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~
"I was among those who, from the beginning, predicted war... not because our right to secede and form a government of our own was not indisputable and clearly defined in the spirit of that declaration which rests the right to govern on the consent of the governed, but because I saw that the wickedness of the North would precipitate a war upon us. Those who supposed that the exercise of this right of separation could not produce war have had cause to be convinced that they had credited their recent associates of the North with a moderation, a sagacity, a morality they did not possess. You have been involved in a war waged for the gratification of the lust of power and aggrandizement, for your conquest and your subjugation, with a malignant ferocity and with a disregard and a contempt of the usages of civilization entirely unequaled in history. Such, I have ever warned you, were the characteristics of the northern people.... After what has happened during the last two years, my only wonder is that we consented to live for so long a time in association with such miscreants and have loved so much a government rotten to the core. Were it ever to be proposed again to enter into a Union with such a people, I could no more consent to do it than to trust myself in a den of thieves.... There is indeed a difference between the two peoples. Let no man hug the delusion that there can be renewed association between them."
-- President Jefferson Davis, December 1862
Monk has finally resumed Shelby Foote's narrative with his second volume, The Civil War: Fredericksburg to Meridian. The war is closing out its second year, and President Davis has gone out on a speaking tour in order to boost the morale of the South as the war drags on and on. It is always interesting to hear the high moral tone of the South, as they fight to defend slavery.
This bitterness between the sections seems rather fitting soon after our elections, with the heightening of the differences between our Red and Blue states, with the discourse being filled with its own invective and bitterness.
One will quote one more significat piece, illustrating that people aren't so different deep down after all, even if the murderousness is still there:
"...the military bands of both armies began to play their respecitve favorite tunes. Carrying sweet and clear on the windless wintry air, the music of any one band was about as audible on one side of the line as on the other, and the concert thus became something of a contest, a musical bombardment. 'Dixie' answered the taunting 'Yankee Doodle'; 'Hail Columbia' followed 'The Bonnie Blue Flag.' Finally, though, one group of musicians began to play the familiar 'Home Sweet Home,' and one by one the others took it up, until at last all the bands of both armies were playing the song. Soldiers on both sides of the battle line bagan to sing the words, swelling the chorus east and west, North and South. As it died away on the final line - 'There's no-o place like home' - the words caught in the throats of men, who, bluecoat and butternut alike, would be killing each other tomorrow in what already gave promise of being one of the bloodiest battles in that fratricidal war."
.
"I was among those who, from the beginning, predicted war... not because our right to secede and form a government of our own was not indisputable and clearly defined in the spirit of that declaration which rests the right to govern on the consent of the governed, but because I saw that the wickedness of the North would precipitate a war upon us. Those who supposed that the exercise of this right of separation could not produce war have had cause to be convinced that they had credited their recent associates of the North with a moderation, a sagacity, a morality they did not possess. You have been involved in a war waged for the gratification of the lust of power and aggrandizement, for your conquest and your subjugation, with a malignant ferocity and with a disregard and a contempt of the usages of civilization entirely unequaled in history. Such, I have ever warned you, were the characteristics of the northern people.... After what has happened during the last two years, my only wonder is that we consented to live for so long a time in association with such miscreants and have loved so much a government rotten to the core. Were it ever to be proposed again to enter into a Union with such a people, I could no more consent to do it than to trust myself in a den of thieves.... There is indeed a difference between the two peoples. Let no man hug the delusion that there can be renewed association between them."
-- President Jefferson Davis, December 1862
Monk has finally resumed Shelby Foote's narrative with his second volume, The Civil War: Fredericksburg to Meridian. The war is closing out its second year, and President Davis has gone out on a speaking tour in order to boost the morale of the South as the war drags on and on. It is always interesting to hear the high moral tone of the South, as they fight to defend slavery.
This bitterness between the sections seems rather fitting soon after our elections, with the heightening of the differences between our Red and Blue states, with the discourse being filled with its own invective and bitterness.
One will quote one more significat piece, illustrating that people aren't so different deep down after all, even if the murderousness is still there:
"...the military bands of both armies began to play their respecitve favorite tunes. Carrying sweet and clear on the windless wintry air, the music of any one band was about as audible on one side of the line as on the other, and the concert thus became something of a contest, a musical bombardment. 'Dixie' answered the taunting 'Yankee Doodle'; 'Hail Columbia' followed 'The Bonnie Blue Flag.' Finally, though, one group of musicians began to play the familiar 'Home Sweet Home,' and one by one the others took it up, until at last all the bands of both armies were playing the song. Soldiers on both sides of the battle line bagan to sing the words, swelling the chorus east and west, North and South. As it died away on the final line - 'There's no-o place like home' - the words caught in the throats of men, who, bluecoat and butternut alike, would be killing each other tomorrow in what already gave promise of being one of the bloodiest battles in that fratricidal war."
