3. The Civil War is no excuse for cheap righty-bashing and South-bashing by PC brownshirt lefties.

There is no need for Civil War anniversaries to bash the south… There are plenty of good current reasons… Like the fact that they have the highest teenage pregnancy rates, the highest poverty rates, the worst educational systems, the shortest life expectancy, the lowest wages, the most racists, the highest poverty rates, the dumbest republicans…

There is no shortage of legitimate reasons to bash the south…

Oh!!! While I am at it, the southern states are a bunch of welfare queens…

The Nullification Crisis was more of a classic states' rights issue because it involved the state nullification of a Federal law.

Note that in 1860-61 there was no Federal law in question that the first seven seceding states hoped to overturn. It was just loss of control over the Federal government to a party ideologically opposed to the basic social system of the South. The second group of seceding states – VA, NC, AR and TN – officially seceded in protest against Lincoln's troop call-up on April 15, 1861. They refused to fight against their fellow Southerners, though KY, MO, MD and DE would ultimately decide to stick with the Union.

There was a states rights case for TN, VA, AR and NC – the right of a state to secede. But the right to secede and the wisdom and morality to do so are two different things. What drove the Upper South states out of the Union was only partially the opposition to Lincoln's coercion. Pre-April referenda in those states showed about 40% for secession; the war added another 20% or so on top. Once reluctant Confederates in Middle TN or Piedmont NC sensed that the old Union was kaput no matter what, they threw aside their old Whiggish conservatism and cast their lot with the new Southern Republic.

There were also other economic reasons for secession (including tariff policy, that didn't stop after Jackson). Where Joe Windish has been, Milledgeville, Georgia, was once the capital, and was also the site of a series of debates in favor of and against secession, and they included resentment of economic exploitation by the North (which predated later Southern and Western resentment against the Northeast).

http://www.amazon.com/Secession-Debated-Georgia…

The most succinct description of the Civil War and blaming the South for it came from Trollope:

“… I cannot defend the South. As long as they could be successful in their schemes for holding the political power of the nation, they were prepared to hold by the nation. Immediately those schemes failed, they were prepared to throw the nation overboard. In this there has undoubtedly been treachery as well as rebellion.”

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/trollope/anthon…

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/trollope/anthon…

Secession was about power, pure and simple. “States' rights” was a purely situational “doctrine” and not a remotely consistent ideological position. In fact, Northern states passed Personal Liberty Laws barring the return of fugitive slaves…in direct violation of the Federal Fugitive Slave Act. Northern states like Wisconsin actually asserted their state rights' to refuse to turn over runaway slaves. Southerners called this an unconstitutional infringement upon Federal prerogatives. When they lost the 1860 election all that changed and they suddenly discovered “states rights” for Southerners.

Manifest Destiny — no surprise there at all to the non-ignorant. That was during our expansionist era, and resort to imperialism to prevent loss of territory (what a defiant blow to our Yankee national ego!) shouldn't be a surprise to anybody today. (It doesn't matter why the South chose to secede, or how bad they were, or primitive in their development and anti-industrial or anti-modern in their culture. Those facts are irrelevent to the central issue at hand, that they had the right to leave just as the original 13 colonies did, but failed after trying.)

I get tired of people trying to claim that the war was about state rights. “State rights” was simply the framework from which the greater argument of slavery was fought. I may be extreme in this belief, but I believe denying the Civil War was about slavery is the same as denying the holocaust.

No (of course they have), but that's obviously not the correct point. The point related to that subject is that there should not be any ridiculous hype or another round of righty-bashing or South-bashing (or Religious Right-bashing, which is an opportunity among the usual crowd whenever the South or Flyover Country, USA is a subject), or hype about opposition to everything Obama or the Dems in Washington are doing as “racist” [sic], no bogus claims to superiority while bashing hate objects, etc.

Such people are incapable, or don't merit being included, in intelligent discussion of the real issues surrounding secession (why it happened, why it was suppressed), Lincoln's constitutional violations, or the growth of Washington since then during each war, for example.

As for the general public, their attachment or true interest in the Civil War recedes with time and each passing generation (in the East as well as in the West, so far removed from so much of earlier history). Plus, much of their “knowledge” has been replaced by post-1960s PC-and-worse drivel. I fear the meaning of the Civil War as well as the history is likely to be subject to PC corruption.

A visit to Shiloh (or Gettysburg, or Antietam) would be much better than commentary coming from DC or its outposts.

Shiloh is an amazing – and amazingly eerie – place.

As for the Civil War's meaning, I suspect that people will start to think about it a lot more with the sesquicentennial.

http://www.nps.gov/shil/planyourvisit/direction…

2. The Civil War means much, much, less in our modern or contemporary times than it used to mean.

3. The Civil War is no excuse for cheap righty-bashing and South-bashing by PC brownshirt lefties.