Tag: Civil War

The Lead Up To The Civil War

Since there are so many right wing dullards that are trying to re-write our history I thought I would join the debate to try and help clarify the events that lead up to the American Civil War….there are more things that lead to the outbreak of war other than the firing on Ft. Sumter….9 to be exact.

After the American Revolution, a divide between the North and South began to widen. Industrialized northern states gradually passed laws freeing enslaved people, while southern states became increasingly committed to slavery. Many southerners came to view slavery as a linchpin of their agricultural economy, and as a justifiable social and political institution.

Throughout the first half of the 1800s, the nation struggled to manage the clash between these two incompatible viewpoints, working out deals such as the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which sought to balance the number of new free and slave states and drew a line through the nation’s western territories, with freedom to the north and slavery to the south. But in the last decade before war broke out, the conflict gained momentum and intensity. 

“Throughout the 1850s, a series of events increased sectionalism, emboldened southern secessionists, and deepened northern resolve to defend the Union and end slavery,” explains Jason Phillips, the Eberly Family Professor of Civil War Studies at West Virginia University, and author of the 2018 book Looming Civil War: How Nineteenth Century Americans Imagined the Future. “Many of these crises revolved around politics, but economic, social and cultural factors also contributed to the war’s origins.”

Here are nine events from the 1850s to the early 1860s that historians view as critical in the march toward the American Civil War.

https://www.history.com/news/civil-war-causes-issues

This illustrates that there were complex issues that lead to the outbreak of war than the simplistic whitewash that the era gets in history classes these days.

I will do my part to correct the misconceptions….now we all need to do our part and learn our history….all of it….the good, the bad and the ugly.

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It Was All About State’s Rights

College of Political Knowledge

American Civil War 

I enjoy history and I try to bring it to my readers for those that are not exposed to it.

State’s Rights is what was taught to me here in the South about the reason for the American Civil War…..and I read that at least in Arkansas that this lie (myth) is still being taught to the children of that state.

I have tried to educate my readers about this in 2020……

https://lobotero.com/2020/04/16/that-confederate-narrative/

But since that post was about as popular as a turd in a punch bowl I feel I need to help fight the lie that is still being taught…..

An argument presented by apologists for the secession of the states which formed the Confederacy is that they did so to defend the rights of states as they were defined in the Constitution. The issue of states’ rights, rather than slavery, was the true cause of the war. They argue the Union violated the Constitution by threatening the practice of slavery in the South. At the time of secession, there were no bills in Congress to eliminate slavery. Lincoln announced, repeatedly and in clear terms, he had no intention of emancipating the slaves. Still, the Southern states, led by South Carolina, perceived the newly elected President as a threat. They voted for secession rather than accepting the results of the election of 1860. In their Declaration of the Immediate Causes, they made clear their primary reason for secession was the protection of slavery within their borders.

As other slave states followed suit they bound together, forming a central government they named the Confederate States of America. They created the Constitution of the Confederate States, which established a federal government. It denied the individual states the right to establish tariffs, print money, and import slaves from any foreign country. It also specified, “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed”. The Confederacy denied, through its Constitution, the rights of its member states to decide the issue of slavery at the state level, making slavery a federally protected institution. Those arguing the war was fought over states’ rights ignore this inconvenient fact. They also ignore another over the same issue, largely prevalent before secession. The southern states tried to deny states’ rights of their Northern neighbors before the war.

State’s Rights is just a cloaked excuse to try and paint the institution of slavery as something noble.

But do not take my word for it here are a few of the declarations of cessation from Southern States….read their words and know….

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states

My state of Mississippi is in there and after reading their declaration there can be NO doubt why they felt the need for the actions….(that is if you bother to read the declarations)

There are so many myths about the American Civil War and I will try and break the cycle of ignorance.

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That Coming Civil War

There has been lots of ink and bitching about the divisions in the country and the politics behind it.

Then there are all those articles and stuff about the amounts of guns that are flying around this nation.

