John C. Calhoun was nearly two decades in his grave in 1869, but white conservatives saw his prophecies that Northerners would not stop short of full Negro Equality coming true during Reconstruction. South Carolina Senator Calhoun had developed the theory that slavery was a “positive good” for Southern society. When Calhoun talked of “Negro Equality” he did not do so in a hopeful way!
It is interesting that while modern apologists for the Confederates routinely assert that Northerners were not interested in racial equality, actual Confederates were absolutely certain that they were!
Keowee Courier
Friday, Jan 22, 1869
Walhalla, SC
Vol: 4
Page: 3
Note: The photo is of John C. Calhoun.
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Why are you generalizing Confederate Apologists into a corner? Humans are multifaceted your articles tone, let alone your blog, is atrocious, projecting ignorance and hate on Confederate Apologists. The United States was a Confederacy! It was founded on Confederate principles, the Constitution did not change that. By definition Americans and many other nationalities still form Confederacies and seek compacts of compromise as the Southern Confederacy sought them in 1860. Laws have evolved to govern society, as well as they have been used to abuse society to sustain said Laws by those empowered to do so. That is the gamble of politics as it is a calculated risks as much as life itself is. There are no perfect people, all humans are equally fallible. There were just as many Northerners who viewed Slave States as being no less amalgamating in expanding Slavery they spread African American miscegenation. Anglo Northerners were absolutely no less racially homogeneous… Anglo Southerners were absolutely more racially diversified by miscegenation. The majority of Anglo Northerners certainly wanted and had no problem with having a “White” Nation.
Michael Lucas wrote:
“Humans are multifaceted your articles tone, let alone your blog, is atrocious, projecting ignorance and hate on Confederate Apologists.”
Mr. Lucas, the article presented was published in a conservative Southern newspaper and consists primarily of quotes from Calhoun.
Confederate apologists generally (I use the word “generally”) ignore (or play around) the idea of supporting the Confederate ideal as a romantic vestige of an long ago. It is like supporting German “nationalism” in the 1930s and 1940s as something separate and distinct from the Rightwing racial policies.. Yes, the US was a confederacy, but contained by a much stronger centralized Federal government, And maybe that did not really go with the idea, but did for strategic reason with idealism added by others…Much stronger than the loose configuration in Richmond. Yes, not everyone not everyone wanted an integrated society – but enough did and represented the majority when it came to voting – as the system protected as the legal system. Yes, it is still a debated system by the people that best benefit from it..ie. the January crowd… and thier demagogue …and the Neo-Confederates (or “Neo-Cons”) are as fallible in thier choice of a flawed belief. Some people just cannot deal with modernity or human rights….. Nor could the Germans in the first part of the 20th century…
No, mate; both the USA and CSA, at their foundings and by 1860-61 had racist underpinnings and both had direct connections to slavery.
I reject out of hand your comparison of the CSA to Nazi Germany; for what does that make the USA by 1860-61?
Vichy France!
And by 1860-61, it wasn’t clear what mode of federalism prevail the Union; a ‘states rights’ model akin to Switzerland’s cantons, or the ‘Union paramount’ model as similar to what Sir John A. MacDonald envisioned for the Dominion of Canada?
So, let us say then “South Africa” and its white settler colonies (later to become separatist neighbor states) as an example. Settled by Britian as a colonial endeavor – and dominated by an European economic and cultural ideology. They established a “legal system” (a system that justified the enshrined European separation of the population into those with privilege and those without and supported by the colonial population and its descendants). This is what the South and North shared as well as nay other empire. Since you have an inability not to understand how populations support thier regime and how this is common to all nations – I will use a European=-based state as the example. Not just Vichy France, not just Nazi Germany, but any “state” (of any nationality – ethnic construction, etc.) I realized one has to be really specific as you cannot understand ‘between the lines’..
sorry, tired of needing to talk with entrenched rhetoric – why you follow this blog I will never know.. enjoy though… at what level I have no idea…
Again racism has been a dominant European settler ideology. Not just the CSA – but it is also an aspect of biopolitics – you fail to recognize the socially acceptable use of eugenics (in the United States) as a means for racial and social elimination of unacceptable humans [Social Darwinism] regrdless of race – ie the disabled – all within a mental health (or social policy) arena – sterilization in addition to the infamous Tuskegee STD experiments – . “Planned Parenthood” as a eugenics-based policy … and extensive anti-immigration legislation regulating Asian, Hispanic – non-whites – dominant exclusionary policies –
“The majority of Anglo Northerners certainly wanted and had no problem with having a “White” Nation.”
So did the Founders. Jefferson said:
“The 2 races (Whites & Blacks), equally free, cannot live in the same government. NATURE, habit & opinion have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.”
All American history since 1865 proves the truth of his words.
So then why don’t you leave?
exactly… Move to Orania, South Africa.. I am sure you will be welcome there..
AND Tom also thought that only the wealthy should get a quality education to rule over the middle class and poor – whose education would be limited to their daily economy. and then the term “rubbish” crops up to describe those he did not feel deserved anything.. All (only wealthy white men) are created equal) What rubbish….
