion he did what anyone with a sense of duty would do, take up arms to defend it.

You realize the invasion was a result of treason?

 

[IPorange]

I agree with you about the expansion of slavery.

A poor farm boy from Mississippi had nothing to do with the plantations. When his neighbors told him his state and family were under invasion he did what anyone with a sense of duty would do, take up arms to defend it.
God, why is this so hard for people to understand? Can anyone think for themselves?
Ever heard the saying "rich man's war...poor man's fight"? That is exactly what this conflict was.

Sam Watkins from Columbia Tennessee wrote the best book about what the AVERAGE soldier in the Southern Armies was fighting for. It is called Company Aytch and it was published piece meal in the local paper in the 1890's as Watkins wrote his memoirs. He was there, not a general or a politician but a farm boy from Tennessee. Before I debate this any further I must insist that those that debate the issue read the book. A much more famous book, The Red Badge of Courage, borrowed greatly from Watkins work.

It's funny how you are the one who keeps acting like anyone who disagrees with you must not be as well-read or educated on the subject, but you get defensive at someone pointing out your obvious errors.

 

[IPorange]

You realize the invasion was a result of treason?

He called it a "foreign army," I don't know if he realizes what country he's in.

 

[gasguy98]

You realize the invasion was a result of treason?

Jesus,

Many states ratified the constitution with clauses specifically written to allow them to leave the union if it no longer served their interest, Virginia was one. Look it up.

Massachusettes was the first state to threaten secession decades before 1861.

 

[tvolsfan]

Jesus,

Many states ratified the constitution with clauses specifically written to allow them to leave the union if it no longer served their interest, Virginia was one. Look it up.

So it wasn't treason?

Massachusettes was the first state to threaten secession decades before 1861.

What's your point?

 

[gasguy98]

He called it a "foreign army," I don't know if he realizes what country he's in.

It WAS a foreign army to the South in 1861.
We are talking about a time before the welfare state like we live in now. One's loyalties were to his state before the faceless and abstract union.

 

[tvolsfan]

I also don't understand so many people are so adamant that the poor soldiers that couldn't afford slaves should be honored for fighting against the union soldiers. Is that not treason, too?

 

[IPorange]

Jesus,

Many states ratified the constitution with clauses specifically written to allow them to leave the union if it no longer served their interest, Virginia was one. Look it up.

Massachusettes was the first state to threaten secession decades before 1861.

show me something in the constitution of the US that allows for a state to leave unilaterally. The federal constitution is supreme over the state constitution, as I'm sure you know.

 

[gasguy98]

It's funny how you are the one who keeps acting like anyone who disagrees with you must not be as well-read or educated on the subject, but you get defensive at someone pointing out your obvious errors.

Where did I write that my detractors are not educated? Only that they have never considered the fact that 1/2 of the country may have had a better reason than protecting "the peculiar institution" of a slave economy to fight a war. Wasn't the average guy better off without competing with slave labor?

Critical analysis...sorely lacking by many people.

 

[gasguy98]

show me something in the constitution of the US that allows for a state to leave unilaterally. The federal constitution is supreme over the state constitution, as I'm sure you know.

Burden of proof is on you.
Show me where is reads they can't?

 

[IPorange]

Where did I write that my detractors are not educated? Only that they have never considered the fact that 1/2 of the country may have had a better reason than protecting "the peculiar institution" of a slave economy to fight a war. Wasn't the average guy better off without competing with slave labor?

Critical analysis...sorely lacking by many people.

The above is immaterial to the point of the thread, which is that celebrating the Confederacy is garbage. You keep trying to shift the argument into something it is not. No one is knocking over Confederate tomb stones, Banning reenactments, or the like. They are protesting glorifying high treason and the defense of human slavery-- which those poor farm boys defending their homes were, perhaps unwittingly, complicit in doing. Doesn't mean anyone is kicking dirt on THEM.

 

[IPorange]

Burden of proof is on you.
Show me where is reads they can't?

Such BS. You can't defend your claim of interpretation, so you say the burden of proof is on the mainstream interpretation.

Well, here is a pretty strong argument:

The Claremont Institute - The Case Against Secession

Andrew Jackson made the same point in his "Proclamation to the People of South Carolina" during the nullification crisis. The Constitution, said Jackson, derives its whole authority from the people, not the States. The States "retained all the power they did not grant. But each State, having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute, jointly with the other States, a single nation, can not, from that period, possess any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of a nation…." And Madison, who presumably knew something about the constitutional theory of the American Founding, was horrified by the idea that the coordinate sovereignty retained by the States, as stated in the Tenth Amendment, implied the power of nullification, interposition, or secession.

Madison, the fool. What did he know about the Constitution of the United States?

