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Is the Confederate flag a symbol of treason?

Is the Confederate flag a symbol of treason?

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Caine said:
That one didn't work right....

University of Virginia Library

Should work better
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Cain your info is correct but lacking in details. North Carolina in 1860 had roughly 330,000 slaves, or roughly 33% of the total population.

Those 30,000 free blacks only represent what? 11% of the black population in NC? It was much worse in other states.

So I think their is some truth in both your arguments.
 
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Caine said:
The fact that they were originally sold into slavery from conquering african tribes at the low price of Rum, making them a cheap investment had absolutely nothing to do with it......... *shrug*
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I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish by posting this, but it does nothing to support your argument and it does nothing to detract from mine.

You said, "Slaves were property because they were profitable.... not because they were black."

Whether or not they were sold at cheap prices by Africans has zero impact on the fact that blacks were viewed as inferior by much of American society and that they were viewed as an "inferior race" that was most suitable for slavery. By saying, "not because they were black", you're trying to remove race as a factor in slavery. That's just pure revisionism.
 
haymarket said:
Because you are the one who listed the numbers.

Here is info I printed several times in reply to apdst who claimed that only 1% owned slaves - a number closer to your number.


Here is the information from yahoo answers




Lets look at other sources that confirm this information.

1- this article on Wikipedia uses the source Distribution of Slaves in US History

Slavery in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

it confirms the numbers from yahoo answers as follows:



This book length excellent study of the soldiers who made up the confederate army confirms the information

Amazon.com: General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse (9781416596974): Joseph Glatthaar: Books


The Historic Census Browser from the University of Virginia also confirms the numbers from yahoo answers that you are so disparaging of

University of Virginia Library
here is a description of their findings



All this indicates your NC numbers are really out of sync.
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That's a far cry from the 33% that you originally suggested.
 
Caine said:
What about those who shed their blood to stay free of political oppression from the more populous north? Many writings made at the time made it clear that the southern states knew they were a "permanent minority" in the legislature.
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Not this again...Seriously, this sounds like we're debating the Missouri Compromise. The slave states deserved no sympathy, period.

Sorry, but we had yet to go through the "Nationalism" movement, thus this Loyalty to the United States of America argument is moot. Back in these days it was about STATES that were United... not THE United States. Historical Perspective please....
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What the hell...Read the Constitution. The CSA was clearly guilty of treason against the United States.

You can keep jumping up and down screaming racist institution.... but the institution of slavery wasn't about RACISM... it was about PROFIT. The northern folks were just as racist as the southerners..... (still are), there was just a loud movement based around the MORAL argument of owning another person.
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How many slaves were White?
 
apdst said:
That's a far cry from the 33% that you originally suggested.
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Actually its pretty much right on the money. Go back and read

1- Yahoo answers says

Almost one-third of all Southern families owned slaves.
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2 - Wikipedia says

Only 8% of all US families owned slaves,[124] while in the South, 33% of families owned slaves and 50% of Confederate soldiers lived in slave-owning households
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3 - the book length study by Glatthaar says

Yet more than one in every four volunteers that first year lived with parents who were slaveholders. Combining those soldiers who owned slaves with those soldiers who lived with slaveholding family members, the proportion rose to 36 percent. That contrasted starkly with the 24.9 percent, or one in every four households, that owned slaves in the South, based on the 1860 census. Thus, volunteers in 1861 were 42 percent more likely to own slaves themselves or to live with family members who owned slaves than the general population.
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4 - and the University of Virginia Census data says
The numbers varies considerably, ranging from 1 in 5 in Arkansas to 1 in 2 in Mississippi and South Carolina. In the eleven states that formed the Confederacy, there were in aggregate just over 1 million free households, which between them represented 316,632 slaveholders—meaning that just under one-third of households in the Confederate States counted among its assets at least one human being.
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I consistently said 1/3 of family units in the South owned slaves and three of these four sources agree. The one that differs uses a number of just a hair under 25% which is a whole lot closer to 33 than your fairy tale figure of 1%. And even then that source uses 36% for slave owners in the southern army.

In fact, if you take my four sources and find the average of the four figures - it works out to 31%. I have always claimed a one-third ownership. Your definition of the term "far cry" must be really off.

The Glatthaar numbers shoot your argument right out of the water. You have consistently offered the line of thinking that the South could never have assembled a large army to fight if the only main issue was slavery since only a tiny number actually owned slaves. Glatthaar destroys that

This figure, combined with the 36 percent who owned or whose family members owned slaves, indicated that almost one of every two 1861 recruits lived with slaveholders. Nor did the direct exposure stop there. Untold numbers of enlistees rented land from, sold crops to, or worked for slaveholders. In the final tabulation, the vast majority of the volunteers of 1861 had a direct connection to slavery. For slaveholder and nonslaveholder alike, slavery lay at the heart of the Confederate nation. The fact that their paper notes frequently depicted scenes of slaves demonstrated the institution's central role and symbolic value to the Confederacy.
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The facts are against you and your claims.
 
