New Orleans tearing down racist monuments. Racists object.

@realityforall, again, I'm fine with debates on states' rights. Sometimes I side with the federal government, and sometimes I side with the state. It's a legitimate topic for argument. I'm glad states are legalizing marijuana despite federal laws. I'm glad there are sanctuary cities. But to defend states' rights to continue an indefensible practice is nothing noble.

I havent seen one comment regarding the cause of the Civil war that said ONLY slavery was the cause.   As if it were not enough of a cause, but, the current argument here and in the general media today is racist in nature because what it is doing is minimizing slavery, with the goal of dehumanizing people of color.

ETA:  I am not pointing fingers at RFA in this regard, its the general discussion that is racist and has been promoted by those forces on the right which want to promulgate the oppression of POC.

Thanks for the explanation hoops.  I am not trying to minimize slavery at all.  However, it appears to me that there were multiple causes to the civil war.  Once again, X amendment (AKA State's Rights) dispute was centered on how the issue of slavery should be resolved by North and South.  The test for causation is usually described as a "but for" test.  However, the "but for" test does not resolve the causation issue for me in this instance.

PS My focus is on historical accuracy.  I have NO animosity or quarrel with people of color.

hoops said:

I havent seen one comment regarding the cause of the Civil war that said ONLY slavery was the cause.   As if it were not enough of a cause, but, the current argument here and in the general media today is racist in nature because what it is doing is minimizing slavery, with the goal of dehumanizing people of color.




ETA:  I am not pointing fingers at RFA in this regard, its the general discussion that is racist and has been promoted by those forces on the right which want to promulgate the oppression of POC.

I am just seeing this discussion. It is my recollection that certain Northern States invoked States Rights in defying the Fugitive Slave Act. Arguments about States Rights versus the power of the Federal Government are more often strategic than principled.  

truth said:

New Orleans has better relations between races than most, if not all, of New Jersey.

Comparisons aside, I found this to be worthwhile reading:

In New Orleans, Racism's History Is Harder Than Stone

RealityForAll said:

Thanks for the explanation hoops.  I am not trying to minimize slavery at all.  However, it appears to me that there were multiple causes to the civil war.  Once again, X amendment (AKA State's Rights) dispute was centered on how the issue of slavery should be resolved by North and South.  The test for causation is usually described as a "but for" test.  However, the "but for" test does not resolve the causation issue for me in this instance.

PS My focus is on historical accuracy.  I have NO animosity or quarrel with people of color.

hoops said:

I havent seen one comment regarding the cause of the Civil war that said ONLY slavery was the cause.   As if it were not enough of a cause, but, the current argument here and in the general media today is racist in nature because what it is doing is minimizing slavery, with the goal of dehumanizing people of color.




ETA:  I am not pointing fingers at RFA in this regard, its the general discussion that is racist and has been promoted by those forces on the right which want to promulgate the oppression of POC.

It's completely understandable anyone might think that state's rights was the primary cause of the Civil War. As the links I posted explain, the state's rights explanation is not only false, but thanks to the success of the UDC's peddling that justification as opposed to slavery, it's still taught and widely accepted nationally. If I correctly understand the "but for" test, but for slavery, the Civil War wouldn't have happened. The same can't be said of disagreements over state's rights.

Again I'd like to point out that the longstanding consensus among historians is the South's desire to retain and expand slavery at any cost was the single cause above any other that led to secession and the Confederacy starting the war by firing on Fort Sumter. Southern politicians and leaders began threatening secession as arguments over abolition and allowing slavery in new territories and states grew more intense after the Louisiana Purchase.  The South was more than happy to accept Federal supremacy in the Fugitive Slave Act, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and most important the Dred Scott Case, which found Federal efforts to check the expansion of slavery unconstitutional.  

It's actually Lincoln's election, and his promise to contain slavery, that led South Carolina, then the other Southern states to secede.  Their declarations all cited slavery as the motivation for secession. An interesting Libertarian takedown of those wishing to lionize the Confederacy as a Jeffersonian utopia centered on state's rights based on those documents..

https://www.libertarianism.org...

Here's discussion of recent re-examination of how war became inevitable as both sides became unwilling to compromise, the fact the North saw themselves only as saving the Union, not paving the way for abolition, while Confederates saw defense of slavery as their entire cause.  Many Confederate veterans deeply resented the rear-guard campaign of the UDC to re-write history around the "Lost Cause" explanation.  This evolving fuller portrait of the war's causes and legacy doesn't include accepting any role for state's rights.

https://www.theatlantic.com/na...

Part and parcel of accepting this false history is that inferior African Americans needed to be controlled and cared for through the benevolence of slavery.  Northern desire for reconciliation and growth of the Southern economy at their hands, and a shared belief in white superiority, led to accepting the myth.  The result was 100 years of Jim Crow repression and a lingering refusal to deal with slavery's still present role in our history.

@dk50b Well stated.