Put two and two together and we get a coming civil war that could very well end in violence.

I also have made several posts about the possibility of all out civil war….I am hoping that all those predictions are wrong…..

There are those that down play the possibility of a coming civil war…..this is one of those articles…..

A pattern emerged in the hours after the FBI lawfully searched the Florida home of the former president. Indeed, it was deeply familiar.

It goes something like this.

When Bad Thing X happens to Donald Trump – and, given who we’re talking about, there’s always a Bad Thing X – it’s actually Good Thing Y, because it’ll arouse the resentments of his supporters. It doesn’t matter what Bad Thing X is. What matters, for the purposes of propaganda, is that this pattern is used at Trump’s convenience. And, given who we’re talking about, that convenience has come in handy.

But what started as convenience, effective though it may have been, has evolved into a habit, which has evolved into a tic, which has evolved into a tell. Whenever someone says Bad Thing X is actually Good Thing Y, we can have confidence that it’s no such thing.

A new civil war?

After the FBI searched the former president’s home for secret government documents that, according to the Wall Street Journal, he would not surrender voluntarily, online chatter among his supporters tsunamied, according to Vice News, into calls for a new civil war.

https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/republicans-insurgency-second-civil-war/

All this could happen before or after the GOP plan to change the Constitution…..(this is possible and very possible)……

If you think the Supreme Court overturning abortion rights in this country was radical and shocking, you ain’t seen nothing yet. There was a convention you should know about this past weekend in Denver, funded by some of the wealthiest men and foundations in America, that has received altogether too little publicity.

Imagine if most public schools in the country closed and were replaced by for-profit charter and private academies — often racially segregated and only serving families who could afford their tuition — because the Constitution required federal compulsory education laws and federal funding for education (at all levels) to end.

Imagine if the U.S. Constitution required the EPA, FDA, USDA, DOT, Department of Education, and Department of Labor to shut down. All union protections are dead, there are no more federal workplace safety standards, and even child-labor laws are struck down, along with the national minimum wage and the income tax, both individual and corporate.

Imagine that the Constitution makes it illegal for the federal government to protect you from big polluters, big banks, and even big food and pharma—all are free to rip you off or poison you all they want, and your only remedy is in state courts and legislatures, because the Constitution prevents Congress from doing anything about any of it. The federal government can no longer even enforce voting or civil rights laws.

https://www.rawstory.com/constitution-gop/

The mid-terms will decide the future of this country….

You decide what is best for this nation.

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Is War Coming?

There seems to be a war a week these days…..Ukraine, Russia, China, Taiwan on and on….but this war that I am referring to is a war within our own society…..a Civil War….yet another civil strife that tears this country apart.

We are told that all this could change if we just get out and vote….I do not believe so….the political divide is getting deeper and deeper…..

Our country is in a crisis. On a near-daily basis, evidence mounts implicating the former president of the United States in a coup attempt against our republic. And in just the past two weeks, a spate of extremist Supreme Court decisions have gotten rid of a woman’s fundamental right to make decisions about her own body, our government’s ability to regulate clean air and water as required by law, and the separation of church and state, all while curbing our ability to regulate deadly weapons.

The legitimacy of a democracy rests on the consent of the governed, on the premise that decisions made by civic institutions reflect the will of the citizens and noncitizens they impact. From the January 6 insurrection to the increase in voter suppression, it has become increasingly clear that our country is in the midst of a legitimacy crisis, with the Supreme Court at the heart of it.

But the court’s recent rulings signify more than just a curtailment of our rights. As an immigrant who has seen countries descend into civil conflict, I recognize a familiar trend here: These are the latest signposts in the frightening backsliding of US democracy into authoritarianism.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democracy-scotus-radical-reform/

Is change coming with the next election?

David Brooks of the NYT has some thoughts on this…..

Look at the conditions all around us:

First, Americans are deeply dissatisfied with the way things are going. Only 13% of voters say the country is on the right track, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll published this week.

Second, Americans are deeply dissatisfied with the leaders of both parties. Joe Biden has a 33% job approval rating among registered voters. About half of Republican voters want to move on from Donald Trump and find a new presidential candidate for 2024.

Third, inflation is soaring. Throughout history, inflationary periods have often been linked to political instability. As economist Lionel Robbins wrote about Weimar Germany, inflation “destroyed the wealth of the more solid elements in German society; and it left behind a moral and economic disequilibrium, apt breeding ground for the disasters which have followed.”

Fourth, the generational turnover is coming. The boomer gerontocracy that now dominates power is bound to retire, leaving a vacuum for something new.

Fifth, Americans are detaching from the two political parties. Far more Americans consider themselves independents than consider themselves either Democrats or Republicans, and independents may be growing more distinct. And there’s some research that suggests independents are increasingly not just closeted members of the two main parties but also hold different beliefs, which puts them between parties. Sixty-two percent of Americans believe a third party is needed.

Sixth, disgust with the current system is high. A majority of American voters believe that our system of government does not work, and 58% believe that our democracy needs major reforms or a complete overhaul. Nearly half of young adult voters believe voting does not affect how the government operates

Things are not looking good for this social situation to right itself……so is there another Civil War in our near future?

50% of the Americans polled think that we are headed for another messy and possibly bloody correction in our republic….

A shocking new study has found that half of Americans expect to see a second civil war within years, while nearly a fifth say they would be armed with guns at a political skirmish themselves.

Distressing levels of “alienation,” “mistrust,” and a growing tendency to resort to violence were uncovered by researchers at the University of California, Davis, in their recent survey of 8,620 adults across the US. They found that more than two-thirds of respondents said they perceived a “serious threat to our democracy,” while more than half agreed that “in the next few years, there will be civil war in the US.” Over 40 per cent noted the importance of having a “strong leader” over democracy, while also agreeing that “native-born white people are being replaced by immigrants.”

According to the study, there is a growing tendency to settle political disagreements with violence. Almost a fifth of respondents told them that it was likely they would be “armed with a gun” at a political flash point in the next couple of years, while four per cent admitted it was likely they would “shoot someone with a gun.”

https://meaww.com/50-per-cent-americans-think-second-civil-war-is-coming-uc-davis-survey

I fear that I may live long enough to see the final disintegration of our republic….it, the republic, is slowly going the way of the dodo.  The slow erosion of civil liberties has been finalized by the Supreme Court.

Is this it for the great American Experiment?

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Blacks And The Confederacy

Since it is Black History Month I thought I would look into the myth that has been passed around especially down here in the South when the debate around the American Civil War rages.

That myth is that many free blacks and slaves fought for the Confederacy.

First of all this is a myth….it began in the 20th century to try and counter the slavery issue and what it meant to those in the South.

How and where this myth came about is unclear, but it gained prominence in the late 20th century. There exists little evidence of its truth and considerable evidence of its falsehood. The Confederate government forbade the enlistment of Blacks as soldiers. It did draft Blacks, both free and enslaved, to work for the army. These men and women served as laborers, cooks, teamsters, wranglers, and other jobs with the army, usually under guard of white soldiers. Other enslaved people worked in Confederate industries in support of the war effort, including in mines, on the railroads, and in factories. Slave labor had always been a part of the Southern industry, with slave owners sending people to work for pay, which went into the pockets of the owners. Some owners allowed their enslaved people to keep some, or even all, of their earnings.

Throughout the war, debates in the Confederate congress over the issue of arming enslaved men to serve as combat troops continued. Such ideas were voted down by the Congress until March 1865, less than one month before Lee’s surrender. Even after the Confederates allowed the enlistment of Black troops the concept drew resistance. Robert Toombs, former Secretary of State for the Confederacy, and a general with Lee’s army in early 1865, called the idea of Black troops “…the worst calamity that could befall us…” In June 1865, he wrote an article in the Augusta Chronicle which included a statement that “The day that the Army of Virginia allows a negro regiment to enter their lines as soldiers they will be degraded, ruined and disgraced”. By the time his opinion appeared in the Chronicle the Army of Northern Virginia had been disbanded following its defeat.