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 03:54 pm (UTC)From:lets fight.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 05:04 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 05:33 pm (UTC)From:put your **** up
:-x
no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 08:36 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 07:04 am (UTC)From:what not?
no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 08:19 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 08:39 am (UTC)From:My journal is about the love!
♥
no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 09:32 am (UTC)From:if you were reading my user info you'd also know i work at planned parenthood
and talk about the penis everyday
so whether my age is young..I am 16...you are also only 21...only a year older than my own sister and younger than most of my friends... and your desire to prove your age through reminding others of how you are older than them proves mentally you are still in high school. and that "sweets" is so sad.
"sweets", you are catty and I hope you get over whatever it is in your big girl 21 year old mind that is making you take time out of your day to attempt to belittle others
no subject
Date: 2004-11-14 11:11 am (UTC)From:Next time, learn to handle a joke. That's what the ;) was all about, or do I need to explain that to you as well?
no subject
Date: 2004-11-14 05:28 pm (UTC)From:chill
either way it sounded bitchy and your other comments were still just as condescending.
sorry didn't see the ";)" why couldnt you have said that when I first got pissed anyway?
no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 08:39 am (UTC)From:My journal is about the love!
♥
no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 09:32 am (UTC)From:<33 love
no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 04:24 pm (UTC)From:One sees the similarity in the depth of difference over principle - however much one hates the sound of people defending slavery. But on the very limited evidence of those memes the other day, is it the case that the Democratic party has narrowed itself to the point that many of its natural allies and members have left or disassociated themselves (Liebermann?) because the ruling faction is too doctrinaire to accommodate them? That is in itself not always a bad thing - but I would be interested to know.
Meanwhile Jacques Chirac seems to be left pointing his marvelous nose in the air alone, as the rest of Europe seems to have realised that the USA has had an election, and has rightfully elected someone marginally more popular than someone else, as is often the case in this country as well. Except due to the three party system we have here, any party getting 53% backing would be cause for astonishment. I'm not sure it has happened since the Second World War, and before that the situation was so different that it is not really to be compared.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 05:13 pm (UTC)From:I like it when you effectively answer for me. Before the Civil War, the question is a mere abstraction. And Might makes Right.
When it comes to the social issues, I'm with those who say it's better to be right than Red - better to be post-Enlightenment rather than pre-Enlightenment. I believe the Democrats have long been hurting on national security issues going back to the Cold War - tending to be too idealistic and accommodating (appeasing). This could've been the critical difference in the election, though the 'values' crowd of the Religious Right have an opportunity to make much of the Republican stranglehold on power.
As for Chirac and the French, what's new? After the American revolution, it's been a quirky and querulous relationship always. I don't think we're too worried about them.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 06:31 pm (UTC)From:It did seem that this was the case, but of course I don't know - I am merely an interested observer with a lack of facts.
If Lincoln fought the war on the basis that the Union was indivisible, then, that was his opinion, rather than a constitutional fact? But the casual reader of history believes that Lincoln led a war to free slaves. What, I wonder, did he realy fight it for, and what did he feel it was politically possible to fight it for? Did he believe both, and give himself one answer and the country another, each equally valid? I wonder. We don't get US history here (we get little enough of our own these days either).
Disgust with the French (as a political power rather than individual French people) is of course our own particular 'pleasure'; but they do make such excellent scapegoats, don't they.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 08:34 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 11:40 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 08:55 pm (UTC)From:I think Lincoln would've been content to leave slavery alone in the south where it existed, but he didn't want the institution expanded westward as the nation grew, which was the source of the friction that led the sectional differences to become all out war. As you may know, Lincoln's ideal would've been to send the slaves to Africa, which was a program carried out to some extent.
In the end, defeating the South and maintaining the Union, he does end slavery. That counts.
If you should be interested, an excellent single-volume work on the Civil War is James M. McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era."
for lack of a better comment
Date: 2004-11-12 08:32 pm (UTC)From:Re: for lack of a better comment
Date: 2004-11-12 08:44 pm (UTC)From:Re: for lack of a better comment
Date: 2004-11-12 08:59 pm (UTC)From:Re: for lack of a better comment
Date: 2004-11-12 09:07 pm (UTC)From: