Final Army Base Naming Commission Report

[AUDub 11,184]

12 hours ago, AU9377 said:

On the part of the wealthy land owners yes, but for the average soldier, the war they were fighting wasn't simply about freeing slaves.  Being a confederate soldier doesn't make those men evil.  They simply lived in a state that was fighting and they had a duty to do their part.

It's telling that romanticism of the Wermacht in this manner generally elicits a very different reaction.  

[Son of A Tiger 561]

This is a good site that briefly covers the start of the Civil War, including the strong interaction between the states rights and slavery issue.

Causes of the Civil War, From States' Rights to Slavery | HistoryNet

[CoffeeTiger 5,179]

16 hours ago, AU9377 said:

I do think that this falls into the category of not having a problem with something until someone decides to tell people that they should have a problem with whatever that something is.  There were a lot of things named for Confederate Generals etc in the effort to bring the country back together.  Lincoln was a huge proponent of doing this in order to show good faith and re-build a sense of trust.

On one hand, it doesn't matter to me what these bases are named and I don't have a problem re-naming them. On the other, I get frustrated with some groups looking for problems where there are none.  I also get very exhausted with judging the character of men that lived 100 years ago by the standards we hold today.  I believe that is both unreasonable and hypocritical.  None of us would believe the way we do today about many issues had we lived in a different time.

When I talk about the Confederacy, I'm primarily referring to it's leaders and generals, and upper-class who actually founded and ran the confederacy. It's government if you will. 

These were men who attempted to break up the country and ignited a bitter, deadly, war against the United States for the stated goal of preserving their own wealth and slaves.

I don't really believe that there is a "well...we cant really judge them' angle on this one. Yes, we can. By the time of the Civil War almost the entirety of Europe has banned slavery long before....abolitionism wasn't a new concept and slavery had already fallen out of favor over most of the world at that point. The US and particularly the South was the only modernizing nation that still had slavery legal at that point. 

Everyone else was accepting that slavery was ending....except the South and they decided to fight a war over it. 

 

[CoffeeTiger 5,179]

16 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

HHHHMMM...And what party gave all that, Jim Crowe, Lynchings, the KKK, etc to the nation? I wonder who that was...lol

 

The Conservative party of the time...which was the Democrat party. 

[I_M4_AU 7,990]

33 minutes ago, CoffeeTiger said:

I don't really believe that there is a "well...we cant really judge them' angle on this one. Yes, we can. By the time of the Civil War almost the entirety of Europe has banned slavery long before....abolitionism wasn't a new concept and slavery had already fallen out of favor over most of the world at that point. The US and particularly the South was the only modernizing nation that still had slavery legal at that point. 

The Brits had stopped the slave trade by 1807, but it still lingered for a while.  I wonder why the Brit slave owners did object to losing their slaves as the Southerners objected?

The British government also paid 20 million pounds – the equivalent of around 17 billion pounds today – to compensate slave owners for the lost capital associated with freeing slaves. This payout was a massive 40% of the government's budget and required many bonds to slave owners to effectuate the law.

These obligations to slave owners and institutions are the debts that were paid off by the UK government only in 2015.

Also:

In 1834, the British government outlawed slavery in Britain and its American possessions, though not in its Asian colonies such as British India and what would become Sri Lanka.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/30/fact-check-u-k-paid-off-debts-slave-owning-families-2015/3283908001/

Lincoln was elected in 1860 and I wonder if he thought about compensating the slave owners?  Being a young country, the US couldn’t afford such a sum IMO. 

[icanthearyou 4,463]

53 minutes ago, CoffeeTiger said:

I don't really believe that there is a "well...we cant really judge them' angle on this one.

Agree.  However, my judgement for the average southerner has little to do with slavery. 

It has everything to do with allowing themselves to be manipulated by the capital class, a lesson we still have not learned.

We are ignorant in regard to the nature of power.

Edited January 11, 2023 by icanthearyou

[AUDub 11,184]

32 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

Lincoln was elected in 1860 and I wonder if he thought about compensating the slave owners?

Yes. In Delaware and the border states compensation for emancipation was offered. The states rebuffed those offers.

