The Confederacy And A Pope

[CatholicMax]

[url="http://catholicdiscussion.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/catholicism-and-the-old-south-by-gary-potter-pt-1/"]http://catholicdiscussion.wordpress.com/20...ry-potter-pt-1/[/url]



During Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ imprisonment following the defeat of the Confederacy, Pope Pius IX sent a picture of himself to Davis with the hand-written inscription: “Come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”[8] Along with this picture, the pope sent a miniature crown of thorns which he had woven with his own hands.[9] Such a gift, said a great niece, was “never before conferred on any but crowned heads.” Robert E. Lee, pointing to his own portrait of Pius IX whistling Dixie, told a visitor that he was “the only sovereign…in Europe who recognized our poor Confederacy.”

[Aloysius]

Yep. The Confederacy was incorrect about slavery, but everything else made them completely justified in their actions. Moreover, slavery was able to be abolished everywhere else in the civilized world voluntarily and without bloodshed, and as the African slave trade had already been shut down it was only a matter of time before the confederacy would have made that peaceful transition.

The Union had no legal or moral right to insist upon the union remaining when the states which had voluntarily ratified the Constitution decided to leave it.

The Confederate System is, in fact, much more compatible with Catholic Social Justice teaching about the role of governments and the principal of subsidarity.

[Paladin D]

If you's truely want to leave, try doing so again. You can call yourselves 'Confederates', I'll call myself an 'American'.

Edited April 14, 2008 by Paladin D

[CatherineM]

I would not like to confuse a compassionate hand held out to someone who suffered as being an acceptance of their background. The Pope sent letters on behalf of Ted Bundy too. I grew up where there were separate water fountains and waiting rooms. We had KKK allowed onto our highschool grounds to recruit. They were very interested in me until told them I was Catholic. I fought against white supremacist groups who were all about states' rights, and were very anti-abortion, at least of white children. I can't tell you how many times I was called an Idol worshiper and a whore of Babylon because I was Catholic. These are men who consider honor above all things. I think true honor has a different face.

[BeenaBobba]

[mod]Warning: questionable content at the website.[/mod] [url="http://remnantnewspaper.com/archives/archive-2007-01150rebels_in_rome.htm"]Here's[/url] a pretty interesting article about Catholicism and the Confederacy.

[kafka]

yeah, talk about Divine Providence. This country's official religion could have been Catholic yet God didnt will it. Lee could have marched on D.C. but he didnt.

[BeenaBobba]

P.S. That site may not be 100% orthodox, so proceed with caution, but the article itself is pretty interesting.

Edited April 14, 2008 by BeenaBobba

[Paladin D]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1499132' date='Apr 14 2008, 01:32 PM']I would not like to confuse a compassionate hand held out to someone who suffered as being an acceptance of their background. The Pope sent letters on behalf of Ted Bundy too. I grew up where there were separate water fountains and waiting rooms. We had KKK allowed onto our highschool grounds to recruit. They were very interested in me until told them I was Catholic. I fought against white supremacist groups who were all about states' rights, and were very anti-abortion, at least of white children. I can't tell you how many times I was called an Idol worshiper and a whore of Babylon because I was Catholic. These are men who consider honor above all things. I think true honor has a different face.[/quote]

Not to turn this topic into a racism thread, but since one of the reasons the Civil War was fought was slavery (or at least claimed by the North at one point), let's not forget about the American Civil Rights Movement that eventually followed after the North withdrew it's forces from the South in 1877. Segregation and discriminatory state laws were more prominent in Southern states, than the those in the North. If the South was truely innocent in this conflict, and that slavery wasn't an issue, then why were these problems apparent primarily in the South after the war? Just look to the Kansas Exodus of 1879, after the Union army left.

Both sides had blood on their hands in the Civil War. Let's thank God that despite that terrible, bloody war, we were able to become a great nation today. God Bless the United States of America!

Edited April 15, 2008 by Paladin D

[CatholicMax]

[quote name='Paladin D' post='1499097' date='Apr 14 2008, 10:39 AM']If you's truely want to leave, try doing so again. You can call yourselves 'Confederates', I'll call myself an 'American'.[/quote]
I am first from the sovereign state of Lousiana, then i am from the United States of America. My loyalty is from the bottom up not the top down.

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1499132' date='Apr 14 2008, 11:32 AM']I would not like to confuse a compassionate hand held out to someone who suffered as being an acceptance of their background. The Pope sent letters on behalf of Ted Bundy too. I grew up where there were separate water fountains and waiting rooms. We had KKK allowed onto our highschool grounds to recruit. They were very interested in me until told them I was Catholic. I fought against white supremacist groups who were all about states' rights, and were very anti-abortion, at least of white children. I can't tell you how many times I was called an Idol worshiper and a whore of Babylon because I was Catholic. These are men who consider honor above all things. I think true honor has a different face.[/quote]
There is a huge difference between the letter on behalf of Ted Budny and TO the Confederate President Jefferson Davis. First the letter was on BEHALF of Mr. Bundy where as the other letter was TO President Davis, secondly the miniature crown of thorn(an honor reserved to heads of states) was not sent to Mr. Bundy but it was sent to President Davis.