More on this myth……

Some black Southerners aided the Confederacy. Most of these were forced to accompany their masters or were forced to toil behind the lines. Black men were not legally allowed to serve as combat soldiers in the Confederate Army–they were cooks, teamsters, and manual laborers. There were no black Confederate combat units in service during the war and no documentation whatsoever exists for any black man being paid or pensioned as a Confederate soldier, although some did receive pensions for their work as laborers. Nevertheless, the black servants and the Confederate soldiers formed bonds in the shared crucible of conflict, and many servants later attended regimental reunions with their wartime comrades.

This is not to say that no black man ever fired a gun for the Confederacy. To be specific, in the “Official Records of the War of the Rebellion,” a collection of military records from both sides which spans more than 50 volumes and more than 50,000 pages, there are a total of seven Union eyewitness reports of black Confederates. Three of these reports mention black men shooting at Union soldiers, one report mentions capturing a handful of armed black men along with some soldiers, and the other three reports mention seeing unarmed black laborers. There is no record of Union soldiers encountering an all-black line of battle or anything close to it.

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/black-confederates-truth-and-legend

All in all the myth was inaccurate….basically it was an attempt to re-write history to try and illustrate some positivity of Blacks in the South.

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The ‘Lost Cause’

I know that there are many of my international readers that are interested in the American history of the Civil War of the 19th century.

For years there has been this idealistic view that the South was engaged in some sort of ‘noble cause’…that view in my opinion is a romantic non-realistic view to that era of American history….

The Lost Cause was a historical ideology and a social movement created by ex-Confederates that characterized the Confederate experience and defined its value for new generations. By the twentieth century, the Lost Cause became enshrined as part of the national story of slavery and the American Civil War era, and it evolved through that century’s most important revolutions. It was never just about the Civil War, but about slavery, Reconstruction, southern race relations, the place of the South in national life, and Americans’ self-identity. Today, the Lost Cause’s historical and cultural claims have been rejected by historians and museum professionals as a narrow distortion of history at best and a lie at worst, but many of its cultural tropes and political assumptions occasionally thrive, not only in the American South, but across the country.

There are five myths surrounding this bastardization of American history…..thanks to the Battlefield Trust……

The first and most important myth is that secession, not slavery, was the cause of the war. Southern states seceded to protect their rights, their homes, and to throw off the shackles of a tyrannical government. To the proponents of the Lost Cause, secession was constitutional, and the Confederacy was the natural heir to the American Revolution. Because secession was constitutional, all those who fought for the Confederacy were not traitors. Northerners, specifically Northern abolitionists, caused the war with their fiery rhetoric and agitating, even though slavery was on its way to gradually dying a natural death. They also argued secession was a way to preserve the Southern agrarian way of life in the face of encroaching Northern industrialism.

Second, slavery was portrayed as a positive good; enslaved people, who were submissive, happy, and faithful to their masters, were better off in the system of chattel slavery which offered the slaves protection. Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens declared in 1861 “Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.” Following the end of the war, these formerly enslaved people were now said to be unprepared for freedom, which was an argument against Reconstruction and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution.

The third tenet states that the Confederacy was only defeated because of the Northern states’ numerical advantage in both men and resources. The Confederate Army was less defeated than overwhelmed, as their lesser resources. Former Confederate officer Jubal A. Early justified the Southern defeat by stating that the North “finally outproduced that exhaustion of our army and resources, and that accumulation of numbers on the other side which wrought our final disaster.” Early went on to say that the South “had been gradually worn down by combined agencies of numbers, steam-power, railroads, mechanism, and all the resources of physical science.” The lack of southern manufacturing and the outnumbered population doomed it to failure from the start. Thus, the “Lost Cause.”