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theplaydrive said:
I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish by posting this, but it does nothing to support your argument and it does nothing to detract from mine.

You said, "Slaves were property because they were profitable.... not because they were black."

Whether or not they were sold at cheap prices by Africans has zero impact on the fact that blacks were viewed as inferior by much of American society and that they were viewed as an "inferior race" that was most suitable for slavery. By saying, "not because they were black", you're trying to remove race as a factor in slavery. That's just pure revisionism.
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So... if Chinese or Arab or Western Europeans Whites were being sold for a lower price do you think the slave traders would have still decided to get african slaves as well?
 
Blackdog said:
Cain your info is correct but lacking in details. North Carolina in 1860 had roughly 330,000 slaves, or roughly 33% of the total population.

Those 30,000 free blacks only represent what? 11% of the black population in NC? It was much worse in other states.

So I think their is some truth in both your arguments.
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My argument was never about the number of negro slaves.... it was about the number of Free Persons of Color...

The only states or territories to have more free persons of color in them than North Carolina in all of the U.S. and territories where census was gathered were Pennsylvania Ohio New York Maryland and Virginia.


Also, interestingly enough.... Deleware, Maryland, and New Jersey all had slaves in 1860 as well.... Including Maryland having more slaves than free persons of color... while New Jersey had only 18 slaves in the whole state.

Edit to add about Maryland..... being the state with the MOST free persons of color in it... it still managed to also have a higher number of slaves than free persons....

83k free 87k slaves.
 
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theplaydrive said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that your argument is that slave owners didn't really think blacks were inferior, they just said that to prevent an uprising from poor whites. Do you have a source that substantiates this claim? Because I'm quite certain, given what I've read on the subject, that they really believed blacks were inferior and consequently, the race that belonged in slavery more than any others.
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That idea eventually took hold after being taught to subsequent generations. It wasn't the original idea behind African slavery. It was originally that slaves could be obtained from Africa cheaper and easier than they could be obtained from anywhere else.
 
rocket88 said:
That idea eventually took hold after being taught to subsequent generations. It wasn't the original idea behind African slavery. It was originally that slaves could be obtained from Africa cheaper and easier than they could be obtained from anywhere else.
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And it was an acceptable idea because they belived blacks were biologically inferior. ANYONE could be enslaved, it was acceptable to enslave blacks.
 
Phys251 said:
Usually when people make that kind of threat, it backfires on them. Just saying. ;)
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Unless they are right of course.

What the hell...Read the Constitution. The CSA was clearly guilty of treason against the United States.
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Keep ignoring arguments and having no counter at all. lol
 
Caine said:
So... if Chinese or Arab or Western Europeans Whites were being sold for a lower price do you think the slave traders would have still decided to get african slaves as well?
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Problem was, that isn't even relevant. They did have some standards of decency, just not enough of them.

Henrin said:
Unless they are right of course.

Keep ignoring arguments and having no counter at all. lol
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If you have anything of substance, feel free to offer it.
 
rocket88 said:
That idea eventually took hold after being taught to subsequent generations. It wasn't the original idea behind African slavery. It was originally that slaves could be obtained from Africa cheaper and easier than they could be obtained from anywhere else.
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Not only that, Africa was the only place where people were selling their own people into slavery.

Basically, the Africans had a product to sell and customers with a demand for that product showed up to purchase it. Had the product n been available, the labor demand would have been filled another way.

The cutomers weren't just white southern plantation owners. The Arabs bought as many slaves as the Europeans, probably more.
 
Caine said:
My argument was never about the number of negro slaves.... it was about the number of Free Persons of Color...

The only states or territories to have more free persons of color in them than North Carolina in all of the U.S. and territories where census was gathered were Pennsylvania Ohio New York Maryland and Virginia.


Also, interestingly enough.... Deleware, Maryland, and New Jersey all had slaves in 1860 as well.... Including Maryland having more slaves than free persons of color... while New Jersey had only 18 slaves in the whole state.

Edit to add about Maryland..... being the state with the MOST free persons of color in it... it still managed to also have a higher number of slaves than free persons....

