In Remembrance
Dec 10th, 2011 by Stephen
I am writing this article for two reasons:
First, because I want to, in some way, commemorate the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the War for Southern Independence. Secondly, because I am sick and tired of all the other commemorative articles focusing on the liberation of the negro.
In accomplishing those objectives, it is not necessarily my intent to sway the reader from one side to the other, but to at least provide an accurate defense of my beloved Southland, from an unapologetically Calvinistic viewpoint.
The so-called Civil War was not sparked by a single issue. Sectional positions on slavery, states rights, and tariffs were merely the outward manifestation of underlying presuppositions that formed two distinct and diametrically opposed cultures. Although in a somewhat abated fashion, those opposing cultures still exist today.
Slavery. Several southern states list abolition of slavery as the reason for secession in their state ordinances. Although 75-80% of southerners did not own slaves, many hoped that they would one day acquire the means to do so. It was the great American Dream. Is slavery wrong? Not Biblically.
What do you think? In case you don’t know, you are one. Oh, you may not be forced to “pick cotton”, but the federal government is as coercive and intrusive, if not more so, as the stereotypical 1860′s slaveowner.
For the record, not only did yankees also own slaves, which were not freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, but the first state that attempted to abolish slavery was Virginia, in 1778.
States Rights. Contrary to popular teaching, the states entered the union as sovereign entities, not, as Abraham Lincoln represented it, as territories of a centralized government. Even Northern states had threatened secession in the past.
Tarrifs. Wealth redistribution 1860′s style. Northern industrial interests were attempting to make business cost prohibitive for the Agrarian class. Not unlike todays liberals, Yankees were intolerant of those who they could not control.
So…does this make the South the snow-white-good-guy? Far from it! Southern leaders often lamented the depraved state of their nation: from the institution of slavery to delivery of mail on Sunday. The South attempted to continue the American tradition in it’s Biblically based society, while the North changed the path of the entire nation with it’s departure down the path of humanism.
I am not bitter about the outcome of the war. My fathers and mothers did their duty and left the consequences to the Lord. At the same time, to those of you who call for forgetfullness of a war that occured 150 years ago, I say this: I will never forget that 350,000 of my people were killed and their homes destroyed for the sake of “national unity”.
Perhaps now you see why, in the dialect of the usually hospitible South, there exsists the phrase “Damyankee”.
Well, Stephen, it’s good to hear you alive and kicking again! Great post, but I don’t suppose I’ll be using that “phrase” at the end any time soon.
Thanks for writing this, I sure wish there were more people who cared about all that our ancestors sacrificed for our freedom. It’s so sad how so many Southerners are so brainwashed, and don’t even care to know the truth. One of my favorite quotes is Dabney’s; “Sirs, you have no reason to be ashamed of your Confederate dead; see to it that they have no reason to be ashamed of you”. May we NEVER forget their brave, honorable and noble sacrifice!!
God bless, and hope to see y’all again sometime!
Wow, so Sunday mail delivery= slavery. Good to keep things in perspective.
Thanks, Kyle! I’m tryin’ to get back in the routine… :/
Laney: I couldn’t agree more! It’s good to know that, by the Grace of God, the yankees weren’t completely successful in their conquest for the Southern mind.
Topher:
Deuteronomy 20:8-11
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
I am not sure how you are defining slavery. However you state, “Is slavery wrong? Not Biblically.” If slavery is defined as indentured servitude to pay off a debt by whatever is defined in the contract then it is not wrong.
If slavery is defined as the stealing of another persons body or talents or services or the product of their mind, their intellectual property, then it is wrong. Theft of another human being is wrong!
As to being slaves to government this is true in many aspects. Government has stolen by usurpation many of our Liberties. I accidentally ran across your post.
In Liberty, Dr. Dan