Whether it was financially feasible is debatable. What it not debatable is whether it was politically feasible, which it certainly was not. Turns out slavers liked being slavers. 

Edited January 11, 2023 by AUDub

[I_M4_AU 7,990]

2 minutes ago, AUDub said:

Yes. In Delaware and the border states compensation for emancipation was offered. The states rebuffed those offers.

Whether it was financially feasible is debatable. What it not debatable is whether it was politically feasible, which it certainly was not. Turns out slavers liked being slavers. 

Thanks, it seems 27 years would be time for Lincoln to know and attempt to compensate the *slavers*.

[AUDub 11,184]

3 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

Thanks, it seems 27 years would be time for Lincoln to know and attempt to compensate the *slavers*.

He wasn't president yet when the south took their ball and went home.

The siege of Fort Sumter was already well underway by the time of his inauguration in March of 1861, and as early as January 1861, two months before he was sworn into office, Alabama and Florida were already trying to seize federal property in Pensacola. 

Edited January 11, 2023 by AUDub
Seriously, Sumpter?

[I_M4_AU 7,990]

2 minutes ago, AUDub said:

He wasn't president yet when the south took their ball and went home.

The siege of Fort Sumpter was already well underway by the time of his inauguration in March of 1861, and as early as January 1861, two months before he was sworn into office, Alabama and Florida were already trying to seize federal property in Pensacola. 

Sounds predestined.

[AUDub 11,184]

1 minute ago, I_M4_AU said:

Sounds predestined.

The south was hell-bent. Nothing Lincoln could have done. 

[I_M4_AU 7,990]

3 minutes ago, AUDub said:

The south was hell-bent. Nothing Lincoln could have done. 

Typical power play to determine what a new rookie President would do.  I’m glad he stood his ground.

Edited January 11, 2023 by I_M4_AU

[AUDub 11,184]

15 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

Typical power play to determine what a new rookie President would do.  I’m glad he stood his ground.

The South already had it in their heads that he would end the peculiar institution, nevermind he had no such power had they elected not to rebel. 

[DKW 86 7,440]

6 hours ago, CoffeeTiger said:

The Conservative party of the time...which was the Democrat party. 

And the Lincoln was what? A radical? lmao

 

[AUDub 11,184]

18 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

And the Lincoln was what? A radical? lmao

 

Uh, yeah.  

[icanthearyou 4,463]

You have to keep in mind, the Civil War wasn't just about the perpetuation of slavery, the building of tensions was about the expansion of slavery.

[AUDub 11,184]

1 minute ago, icanthearyou said:

You have to keep in mind, the Civil War wasn't just about the perpetuation of slavery, the building of tensions was about the expansion of slavery.

It’s why the “STATE’S RIGHTS!” argument rings so hollow.

Nearly every attempt at compromise dealt with, you guessed it, slavery. The most famous being the Crittenden compromise. 

[icanthearyou 4,463]

Still, to defend slavery in any context, in any time,,, IMHO deserves disgust.  The idea of compensating pure theft and inhumanity is,,, IMHO ridiculous (read the history of Haiti in this regard).

We demonize poor criminals.  We revere the wealthy ones.

Slavery is nothing but an ultimately inhumane, barbaric practice of pure power, pure greed, pure exploitation.  There are no justifications, no excuses.

[icanthearyou 4,463]

4 minutes ago, AUDub said:

It’s why the “STATE’S RIGHTS!” argument rings so hollow.

Nearly every attempt at compromise dealt with, you guessed it, slavery. The most famous being the Crittenden compromise. 

"hollow", is being kind.

[I_M4_AU 7,990]

7 hours ago, CoffeeTiger said:

 

The Conservative party of the time...which was the Democrat party. 

Lincoln was the FIRST Republican President.  One heck of a spin, but nice try.

Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency. 

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/abraham-lincoln-elected-president

Trying to change history again?

[AUDub 11,184]

10 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

Lincoln was the FIRST Republican President.  One heck of a spin, but nice try.

Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency. 

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/abraham-lincoln-elected-president

Trying to change history again?

It was the same sort of division that split the Democratic Party 100 years into the future. 

