The South as a socio-political and cultural entity is very interesting to me. For one, it was an aristocratic regime in all but name, styled similarly to the Ancien Regime of the European Old World, with plantation owners being aristocrats, and a caste system much more rigidly enforced than that of the North, thanks to the agricultural and sharecropping nature of the Southern states.
I feel bad for the South/Confederacy: in the end, the capitalist/industrial North used the issue at hand (slavery) as an excuse to eliminate the aristocratic influence of the Southern states on the Federal Legislature (in order to better serve the bankers and industrialists). It's sad, really: I actually feel bad about the whole "the Confederate flag is evil!" thing going on.
I think it is quite interesting that students are not taught just how bad the South got it in the Civil War. All its infrastructure and urban centers were destroyed, most of its able-bodied male population killed, tens of thousands of civilian casualties from starvation, disease, and from Union violence (I find it curious the books never delve into the issue of civilian casualties int he South), and then, the installation of an essentially Union-controlled military junta to govern the devastated states.
I'm not even from the South, or even white, but I find it easier to sympathize with the aristocratic Confederacy than the Union filled with offensive and vulgar industrialists trying to purchase with money the air of extinct nobility.
High-school kid here, I have to disagree. I recently did the civil war section in music US history class and it definitely covered how sucky southern citizen life was like.
Would you argue that southern presidents and friends, such as Davis and stephens, could only be in that position if an aristocrat? Davis is your prime example of a southern guy who is probably slave owner, but look at Lee and stephens. Although reluctant for slavery, they still had powerful positions in the Confederate government. Stephens even disagreed with almost all of Davis' ideals, and after the war became a scallywag, or political traitor.
I would say the south was doomed from the start. The idea of an aristocracy was present, but the execution of these different people with one goal did not hold bode well.
There's a really good book called mothers of invention which talked about southern life during the war. I'd recommend you guys read it if you're interested. Keep your pants on 4chin, because it's kinda pro-feminist.
Inb4 underage and b8
>>365968
>High-school kid here
18 yo senior in highschool
>>365968
>I get my facts from a pro-feminist book
>>365920
AD MORTEM PRODITORES
>>365968
>admitting high-school
One day you will understand whats thats an immediate cause for discarding whatever it is you said.
>>365968
There was no mass vote by the populace to secede from union, the decision was made by people who were majorly owning slaves, or those in business potions that relied on the products of slave plantations.
Just as most politicians today typically are much more wealthy than their constituents the same could be said of politicians in that era as well.
That being said the actual slaveowner population was less than 10% of whites overall in the south.
Lee has been said to have only joined the confederacy becuase Virgina seceded, and He couldn't force himself to fight against them.
He was also the best general available to the confederates, would you not put him to use even though more or less on the fence of things?
Stephens by all accounts was elected to his position because he was a well regarded statesmen, the kind of person regardless of his beliefs was a good public servant and made gov't run well.
>>365968
I feel like this post is bait because of how stupid it is but idek anymore.
>>367054
>They simply forgot
Like hell, there were expeditions up until panama canal was built to find an easier route to get to the east.
At first the fact that there was a unknown continent was more of a problem than, something to be exploited.
Who ever wrote that needs to be shot.
>>365920
Well, the North didn't really focus on the slavery thing, just the secessionist thing.
The South fought to maintain slavery, the North fought to maintain the Union.
>>367112
The North didn't want slaves because of the 3/4 Rule, which still gave the aristocratic South much political clout in the lower house. The South didn't care so much about the slaves as it did to preserve its political power and to keep the North from interfering in its issues.
>>367139
Well, nobody should be voting on behalf of someone else who can't vote.
The South made efforts to expand slavery before secession, trying to make it Federal law for free states to arrest escaped slaves and return them, to allow slave-owners to travel with their slaves in free states, even leaving aside the compromises over admission of new states on either side. Then the aristocracy decided to leave and start their own Federal government.
I've thought before that the south sort of resembled feudalism, but is feudalism the most accurate way to put it?
>but I find it easier to sympathize with the aristocratic Confederacy
An aristocracy which forced many of its men to die in war to protect their own business interests. An aristocracy who didn't have to fight if they had a certain amount of slaves.
Yeah, nah mate, they basically brought lambs to the slaughter just so they could keep up their disgusting practices.
So if the South were a European aristocracy does that make the rather insular Appalachian mountain folk of TN and NC like the Welsh of the South?
>>366923
Death to the traitors?
>>367241
Sister fuckers vs sheep fuckers
>>365920
>most of its able-bodied male population killed
Confederate Army was a million strong and a quarter were killed
>>367356
Disease killed far more than combat.
>>367357
That number's a total, only 100,000 were KIA
>>367234
As opposed to Union capitalists and banker interests that forced a draft on citizens, so that the poor had to go fight while the sons of the wealthy went to university and their European Grand Tour, right?
>>367241
Sort of, except the Southern English-descended aristocracy came to America before the Scots-Irish. Contrast with the Welsh who are the last "pure" Britons who survived the Anglo-Saxon invasions.
>>367363
Kek the Confederacy instituted the draft first.
>>367363
You do know that the South forcibly drafted its men before the North did, right?
You're actually pathetic with your delusions of some aristocratic grandeur.
>>367516
You realize that wealthy southerners just weren't subject to conscription, right? They didn't even need to buy their way out. Not to mention when it came to impressing their slaves as military laborers most of them just fled with their stock anyway. Many northerners paid their way out of the draft and many didn't, but in the South they didn't need to.
>>367112
The South fought because their leaders could make more money outside the Union than in it. The North fought because their leaders could make more money with the South in the Union than if they let it go. The war was 100% about money. Slavery, muh Union, etc. were just propaganda slogans to get people riled up so they would go march to their deaths
I personally would have let the South go because it really was its own country by that point, with its own distinct cultural identity and economic interests, and killing hundreds of thousands of people to keep a voluntary union together simply can't be justified in my opinion.
>>365920
Southerners managed to get the picture of the /his/ sticky changed from William T Sherman to Herodotus, by maintaining that it was offensive to them. They are proof positive of the SJW mantra that if you whine enough about hurt feelings, you can effect change.
>remove monarchy and hereditary nobility
>couple decades later
>redneck fucks cosplaying as aristocrats
I'll never get enough of this hilarity
>>367241
>mfw im a welsh american whos faimly has live in TN for over a century
>double welsh
