Gordon supposedly told former slave trader and Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest in Memphis, Tennessee, about the Klan. Forrest allegedly responded, "That's a good thing; that's a damn good thing. We can use that to keep the niggers in their place." A few weeks later, Forrest was selected as Imperial Wizard, the Klan's national leader.All that self-justifying crap about the "KKK's original mission" is even more disingenuous than the pretense that the South's rebellion was about states' rights. It was about keeping the niggers in their place. End of story.
"It had been decided, in the middle of the semester, that all Catholic children in the one-room schools were to attend parochial schools in the towns. There was now school-bus service to Fayetteville and we wouldn't have to walk as the older girls had, but I still hated to leave Quinn's.posted by ericb at 3:03 PM on April 13, 2008
My throat felt tight as the derisive farewell shouts followed us down the road, 'So long, Catlickers!' and 'There go the stuck-up crossbacks!' They were the friends that had shared my lunch and crayons, my good times and bad, the very same ones, I told Mother.
'It's just because they don't understand,' she said."
-- The Lark's on the Wing, by Mary Carlier, 1955 *
I just want to add this quote to the record (from page 14 of Jeff Hummel's intriguing reanalysis of the Civil War and the period leading up to it, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men):I stand by both quotes.Southerners furthermore became advocates of inviolate states' rights. What particularly disturbed them was that Tallmadge's amendment would have imposed antislavery upon a full-fledged state, and not just a territory. Previously states' rights had been an ideological issue with support and opposition in all parts of the country. But once the Missouri controversy exposed the South's vulnerability as a minority, states' rights increasingly turned into a sectional issue. Southerners came to realize that only strict limits upon national authority could protect their existing slave system from hostile interference.Seriously, folks, it was all about slavery, from beginning to end.
The straightforward argument of What This Cruel War Was Over is that soldiers themselves—far from being ignorant patriots or naïve dupes—knew that the war was about slavery. Confederate soldiers understood this from the first. In the wake of Fort Sumter, for example, a group of Louisiana men who were studying at the University of North Carolina gathered to declare their commitment to defending "that Institution at once our pride and the source of all our wealth and prosperity." Most Union soldiers recognized the centrality of slavery to the conflict only slightly later, somewhat before much of the northern public accepted emancipation as a war aim. Indeed, it was often Union soldiers' contact with white Confederates and black slaves that got them thinking about slavery. They heard from white civilians that the Confederacy had gone to war because Lincoln's election had threatened slavery, and their interactions with slaves persuaded previously indifferent Billy Yanks, many of whom had never met a black person before the war, of the necessity of emancipation. One soldier from Iowa witnessed a slaveowner trying to sell off a slave who was also his daughter, and declared, "By G-d I'll fight till hell freezes over and then I'll cut the ice and fight on." Of course, this didn't mean that Union soldiers ceased to be racists. Like their president, many a man in blue was able to hold together a strong commitment to ending slavery with a strong distaste for the idea of black equality.posted by anotherpanacea at 6:04 AM on April 17, 2008 [1 favorite]
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Well at least she's using her evil for good.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:21 PM on April 13, 2008 [6 favorites]