The issue at hand in the 1850s was slavery rather than segregation, as it would be when the extremely conservative “solid south” swapped allegiance to the Republicans. 

What Coffee said is true. The resistance to abolition and desegregation were very much conservative stances, and both of them divided the Democratic Parties of their era. 

Edited January 12, 2023 by AUDub

[TexasTiger 13,016]

I had ancestors fight, and some die, for the Confederate Army. I’m neither proud of nor embarrassed by them. I have no way of knowing what went thru their heads, although I would guess they likely justified things I know to be wrong. They weren’t wealthy folks or very educated so I don’t know that they would have been exposed to multiple viewpoints. I don’t think they or any other confederates should be honored for their service. This is the USA. They fought against it.
 

I’m old enough that as a kid we’d sometimes play Civil War. I always chose to be on the side of the USA, which actually put me in the minority. Most kids wanted to be Rebels. Never really understood that. 
 

It was ridiculous that we named US Army bases after traitors. Long overdue.

[autigeremt 6,688]

On 1/10/2023 at 9:47 AM, AUDub said:

Slavery was always the overarching issue. The south didn't secede over tariffs, the other issue that had been simmering for decades. They seceded when a Republican abolitionist won the election. 

True, and it greatly complicates their respective legacies.

It's a little muddier than that.

Grant himself only ever owned one slave, but he married into a slaveholding family, the Dents, so his wife and her side of the family was intimately tied to the institution. Colonel Dent, his father in law, refused to allow Grant legal ownership of the slaves because Grant's father was a well known opponent of slavery and Grant himself was perceived to not be a "slavery man."

Regarding the aforementioned zlave, he only ever held the title to William Jones - likely a gift from his father in law - whom he voluntarily emancipated in short order. 

When it comes to his his motives during the war, as it was with Lincoln, abolition was secondary to preservation of the union. 

End of the day there's some good and some bad here. On the one hand it's telling that he freed the only slave he ever owned when he could have sold him for a hefty profit when he and his family needed the money. On the other, it's not a good look that his wife had  slave attachés (Black Jules being the most well known) accompanying her when he could have put a stop to it, even after the emancipation proclamation. This caused quite a stink, even prompting a letter to Lincoln regarding hypocrisy. Black Jules eventually had to voluntarily emancipate (i.e. run away).

Julia Dent certainly muddied the waters on his legacy.

That's interesting considering we banned the international slave trade in 1808. Jefferson, by the way, and his motive may not have been entirely pure. Google "Jefferson and 4%," where is seems he realized slaves were an investment opportunity. Breeding slaves was big business. Again, complicated legacy.

By the time the Civil War rolled around nearly all of the slaves here were born here, and a lot (a LOT) of the south's capital was tied up in human beings.

Nonsense. To the degree white Europeans were brought here, it was under indentured servitude. Still an exploitative system of labor, but a far cry from chattel slavery African Americans faced. 

Brazil, along with many other areas of the Caribbean,  are human horror stories when it comes to slavery. The average imported slave only lived about 7 years, so they imported millions to keep the sugar cane industry going. 

And the vast majority of those slaves were imported from Africa. 

Over 5 million to Brazil?!? Holy %#^*! 🤬

As much as I hate it, thanks for sharing that.

 

[autigeremt 6,688]

7 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

I had ancestors fight, and some die, for the Confederate Army. I’m neither proud of nor embarrassed by them. I have no way of knowing what went thru their heads, although I would guess they likely justified things I know to be wrong. They weren’t wealthy folks or very educated so I don’t know that they would have been exposed to multiple viewpoints. I don’t think they or any other confederates should be honored for their service. This is the USA. They fought against it.
 

I’m old enough that as a kid we’d sometimes play Civil War. I always chose to be on the side of the USA, which actually put me in the minority. Most kids wanted to be Rebels. Never really understood that. 
 

It was ridiculous that we named US Army bases after traitors. Long overdue.

I think kids just liked the idea of being rebels. 

[AUDub 11,184]

29 minutes ago, autigeremt said:

Over 5 million to Brazil?!? Holy %#^*! 🤬

As much as I hate it, thanks for sharing that.

 

The sugar cane and coffee industries were absolutely brutal.