Fourth, Confederate soldiers are portrayed as heroic, gallant, and saintly. Even after the surrender, they retained their honor. At one reunion oration, Confederate General Thomas R. R. Cobb, who was killed at the Battle of Fredericksburg, was compared to “Joshua in his courage,…St. Paul in the logic of his eloquence and [St.] Stephen in the triumph of his martyrdom.”

Fifth, Robert E. Lee emerged as the most sanctified figure in Lost Cause lore, especially after his death in 1870. Lee himself became a symbol for the Lost Cause, and a “Cult of Lee” revered the Virginian as the ultimate Christian soldier who took up arms for his state. He was even called the second Washington. Lee was the most successful of all Confederate Army commanders, and after the war, Jubal Early and many former Southern officers placed Lee upon a pedestal—so much so that historian Thomas L. Connelly dubbed Lee “The Marble Man.” Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson became a saintly martyr, wounded by his men while defending the Lost Cause. Even the office building where Jackson died bore the name “The Stonewall Jackson Shrine” for decades. On the other hand, James Longstreet became a villain to Lee and Jackson’s heroes, blamed for the loss at Gettysburg and vilified for his newfound Republican affiliation and the temerity to question Lee’s wartime decisions. Even former Confederate President Jefferson Davis became a reverential figure, seen as the personification of states’ rights.

None of this is true….it is a fanciful revision of American history.

The whole “lost cause’ myth was an excuse and a justification for the war…..

The Lost Cause grew out of this postbellum context and eulogised the Confederate war effort as having been a just and heroic one – a struggle to protect “states’ rights” in the face of overwhelming Northern aggression. In presenting the conflict in this way, the Lost Cause both obscured and denied the principal role of slavery in leading to the outbreak of war.

Part ideology, part social movement, the Lost Cause of the Confederacy has promoted an ahistorical interpretation of the American Civil War.

Here are 10 key facts about the Lost Cause of the Confederacy:

10 Facts About the Lost Cause of the Confederacy

There was nothing romantic or noble about this conflict.

Today we have a ‘new’ Lost Cause….that of a ‘stolen’ election…..

Lies are a denomination of power. The bigger the lie, the more power it represents. Right now in this country, we are being treated daily to the Big Lie that Donald Trump was the true winner of the presidential election of 2020, and the only reason he’s not in the White House right now is because the election was stolen from him.

You may have noticed that the people pushing the Big Lie today are very good at it. This is because many of them have been pushing an even bigger Big Lie for most of their lives: the lie of the Lost Cause, that the Civil War wasn’t really fought over the disgraceful secession of the Southern states and slavery, it was instead a noble cause fought for the “honor” of the South, and that slavery itself wasn’t bad or immoral, because enslaved people were happy workers living much better lives than they would have lived where they came from in Africa.

https://www.salon.com/2021/06/19/donald-trump-and-the-new-lost-cause/

Yet more revisionist history to be taught to our children…..and that will help feed the BS of lies and revision for a generation or more.

More thoughts on the BS of the ‘Lost Cause’….

That “Lost Cause Myth”

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Why Not Diplomacy?

Yes more history!

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This is for all those readers that are interested in the American Civil War.

Most people know the major players and the major engagements…..but what about before the first shots were fired in South Carolina?

Since I am a student of conflict and ways to try and avoid a disastrous war…..people have asked me why there was no diplomacy to try and avoid the deadly conflict…

Well there was diplomacy but it is just not interesting enough for the history books….plus it is not as romantic as the idea of a ‘noble cause’…..

Here is the look at diplomatic attempts during the war…..

February 2, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln and his Irish valet sneaked out of Washington City and took a steamboat down to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The next day he met with three representatives of the Confederacy to discuss ending the Civil War. The Hampton Roads Peace Conference, as it’s known, is notable not for what was accomplished – nothing was – but for how, when, and why it took place at all.