Exactly. It makes the US (and its parent European founding ideology) a state based on inequality based on purely biological and extremely flawed science and violence; a tradition that began and continued past 1865. Racism was the main paradigm of European culture – spreading white settler colonialism throughout the world. the CSA and Germany both promoted a racist ideology – considering human beings as less than human and willing to work them as if they were on a level of a farm animal only useful as to thier work output. . I use Germany because it was one example that most people would understand – granted, there are wide differences of comparison, but the underlying basis of society remain the same – European settler colonialism, expansion through armed empire, Both the South and North sought empire to the west coast trampling on anything in its way. Vichy France? A fascist and collaborationist rump state? no comparison here… It is weird to see someone state our founding was racist and make no bones about it…. And it did not take being a “nazi” to support the regime – all one had to do was agree with the regime’s ideology. which most of the Germany population did. Like those of the South –
Next: As someone who is indisputably what would be described as ‘White’’ (I’m of Irish and French Canadian ancestry), do you put there were/are no benefits to colonialism whatsoever?
I put that question and challenge to you now.
I guess you believe that being shunted off to reservations because of race, hunted down by the military, discriminated against in the majority European “legal” environment because of race, etc. is a benefit, Read history …..
I am of German, Norwegian and Portuguese ancestry – a “mutt” . Part of my family during WW1 went so as far to change thier last name to avoid prejudice against Germans. Read about how the Irish were treated in the US if you want to read about prejudice.; Read how the Irish were treated by the English if you want to read about prejudice….
If you’re going to say there’s room for criticism regarding colonialism, get in line behind me!
But you can not disavow colonialism in the terms you do without acknowledging its benefits.
Otherwise, you’re saying it’s akin to ‘race treason’ for Aboriginal/Indigenous peoples to attend Academic Institutions like universities or hospitals, for starters.
Only after they had to fight for the right to attend against the settler population racism for generations.
I challenge you to then explain how Great Britain in significant part went to war in 1776 to defend, via colonialism, human rights and ethnic minorities AGAINST racism and attempted genocide, if what you describe of Colonialism is absolutely correct.
Did I ever say this????? They, like the rebels sought empire themselves …. The colonies were an extension of Britain after all, The same ideology, economic system- sharing the rights to foster an economic system and racial ideology. A carbon copy essentially a “splitter state” you might say…….same racism, same attitudes towards none Europeans, etc. as a polsic prof. once stated once, ‘if you want to understand countries, think of them as companies” – as some of the founding colonies in North America were – as elsewhere for the Dutch, English,, French, etc. We can view todays’ geopolitical setup as a mixture of these European colonial grabs for power – the Continental Americas (and pretty much the rest of the world as well as the product of non-European empires) North and South) as products of European culture (economics, ideology, etc.)
While the US did not create a “monarchy”, it was a social system that created a govt. and “legal” environment that protected the European population at the expense of non-Europeans, based on the European perception that somehow Europeans were “superior”.
Yes, ,the indigenous populations bought into the capitalist system for thier own benefit. Yet, they were still considered “less than human” and treated as such. Some of the non-English populations had to fight to gain the right to be “human”. Look at the Irish fight for dignity in the US… …..
Hold on here; did you just seriously try to claim that ‘White’ Europeans are the sole originators of violent colonialism?
If so, take a step back there and soak in Ghengis Khan.
What on earth would you describe his and the rest of the Mongol Empire as but violent colonialism, including but not limited to, racism and genocide?
And didn’t he make all Europe tremble in his wake?
He and they indisputably did!
Another thing; do you deny these same two sentiments were major motives for the American Revolution, and that one of the two groups that were targeted were ‘White’?
And yes; if the CSA could be considered Nazi Germany of its time, then Big YES; the Union ought be considered Vichy France.
Nothing happening regards to slavery from 1789-1865 that the Union did not enable by its very constitution and I’ll thank you to not minimise that.
I’ll address the rest of your post soon, but let me guess-
You also say the CSA was irrevocably committed to slavery, right?
You are correct. but you miss the point (entirely) The South might be called a “fascist regime. Britain, France, the US, (colonial empires ) etc. are modern examples of empires endorsed by thier electorate. *sigh*. you missed the point, but not surprised. not just Europeans – globalizing powers did as Imperial powers. My point was not just Germany, but civilian populations like that in the South and in the North endorsed the racist ideologies and were endorsed by the population. Not maybe the average Mongolian, but in modern European empires.
Read the Confed Constitution – “Article IV . (3) The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.”
Hey Peter-
You’re the one avoiding the entirety of the point.
You attempt to ‘sidestep’ all of what you put of South Africa, which you obviously selected for a reason, applies as much to Ghengis Khan, and I’m calling you out on it.
And you as much skirt the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and 1774 Quebec Act.
Writers like yourself deliberately engage in what Patricia Grimshaw termed, ‘the circle in the sand’; it’s dishonesty by omission.
What I get out of this page is Holistic History!
Peter-
If you fail to recognise that Europeans also valued racial equality in such measures as the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the Quebec Act of 1774, the Treaty of Wantangai of 1840, the Treaty of Montreal in 1701 and continue to disingenuously attempt to argue that Europeans in isolation’invented’ racism with colonialism (as Ghengis Khan articulated, ‘coloured eyes’/Europeans were superior to Chinese people), if you make no accomodation for these things, I dismiss your historical credibility out of hand as non-existent.