ROMAN CHRISTENDOM: War between the States

The Yankee myth of "manifest destiny" led to oceans of Native American and Spanish blood

It is becoming a familiar theme: the American wide-eyed innocent who does not know the history of his own country and cannot understand it when he hears it for the first time.

I said, in relation to Stonewall Jackson's pre-battle address in the film "Gods and Generals" in the previous post, that "I don't agree with the example of the "second war of independence" since the first one was not a just war".

Mr Dumb-ass, Innocent Yankee replied to me (see combox) with all the usual completely ill-instructed, woefully ignorant nonsense and propaganda that the world has become accustomed to from a certain type of chauvinistic Yank.

Mr Innocent Yankee asks:

"Why was the first one not a just war? The states broke away from the British crown because the British crown was obstinate in its refusal to recognise their ancient rights as freeborn Englishmen. It was plenty just."

"Plenty just" is not, of course, English but it is is an indication of this guy's understanding of history and morality.

I need only repeat the story of the gentleman who met Lincoln and was chaffed by him for not supporting the war against the South.

"Well, Mr President", he said, "If secession be a valid principle then I say 'long live the South' but if it be a false principle then I say 'God save King George' ".

Lincoln could not, of course, answer since the gentleman had an unassailable point.

How could the Union refuse the right to secede from the Union if they themselves believed it was right to secede from Britain? If it was not, as a matter of principle, right, then they certainly could argue no ground for secession from the British Crown.

Mr Dumb-bunny Yank thinks Britain refused Americans their rights as "free-born Englishmen".

That is pure poppycock.

King George and the English government did no such thing. On the contrary, they gave the Colonists too much leeway. The Boston Tea Party was organised by those rebels who stood to lose fat profits if foreign competition was allowed to bring tea into America. So they staged the Boston tea party and pretended it was all about civil rights.

The Founding Fathers of the USA were largely Unitarians and Deists, not Christians, and they believed in slavery, racism and their own arrogantly racist so-called "manifest destiny".

They were also virulent anti-Catholic bigots.

Jefferson even had children by his black slaves and then enslaved his own half-caste children!

Yet, Mr Dumb-bunny Yankee thinks that slavery was only an issue in the South.

More Poppycock.

Lincoln himself believed the black race to be intrinsically inferior, was not opposed to slavery and, at one point, considered "solving" the issue by forcibly expelling all blacks to Liberia.

Our ill-instructed Yank didn't know any of that, did he?

He just believes the propaganda he got fed at school.

Our dummy Yank also thinks that the War was about the "equality of man".

How equal does he think the industrial poor of America were with the immensely rich fats cats of America who lived off their labour? This came about AFTER the War far more than before.

If revolution is right then why should not any group of people who feel hard done by simply overthrow the legal and constitutional government?

Well, Mr Dumb-bunny?

What's the answer?

If the Muslims of America feel hard done by does that mean they can overthrow the US government?

According to your view of revolution - apparently yes.

The fact is that your position is completely selfish, illogical and chauvinistic and all too typical of quite a lot of Americanist Yankees who do not bother to think or question propaganda but simply swallow it whole and undiluted.

You are so ill-instructed in your own history that you think that blacks in the South fought for the South simply for the right to own other black slaves. Wrong again! The vast majority of blacks who fought for the South were slaves themselves.

The industrial slaves of Capitalism which came after the Union victory do not earn Mr Dumb bunny's sympathy. Why not? Well, because he, himself, has profited from that Capitalist exploitation of the poor so... that makes it OK, then!

See how that works, folks?

Yep - there really are few things quite as dumb, blind and selfish as an Americanist Yankee bigot. It tends to reflect poorly upon an otherwise great nation.

Sad, really.

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Lieutenant-General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was one of the greatest of Confederate generals.

His death was a body blow to the Confederate cause. He did not favour slavery and ran a Sunday school for black children when he was younger.

Here is a clip from the film Gods and Generals which is a fine example of motivation by a general of his troops.

I don't agree with the example of the "second war of independence" since the first one was not a just war.

However, the War between the States was a war against centralisation and the abolition of the rights of the States and therefore had much more justice about it.

Although sensible politicians on both sides should have done their best to prevent it, regrettably the 19th century was an age when absurd revolutionary ideas held sway causing wars all over the civilised world and leading to the unnecessary deaths of all too many.

The War between the States was not primarily about slavery, contrary to Yankee propaganda. If it were, then why did so many blacks fight for, and support, the South. Were they all just "Uncle Toms"? To say so is simply to insult them and is, already, a form of racism.

It is the case that many black Americans fought for the South and were proud to do so.

Slavery would eventually have died out but it was already being replaced by the modern form of slavery - that of the industrial workers of the machine age who were already being enslaved in dark mills and factories by the plutocrat Yankees of the North whose primary interest was in enriching themselves regardless of the rights of others.

Was that really "progress"? Was this "justice"? Or was it just hypocrisy?

The music in this film is a bit too schamltzy but the speech is good:

Jackson was a zealous Presbyterian and had some flaws but overall he is an impressive personality, especially as he appears to have suffered from narcolepsy and even fell asleep sometimes when eating. He overcame this disability with steely tenacity and went on to greatness.

He was a fine general and his loss - accidentally shot by some fellow Confederates - was a serious blow to the Confederate cause.

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