83k free 87k slaves.
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I understand but it's kind of hard to agree when out of roughly 360,000 blacks, 30,000 were free. It like saying well 100 people out of 100,000 survived! What great news! Hehehehe.
 
snilloctjc said:
And it was an acceptable idea because they belived blacks were biologically inferior. ANYONE could be enslaved, it was acceptable to enslave blacks.
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Because of culture, not because of race.
 
Blackdog said:
I understand but it's kind of hard to agree when out of roughly 360,000 blacks, 30,000 were free. It like saying well 100 people out of 100,000 survived! What great news! Hehehehe.
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I don't think that's Cain's point. I think he's trying to put to bed the falshoods and inaccuracies that have been stated in regard to slavery in the United States.

It's been stated in the past, on other threads, that all blacks in the South were slaves, had no rights and were treated as inferior, which just ain't true.
 
apdst said:
Because of culture, not because of race.
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It was made about race later.

Native Americans and other races in other country's were tried out as slaves. Black Africans because of their ability to work long hours in the sun without dropping dead in short order made them an excellent choice. So I agree it started out as a culture thing but progressed into a race issue to justify keeping the institution valid. Of course their were other reasons, but race played a huge part latter on.
 
apdst said:
I don't think that's Cain's point. I think he's trying to put to bed the falshoods and inaccuracies that have been stated in regard to slavery in the United States.

It's been stated in the past, on other threads, that all blacks in the South were slaves, had no rights and were treated as inferior, which just ain't true.
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It is true. Of course they were treated badly everywhere in the US at the time. Like I said 330,000 compared to 34,000 is disgusting. After 1830 in NC they lost even the right to vote. So it's not like it got better.
 
Blackdog said:
It was made about race later.

Native Americans and other races in other country's were tried out as slaves. Black Africans because of their ability to work long hours in the sun without dropping dead in short order made them an excellent choice. So I agree it started out as a culture thing but progressed into a race issue to justify keeping the institution valid. Of course their were other reasons, but race played a huge part latter on.
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You have got to be kidding me? You do realize you are perpetuating the same racial stereotypes that justified slavery before and during the Civil War - right?

I wonder what the black freemen, or slaves, or former slaves of the per and anti-bellum perood would think of such arguments?
 
Blackdog said:
It was made about race later.

Native Americans and other races in other country's were tried out as slaves. Black Africans because of their ability to work long hours in the sun without dropping dead in short order made them an excellent choice. So I agree it started out as a culture thing but progressed into a race issue to justify keeping the institution valid. Of course their were other reasons, but race played a huge part latter on.
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I don't agree. I'm of the opinion that the effort to make blacks a permanent under-class in America didn't start until the NAACP was formed.
 
snilloctjc said:
RACISM was a part of the culture - read period literature, fiction and scientific.
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What gives that idea? Because they called black folks, "niggers"? You're making the same mistake that the hand wringers always make: looking at the time period through 21st Century glasses.

In the 19th Century, calling a black person a nigger was no different than calling someone a hick, or a redneck today; two terms that I've been assured aren't racist. :rofl
 
Caine said:
So... if Chinese or Arab or Western Europeans Whites were being sold for a lower price do you think the slave traders would have still decided to get african slaves as well?
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I have no idea what the prices were for people of other races. However, I know Africans were bought for many reasons, not just money as you try to make it. They were also bought because of their physical ability and because they were viewed as an inferior "race", if not the most inferior race.

rocket88 said:
That idea eventually took hold after being taught to subsequent generations. It wasn't the original idea behind African slavery. It was originally that slaves could be obtained from Africa cheaper and easier than they could be obtained from anywhere else.
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You both keep trying to either take race completely out the equation or say that race only entered the equation later. This just isn't true. Africans were being called savages, inferior and many other derogatory names since the beginning of the slave trade. The main theories of science during the entire history of slavery were about the inferiority of blacks/Africans. Obviously factors other than race were a part of the story, but race was always a part of it and it increased over time.
 
apdst said:
What gives that idea? Because they called black folks, "niggers"?
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No, because the scientific literature at the time argued that blacks/Africans were inferior to whites/Europeans and because blacks/Africans were depicted as an animals and called "beasts" and "lower than human" in literature and other sources whereas whites were not. Just go find some sources at the time.
 
snilloctjc said:
You have got to be kidding me? You do realize you are perpetuating the same racial stereotypes that justified slavery before and during the Civil War - right?

I wonder what the black freemen, or slaves, or former slaves of the per and anti-bellum perood would think of such arguments?
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That's not a racial stereotype; that's a fact. Blacks, who grew up in Africa were better suited for working long hours in the hot, humid climate of the South.

What do you think would happen, if you put a bunch of Norwegians in 100 degree heat, chopping sugar cane all day? They would all be dead, by the end of the week. :rofl
 
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