In February, 1865, the Confederacy was clearly on the brink of collapse. The rebel armies were dogged but much diminished. General William Tecumseh Sherman had sacked Atlanta and was leaving a trail of devastation through Georgia. Ulysses S. Grant had Robert E. Lee pinned down at Petersburg, a rail center that was Richmond’s last defense. A Union naval blockade had cut off all supplies. Everyone knew the end was a few months away at best.

With the war all but won, why would Lincoln go out of his way, literally, to parley with the enemy? The simplest answer is that he was looking already to the postwar future, and how best to deal with the insurgents. Many hardliners in his Republican Party and his Cabinet thought they knew the answer: utterly crush the rebels militarily, hang their leaders, free all their slaves, confiscate their other property, and subjugate the South as a conquered, occupied enemy.

Lincoln believed that was no way to heal the nation. With the weight of more than half a million war dead on his soul, he “wanted to end the war quickly, peacefully if possible, not only to save lives, money, and property but also to build a stronger foundation for reconstruction,” writes James B. Conroy, author of a detailed book about the conference, Our One Common Country. “If the Confederacy could be persuaded to return to the Union voluntarily, enticed by reasonable concessions, the stage would be set for a more amicable, productive future than a military conquest could produce.”

https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/conflict-resolution/the-road-not-taken/

Diplomacy is never a wasted energy….but did little during the American Civil War….

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Secession Again?

Closing Thought–06Jan21

Keeping with the tone of the day……

WE all know about the last time parts of the US decided to secede and it did not end well for those that broke away…….and the calls for secession again became loud…..https://lobotero.com/2012/12/03/secession-fever-2/

Then the electoral college went and elected the provocateur Trump in 2016 and the calls for secession grew even louder….championed by the man elected to the office…..https://lobotero.com/2018/04/29/secession-is-still-popular/

During Trump’s tenure as president the calls for secession and civil war have grown at an alarming pace……and now that he has lost the 2020 election and he and his minions try to overturn the vote the calls again are increasing for secession the possibility of a civil war…..

Right-wing figures online are now toying with the ultimate act of resistance against Joe Biden’s win over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election: secession and civil war. The  idea has picked up steam in the past few days, thanks to a boost it got from talk radio host and Medal of Freedom recipient Rush Limbaugh.

Limbaugh made waves on Wednesday when he said, “I actually think that we’re trending toward secession.” I see more and more people asking what in the world do we have in common with the people who live in, say, New York?”

Limbaugh also added: “I see a lot of bloggers … have written extensively about how distant and separated and how much more separated our culture is becoming politically and that it can’t go on this way. ” There cannot be a peaceful coexistence of two completely different theories of life, theories of government, theories of how we manage our affairs. We can’t be in this dire a conflict without something giving somewhere along the way.”

But after Limbaugh’s comment gained media attention, he claimed on Thursday that he was not in any sense advocating for secession or civil war. Rather, he said, he was just describing something that he’d been hearing about from others, because of how divided the country is.

https://www.mediamatters.org/rush-limbaugh/talk-secession-and-civil-war-increasing-far-right

Then there are those state senators that want to use the military to annul the election by declaring martial law…..

… two Republican state senators, Bob Steinburg of North Carolina and Amanda F. Chase of Virginia, through public Facebook posts and in subsequent interviews, have declared that President Donald Trump should suspend civil liberties and declare martial law in order to stay in power. Both state senators have repeated Trump’s baseless claims of widespread election fraud and various other right-wing conspiracies. Steinburg was reelected to the statehouse this past year, while Chase is running for governor of Virginia.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Steinburg reiterated comments made earlier this month by retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, suggesting Trump invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, deploy soldiers and suspend habeas corpus. In an interview with WRAL Tuesday night, Steinburg alleged he was just “putting out there options that others say still remain on the table,” although he later added that he would welcome a coup, insinuating a vast conspiracy was working against Trump.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/17/elec-d17.html

Will these traitorous dicks get their way?

Will we have another civil war?

Or is it just cowards and the spineless venting and pouting because their dictator lost?

Think about a little American history…the Hartford Convention…..

