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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Johannes Pilch who wrote (119725)	12/27/2000 3:49:01 PM
From: Johannes Pilch	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769667

Slavery was the immediate cause of the Civil War – Part Seven (final) We cannot with good reason compartmentalize and eliminate the slavery component of the southern cause. It was integral to it, and is today the source of the Confederacy’s moral stain. Consider the American revolt against England. That revolt occurred over a purer independence philosophy than that over which the Southerners fought. Though slavery existed during the Revolution, the slave question simply was not much on the philosophical theater of the mid to late 1770’s. Everyone understood, should the Americans win or lose their struggle against the British, slaves would ever remain slaves. Of course there was a minor proposal of freedom presented to southern slaves by Lord Dunmore in November 1775, but this was certainly not a proposal granted of some moral philosophy. Indeed many loyalist slaves were abandoned by the British, with reports of British soldiers hacking at their arms as they desperately tried to board departing British ships. Essentially, the American colonists aimed to divorce themselves from a ruler bent on exacting his legal authority and will above theirs. And this goal stood separate from other weighty moral concerns such as those related to slavery. Conversely, the Southern revolt was fought for an independence philosophy that expressly relied upon the oppression of others. Southern leaders repeatedly, especially in documents listing the reasons for southern secession, expressed such sentiments as the following, expressed by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens as a defense of slavery: I submit these thoughts to you for your calm reflection. We at the South do think African slavery, as it exists with us, both morally and politically right. This opinion is founded upon the inferiority of the black race. You, however, and perhaps a majority of the North, think it wrong. (Letter to Abraham Lincoln, 12/30, 1860 members.aol.com We may debate the ultimate meaning of the rebel flag, but it is beyond debate that the quest for southern “liberty” was densely bound to the oppression of other people, the continuation of the order that Alexander Stephens contended was natural and the basis of American life. That fact alone is sufficient to give many Americans a sense of disgust born of reason whenever they encounter veneration of the southern defense and its symbols. If Confederate thought, as represented by Stephens, Davis, and a wonderful assortment of other Confederate leaders, is true generally and irrevocably, then it is no wonder that so many blacks despise their country and seek to "drop out" of it. It is no wonder blacks distrust whites. I happen to know of a certainty that Stephens was wrong. Yet it is clear to me that forcing decent Americans to honour his legacy via honouring the Confederacy is a grave sin against humanity. At the very least the Confederacy aimed to counter the doctrine upon which America is built. Rebel leaders aimed to directly repudiate bedrock American philosophy. As an American I can by no means ever hold it in honour. Indeed I must vigourously reject it. The prevailing ideas entertained by [Thomas Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the [U.S.] government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew." Our new [Confederate] government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] (Confederate Vice President, Alexander Stephens – See members.aol.com