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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

The south lost, but they didn't handle it the way say Germany did WWII (internalizing a deep sense of shame for what they did and purging their culture of anything glorifying that period). They lost, but they didn't repent. Hence why we're still seeing this conflict today.

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Apples and oranges, isn't it?

Hitler began a campaign for global domination and genocide. The South said "Fuck this, we're out" and seceded from the Union, then the North attacked it.

The South's motivation wasn't particularly great, but their actions didn't exactly tear apart the world and change it's development forever.

Yeah, I'm not saying the people who caused the secession were good people. There's a lot of evidence that they're not. But choosing to secede I would suggest is a fairly mature act.

If you're getting a raw deal politically then extracting yourself from said raw deal is probably a better option than starting a war to assert your dominance over those who disagree that your deal is a bad one.

I think the people in the South had dishonorable motivations for what I think were ultimately honorable acts. At least up until they attacked the North first.

And then Lincoln goes and proves that the South was right to secede, by suspending parts of the Constitution in the Union as he saw fit.

If you read the secession declarations, the slavery question was just the straw that broke the camels back.

The South fired first. (Fort Sumter)

And wanted to expand southwards in Mexico, Cuba and the Carribean in order to have a large slave-based empire.

I have not previously heard of that second part, regarding expansion. Do you have a reference for that? I would like to read more about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Circle_%28proposed_coun...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_%28military%29

If you're looking for a more serious reference, Freehling's Road to Disunion devotes a chapter to the subject.

You realize you just posted a link to an idea created by a secret society headquartered in the North, right?

That's what I get for citing Wikipedia. But the idea was also brought up by actual southern politicians, particularly in the discussions at the end of the Mexican War.

Ta-Nahesi Coates recently highlighted a number of sources.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/what-thi...

For extending slavery beyond the borders of south, see the quotes of Edward Pollard and Albert Gallatin Brown at the end of the post.

Yes, the South fired first but it was clearly much more complicated than a simple "they started it!" The North had made it clear they were not going to allow the secession.

This is part of why the South hasn't just dropped it. The war was started, in large part, over slavery but we learned that the United states are no longer united by choice.

This is part of the ongoing argument over state's rights vs federal power. The confederate flag is a racist symbol, but it's also a rejection of federal power over the states. Politics are complicated.

That's the modern, historical revisionist version, but the "state's rights" the South seceded over weren't a rejection of federal power over the states. Their complaint was that the Northern states were not returning escaped slaves or allowing them to take their slaves into states where slavery was illegal, and that the Federal government was attacking their state's rights by not forcing the Northern states to do so. That's not a rejection of federal power. See for example http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

I suspect the revisionist interpretation of state's rights probably comes from the 50s fight against desegregation.

The revisionism happened almost immediately after war ended. Basically, the South felt bad they lost a war over a really evil cause.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy

I don't think you're saying anything that disagrees with what I was trying to say. Slavery was most or all the cause of secession. However, after finding they couldn't take their toys and go home the southern slave holding states had another reason to be upset.

It's a bit of a tautology really, but there isn't a conflict between State and Federal powers until there is a specific disagreement. The document you linked says as much:

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

> The South said "Fuck this, we're out" and seceded from the Union, then the North attacked it.

The Confederacy (or the states that would become it) were taking over Federal military forts. The first shots fired were by Confederate troops on Fort Sumter in 1861. While the northern states (what remained of the Union) went to war, the Confederacy was not without blame in providing them with an immediate cause (Fort Sumter) to rally around.

It's pretty well established that the South fired the first shots of the civil war when they attacked Fort Sumter.

Right, arguably what the Confederacy truly stood for is State's Rights, which is a totally good American thing, right? It's part of what our country was founded on!

It just so happens that their flagship "right" was the most evil and hateful thing to have ever happened systematically in America. That's why the defense of the flag falls short: in broad scope, it stands for something that really is actually kind of good. But when you take into consideration the details, it's racist as fuck.

Edit: to add on, this is the same argument as "Hitler had some good ideas". Not technically untrue, but they're far from the ideas Hitler as a figure really stands for.

The Confederacy never stood for state's rights. That's part of the Lost Cause historical revisionism. In reality, the Confederacy used both state and federal legislature in attempts to keep slavery legal when necessary.

I was taught that the southern states were simply for states rights and doing the "fuck this we're out" thing but that storyline is highly revisionist. They had dreams of empire as well. If you read what they were saying at the time it's scary and enlightening:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/what-thi...

That being said, I think the confederate flag is a terrible symbol to be proud of but the reaction to this game is a huge overcorrection. I have played it and it's a great game that gave me a ton of respect and insight into how pivotal that battle was. Leave it to us Americans to focus on learning the wrong lessons and applying simplistic rules to a nuanced situation.

The south didn't merely say "fuck this we're out" and secede. They raised an army and fought viciously to protect human slavery. The Civil War was a war for slavery. Fighting for slavery is shameful.

People today shouldn't be ashamed of what people in 1864 did; that's silly. But they shouldn't be proud of it, either.

That's the point I think 'rayiner is making.

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