U.S. history, a secret meeting in Hartford, Connecticut, of Federalist delegates from Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont who were dissatisfied with Pres. James Madison’s mercantile policies and the progress of the War of 1812 (“Mr. Madison’s War”), as well as long resentful over the balance of political power that gave the South, particularly Virginia, effective control of the national government.

The more extreme delegates raised the possibility of secession, but others sought only to dictate amendments to the Constitution that would protect their interests. Ultimately, the convention adopted a strong states’ rights position and expressed its grievances in a series of resolutions against military conscription and commercial regulations (along with some stringent criticisms of Madison’s administration) that were agreed to on January 4, 1815.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Hartford-Convention

So you see the idea of secession of the 1850-60s is not a mew concept to Americans…

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News From Libya

It all began in 2011 when NATO decided to intervene in the civil unrest in Libya…..and ever since the death of Gaddafi the nation has been torn by civil war and destruction.

There have been many attempts to bring all sides together and all have failed miserably….even when one of the war lords is an CIA asset.

All this is looking like another war with no end and Europe is considering an intervention (again)…..

Wherever Europe’s attention turns in northern Africa, that region is the worse for it. In recent years, this has meant Libya, where the destruction of the Libyan government during the 2011 NATO intervention there is now set to give way to direct European Union intervention.

NATO was quite pleased with its 2011 handiwork, which saw Moammar Gaddafi removed from power and quickly killed. The assumption was that this would lead to an orderly transition of power. Instead it led to a civil war that’s continued to tear the country apart ever since.

Earlier this month, it was confirmed that the European Union is in the process of developing multiple potential military options for intervening in Libya, all intended to stabilize the situation. This is being done with an eye toward getting Libya’s oil industry back to exporting.

Since 2011, Libya has had as many as three, and at times zero, self-proclaimed governments operating out of different areas of the country. At times, the UN has endorsed a government, or created a government to endorse, and other nations in the region have backed either those governments or other rival governments, though none has ever controlled more than a fraction of Libya in any real way.

Europe Gears Up for Another Military Intervention in Libya

Just what the world needs…yet another war to finance.

With all the death and destruction the question needs to be asked….

Being one of the most prosperous countries in the African continent, thanks to its vast oil fields, after the fall of Gaddafi, the North African country was divided between rival governments in the east and west, and among multiple armed groups competing for quotas of power, control of the country and its wealth.

Gaddafi ruled for 42 years, leading Libya to a significant advance in social, political and economic matters that were recognized and admired by many African and Arab nations at the time. Despite his controversial government, Gaddafi came to represent an important figure for anti-imperialist struggles for his position mainly against the U.S. and the policies carried out from Washington on the Middle East.

It is for this reason, his life and death became pivotal events in Libya and key to understand the current situation.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/analysis/Libya-Before-and-After-Muammar-Gaddafi-20200115-0011.html

What part of 2011 was good for the Libyan people?

A decade later and the death and destruction just keeps flowing…..

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“lego ergo scribo”

Post Script:  While I was writing this draft news has come out that the two factions in Libya that have been fighting for a decade have come to an agreement for a ceasefire…..

Warring factions in Libya have agreed to a “permanent” ceasefire following talks, the United Nations said on Friday.

The agreement came after five days of discussions in Geneva between representatives of the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) and the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA).

“The Libyan parties have reached a permanent ceasefire agreement throughout Libya,” said Stephanie Williams, head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).

“This achievement represents an important turning point towards peace and stability in Libya.”

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/libya-ceasefire-sign-permanent-following-talks

All military units and armed groups must pull back from the front lines and return to their camps. All foreign fighters and mercenaries must leave Libya within three months – by January 23.

Williams said there were mercenaries from up to nine countries fighting in Libya. Both the GNA, backed by Turkey, and the LNA, backed by Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, have fielded foreign combatants.

Any military agreements either side has struck with their foreign backers must also be suspended until a new unified government is in place, the deal said, with all foreign military trainers to depart.

