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Another reason to like "the student's" contributions.
I might never have read this quote until today (although I'd read similar things from Confederate leaders) :
"“Within the army, secrecy was maintained. Only now & then did rumor of the meeting seep out. After securing a pledge of confidentiality from Colonel James Nisbet, Brigadier General Clement Stevens told him the secret of Cleburne’s astonishing proposal. Stevens suggested that although Cleburne was a “skilled army officer, & true to the Southern cause,” he did not have a “proper conception of the Negro, he being foreign born & reared.” When Nisbet responded that he thought arming slaves was a good idea, Stevens exploded. Slavery, he declared, was the cause of the war & the reason why the South was fighting. “If slavery is to be abolished then I take no more interest in our fight. The justification of slavery in the South is the inferiority of the negro. If we make him a soldier, we concede the whole question.” Steven’s outburst was evidence of how badly Cleburne had misread the society he called his own. Cleburne’s assumption that “every patriot will freely give up……the negro slave rather than be a slave himself” failed to take into consideration the fact that many southerners viewed the loss of slavery as virtually synonymous with the loss of their own liberty. ”
Rantings of a Civil War Historian » The Lost Cause remains alive and well?.
I might never have read this quote until today (although I'd read similar things from Confederate leaders) :
"“Within the army, secrecy was maintained. Only now & then did rumor of the meeting seep out. After securing a pledge of confidentiality from Colonel James Nisbet, Brigadier General Clement Stevens told him the secret of Cleburne’s astonishing proposal. Stevens suggested that although Cleburne was a “skilled army officer, & true to the Southern cause,” he did not have a “proper conception of the Negro, he being foreign born & reared.” When Nisbet responded that he thought arming slaves was a good idea, Stevens exploded. Slavery, he declared, was the cause of the war & the reason why the South was fighting. “If slavery is to be abolished then I take no more interest in our fight. The justification of slavery in the South is the inferiority of the negro. If we make him a soldier, we concede the whole question.” Steven’s outburst was evidence of how badly Cleburne had misread the society he called his own. Cleburne’s assumption that “every patriot will freely give up……the negro slave rather than be a slave himself” failed to take into consideration the fact that many southerners viewed the loss of slavery as virtually synonymous with the loss of their own liberty. ”
Rantings of a Civil War Historian » The Lost Cause remains alive and well?.