 

[gasguy98]

The above is immaterial to the point of the thread, which is that celebrating the Confederacy is garbage. You keep trying to shift the argument into something it is not. No one is knocking over Confederate tomb stones, Banning reenactments, or the like. They are protesting glorifying high treason and the defense of human slavery-- which those poor farm boys defending their homes were, perhaps unwittingly, complicit in doing. Doesn't mean anyone is kicking dirt on THEM.

I guess you are not familiar to the vandalism to Confederate monuments over the years.

And I am defending the men that fought and died in a war they didn't start but were forced to fight. It is a huge part of our history. High treason...half the country commiting high treason, good lord.
I choose to celebrate them, your loss if you don't.

 

[therealUT]

I guess you are not familiar to the vandalism to Confederate monuments over the years.

And I am defending the men that fought and died in a war they didn't start but were forced to fight. It is a huge part of our history. High treason...half the country commiting high treason, good lord.
I choose to celebrate them, your loss if you don't.

What do I lose?

 

[Orange Bison]

Irregardless of which side of this debate you fall on Co. Aytch is a great historical read. One of the very few personal accounts of a Confederate private. Most accounts were written by officers (both sides) or Union privates as many Confederate privates / foot soldiers couldn't read or write. Much like the German private Guy Sajer's account The Forgotten Soldier in regards to the brutal Eastern Front in WWII.

 

[IPorange]

I guess you are not familiar to the vandalism to Confederate monuments over the years.

And I am defending the men that fought and died in a war they didn't start but were forced to fight. It is a huge part of our history. High treason...half the country commiting high treason, good lord.
I choose to celebrate them, your loss if you don't.

If celebrating them means celebrating the ownership of human beings and betraying the Constitution, I most certainly will not. I will remember them and respect the individuals involved, but not the cause.

 

[therealUT]

Irregardless of which side of this debate you fall on Co. Aytch is a great historical read. One of the very few personal accounts of a Confederate private. Most accounts were written by officers (both sides) or Union privates as many Confederate privates / foot soldiers couldn't read or write. Much like the German private Guy Sajer's account The Forgotten Soldier in regards to the brutal Eastern Front in WWII.

So, it is fiction masquerading as historical fact? Sajer's account is loaded with inaccuracies.

 

[gasguy98]

Such BS. You can't defend your claim of interpretation, so you say the burden of proof is on the mainstream interpretation.

Well, here is a pretty strong argument:

The Claremont Institute - The Case Against Secession



Madison, the fool. What did he know about the Constitution of the United States?

Secession proponents also asserted that secession was allowed by the Constitution, and that the compact between the states was not meant to be binding. In fact, they pointed out, Article Two of the Articles of Confederation (the precursor to the Constitution) said that "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled." Advocates saw nothing in the Constitution that contradicted that view.

Proponents also pointed to the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which stated that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Since secession was a power not delegated to the government, they reasoned, then it was a power left to the states. Furthermore, they asserted, there was nothing in the Constitution permitting the federal government to prevent secession.

In addition, proponents argued that it was hypocritical for the North to prevent Southern states from seceding when Northern states had previously tried to do so. They pointed out that Northern states had previously threatened to secede, yet when a Southern state attempted to secede, the Northern position on secession changed drastically.

Alas the problem with the constitution, it is vague in many areas. Perhaps on purpose. At the end of the day there is no specific language for or against the right to seceed. We can interpret it after the fact all we want but it doesn't change the fact that half the country wanted to seperate, not a few people but half the country.

 

[gasguy98]

So, it is fiction masquerading as historical fact? Sajer's account is loaded with inaccuracies.

Good lord, you are googling reviews of the book? This is pathetic. A man of your education and wealth must have some leisure time, just read the damn book. Watkins wrote the book, 30 years after the war ended.

 

[gasguy98]

If celebrating them means celebrating the ownership of human beings and betraying the Constitution, I most certainly will not. I will remember them and respect the individuals involved, but not the cause.

I literally feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall. How can you remember the individuals involved without understanding what they were getting butchered for?

If you want to equate these men with ownership of human beings and treason, that is your right (eventhough the overwhelming majority didn't own a slave). I choose to remember and celebrate them differently.
Maybe I am a glass half full kind of guy and you are a glass half empty guy.

 

[therealUT]

Good lord, you are googling reviews of the book? This is pathetic. A man of your education and wealth must have some leisure time, just read the damn book. Watkins wrote the book, 30 years after the war ended.

No. I own The Forgotten Soldier. It is good fiction.

 

[therealUT]

I literally feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall. How can you remember the individuals involved without understanding what they were getting butchered for?

If you want to equate these men with ownership of human beings and treason, that is your right (eventhough the overwhelming majority didn't own a slave). I choose to remember and celebrate them differently.
Maybe I am a glass half full kind of guy and you are a glass half empty guy.

For a guy who so staunchly wants to remember and celebrate persons who are simply answering the "call to arms", I have to ask the following question:

Where were you on September 12, 2001? Were you down at your local recruiting station?