This is good for the Libyan people but not so much for the arms industry…..will this play into the equation?

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Jefferson Davis, My Distant Cousin

Another Sunday and I have little of worth for this FYI session…..unless I can go on and on about the terrible pick for SCOTUS….but I prefer a different way today……so I fall back to a forte….HISTORY.

What do most people know about Jefferson Davis?

Jefferson Davis

Basically they know he was the first and only president of the Confederate States of America…..once they say that they are at a loss for words……and that is why I am here to help fill in the gaps in people’s education and knowledge.

As always I want to be up front….according to the family story my maternal grandmother was related to Jefferson Davis….he maiden name was Bessie Mae Davis…..I believe they were cousins twice removed or something like that…..

There is so much more about Davis than his stint as president of the CSA…..

Did you know he was put under house arrest for involvement of cadets at West Point in the Eggnog Riot?

Or that he was in the Army on the frontier dealing with the Comanche and Pawnee….or that he came up with the idea of the Camel Corps.

Or that his father and uncles fought in the Revolutionary War……or that Davis married the daughter of an American president Zachary Taylor…..

Like I stated so much more about the man…..let’s look at the man…..

Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) was a Mexican War hero, U.S. senator from Mississippi, U.S. secretary of war and president of the Confederate States of America for the duration of the American Civil War (1861-1865). Prior to the start of the war, Davis had argued against secession, but when Mississippi seceded he resigned from the U.S. Senate. In February 1861 he was elected president of the Confederacy. Davis faced difficulties throughout the war as he struggled to manage the Southern war effort, maintain control the Confederate economy and keep a new nation united. Davis’ often contentious personality led to conflicts with other politicians as well as his own military officers. In May 1865, several weeks after the Confederate surrender, Davis was captured, imprisoned and charged with treason, but never tried.

https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/jefferson-davis

Like I stated there was more to the man than his presidency…..like he was NOT a secessionist leader…..

Davis was not a secessionist leader.
Less than two months before his inauguration as Confederate president, U.S. Senator Jefferson Davis opposed secession for his home state of Mississippi. While Mississippi Governor John J. Pettus and other state leaders advocated immediate secession in the weeks following the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln, the slaveholding Davis urged caution. While he firmly believed states had the constitutional right to secede from the Union, he was among a committee of 13 U.S. senators who attempted to find a suitable compromise after South Carolina left the Union in December 1860. After Mississippi seceded in January 1861, Davis declared that his allegiance to his state required him to abide by its decision and leave the U.S. Senate.

(there is more)

https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-jefferson-davis

After the war Davis lived on the Mississippi Gulf Coast where he worked on his memoir, “Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government”……his last home is called Beauvoir…..

The Beauvoir estate is notable as the historic post-war home (1876-1889) of the former President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, (1807/08-1889). Its construction was begun in 1848 facing the Gulf Coastline (Gulf of Mexico) at Biloxi, Mississippi. It was purchased earlier in 1873 by the planter Samuel Dorsey and his wife Sarah Dorsey. After her husband’s death in 1875, the widow, Sarah Ellis Dorsey learned of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ difficulties. She invited him to visit at the plantation and offered him a cottage near the main house, where he could live and work at his memoirs (“Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government”). He ended up living there the rest of his life. The house and plantation have since been designated as a National Historic Landmark, recognized and listed by the U.S. Department of the Interior and its National Park Service

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauvoir_(Biloxi,_Mississippi)

If you are in the region and fancy some history then I suggest a visit to Beauvoir it is well worth your time.

There is more to Jefferson Davis legacy than his time as president of the ill fated Confederacy…..

My thoughts on my ancestor…..

Do I think he was a traitor?

Yes I do…..the rest of that side of the family does not agree.

Should we preserve his memory?

Yes we should….it is history and history should not be censured.

Any statues of Davis should be removed and placed on the grounds of his home at Beauvoir….after all it is a museum as well……

Anything you would like to ask or add to this?

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