How old are you? because I was born in the South and so i can equally say I grew up where there were separate water fountains and waiting rooms. and while no one would deny that the KKK existed in the south(as well as in the North). I agree that Honor has a different face than what these people think, these people also tend to be very libertarian (which I am not). However What does any of this have to do with the Holy Father supporting the confederacy. the war was NOT about Slavery that is a fiction. and the Holy Father supported the Confederacy. those are two facts. Also consider that President Davis had a black stepson.

[CatholicMax]

[quote name='Paladin D' post='1499859' date='Apr 15 2008, 12:23 AM']Not to turn this topic into a racism thread, but since one of the reasons the Civil War was fought was slavery (or at least claimed by the North at one point), let's not forget about the American Civil Rights Movement that eventually followed after the North withdrew it's forces from the South in 1877. Segregation and discriminatory state laws were more prominent in Southern states, than the those in the North. If the South was truely innocent in this conflict, and that slavery wasn't an issue, then why were these problems apparent primarily in the South after the war? Just look to the Kansas Exodus of 1879, after the Union army left.

Both sides had blood on their hands in the Civil War. Let's thank God that despite that terrible, bloody war, we were able to become a great nation today. God Bless the United States of America![/quote]
The answer to this question is rather obvious. you are confusing the issue, you are confusing the way blacks were treated after the war with the reason for the war. the war was caused over increasing centralized government. The war did not become about slavery until halfway through the war. Many in the south having lost the war and being angry(anger is not rational) blamed the blacks for loosing the war because the North made the war about slavery half way through the war.

[CatherineM]

I just turned 46. Oklahoma tends to be one of the last place things get changed. The last confederate general to surrender was an Oklahoman, specifically Cherokee.

Edited April 15, 2008 by CatherineM

[rkwright]

[quote name='CatholicMax' post='1500062' date='Apr 15 2008, 01:17 PM']The answer to this question is rather obvious. you are confusing the issue, you are confusing the way blacks were treated after the war with the reason for the war. the war was caused over increasing centralized government. The war did not become about slavery until halfway through the war. Many in the south having lost the war and being angry(anger is not rational) blamed the blacks for loosing the war because the North made the war about slavery half way through the war.[/quote]

Your version of history is borderline revisionism. The cause of the Civil War has direct links to slavery in America; this should really be a settled point, but there are many in South who simply won't acknowledge this. The South feared a more centralized government because the federal government was taking steps to end slavery!

If the Civil war wasn't about slavery, why did the federal government at the end of the war pass the 13th and 14th amendment's, banning slavery? Just a coincidence? And why did they make the Southern states rejoining of the Union conditioned upon the ratification of these amendments?

[CatholicMax]

[quote name='rkwright' post='1500353' date='Apr 15 2008, 06:09 PM']Your version of history is borderline revisionism. The cause of the Civil War has direct links to slavery in America; this should really be a settled point, but there are many in South who simply won't acknowledge this. The South feared a more centralized government because the federal government was taking steps to end slavery!

If the Civil war wasn't about slavery, why did the federal government at the end of the war pass the 13th and 14th amendment's, banning slavery? Just a coincidence? And why did they make the Southern states rejoining of the Union conditioned upon the ratification of these amendments?[/quote]
Really? I would read Lincoln if i were you. The war for Southern independence (the war was not a Civil war as it was between two countries), was not about slavery and did not become so until the middle of the war. in fact the not so great Lincoln only "freed" slaves in a sovereign country in in states that stayed in the union. the reason why the 13th and 14th amendments came into being is because the war became about slavery. They were nothing more than a spite to the south.

[CatholicMax]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1500171' date='Apr 15 2008, 03:29 PM']I just turned 46. Oklahoma tends to be one of the last place things get changed. The last confederate general to surrender was an Oklahoman, specifically Cherokee.[/quote]
Whoohoo! Wonder if i am related? there is actually one Tribe today who is still at war with the US they have never surrendered. Its more or less like the Korean war, its not that we are not at war we just stopped fighting.(dont ask me how that works). I know that this is going to be a rather unpopular Idea however i tend to back the black segregationist leaders who wanted segregation for the right reasons. The damage done by reconstruction(one of the MAJOR factors of post war racism), as well as affirmative action have damaged what many call "race relations".

I say with pride that I have never touched a dime of the money "owed" to me by the government. What happened happened and I am thankful and better off that they came and conquered my savage people. And the reality is that blacks are better off as well, better here than in Africa getting hacked to bits. but again this all has very little to do with the fact that the Holy Father DID support the confederacy and that he DID send Jefferson Davis a gift reserved for heads of States.

[rkwright]

[quote name='CatholicMax' post='1500545' date='Apr 15 2008, 11:21 PM']Really? I would read Lincoln if i were you. The war for Southern independence (the war was not a Civil war as it was between two countries), was not about slavery and did not become so until the middle of the war. in fact the not so great Lincoln only "freed" slaves in a sovereign country in in states that stayed in the union. the reason why the 13th and 14th amendments came into being is because the war became about slavery. They were nothing more than a spite to the south.[/quote]

hmm... sounds like Lincoln was talking about Slavery before the war started. Heres part of his 'House divided' speech in 1858 [quote]"A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.[/quote]

I guess slavery wasn't really the issue when Dred Scott was decided just 3 years before the war.

I guess the slavery wasn't really the issue when South Carolina left the union first, claiming specifically 5 reasons: [quote]The refusal of Northern states to enforce the fugitive slave code, violating Southern personal property rights;
Agitation against slavery, which "denied the rights of property".
Assisting "thousands of slaves to leave their homes" through the Underground Railroad.
The election of Lincoln "because he has declared that 'Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,' and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction".
"...elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens".[/quote]

[CatholicMax]

[quote name='rkwright' post='1500562' date='Apr 15 2008, 11:37 PM']hmm... sounds like Lincoln was talking about Slavery before the war started. Heres part of his 'House divided' speech in 1858[/quote]

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything." -Abraham Lincoln


Sounds like he really thought they were people. yup loved them "negroes".

I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.--Abraham Lincoln-First Inaugural Address

The objection to slave states in the North was not a moral one, it was about one thing power.

[quote]I guess slavery wasn't really the issue when Dred Scott was decided just 3 years before the war.[/quote]
My argument is not that slavery had 0 to do with the war, but that 1 it didnt have as much as is reported. and 2 it was not the reason for the war in the way it is popularly proposed. Lee himself was no fan of slavery.

[quote]I guess the slavery wasn't really the issue when South Carolina left the union first, claiming specifically 5 reasons:[/quote]

May i see sources?

[rkwright]

The full text of the "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union" here...

[url="http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/csa/scarsec.htm"]http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/csa/scarsec.htm[/url]

Note the following paragraphs..
[quote]In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."[/quote]
[quote]The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

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.[/quote]

Regarding Lincoln, its interesting that South Carolina actually mentions him as a reason for leaving the union..
[quote]A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.[/quote]

Again slavery not the real issue here? The document speaks for itself.

[rkwright]

Georgia's secession document...
[quote]These are sound and just principles which have received the approbation of just men in all countries and all centuries; but they are wholly disregarded by the people of the Northern States, and the Federal Government is impotent to maintain them. For twenty years past the abolitionists and their allies in the Northern States have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions and to excite insurrection and servile war among us. They have sent emissaries among us for the accomplishment of these purposes. Some of these efforts have received the public sanction of a majority of the leading men of the Republican party in the national councils, the same men who are now proposed as our rulers. These efforts have in one instance led to the actual invasion of one of the slave-holding States, and those of the murderers and incendiaries who escaped public justice by flight have found fraternal protection among our Northern confederates.

These are the same men who say the Union shall be preserved.

Such are the opinions and such are the practices of the Republican party, who have been called by their own votes to administer the Federal Government under the Constitution of the United States. We know their treachery; we know the shallow pretenses under which they daily disregard its plainest obligations. If we submit to them it will be our fault and not theirs. The people of Georgia have ever been willing to stand by this bargain, this contract; they have never sought to evade any of its obligations; they have never hitherto sought to establish any new government; they have struggled to maintain the ancient right of themselves and the human race through and by that Constitution. But they know the value of parchment rights in treacherous hands, and therefore they refuse to commit their own to the rulers whom the North offers us. Why? Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of the protection of Federal law everywhere; because they give sanctuary to thieves and incendiaries who assail it to the whole extent of their power, in spite of their most solemn obligations and covenants; because their avowed purpose is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides. To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquillity.[/quote]

Mississippi's (an easy read, this is the whole document, emp. mine)
[quote]In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

[b]Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery[/b]-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.

The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.

The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.

It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.

It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.

It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.

It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security.

It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.

It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.

It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood.

Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.

Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.[/quote]

[kenrockthefirst]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1499049' date='Apr 14 2008, 09:17 AM']Yep. The Confederacy was incorrect about slavery, but everything else made them completely justified in their actions. Moreover, slavery was able to be abolished everywhere else in the civilized world voluntarily and without bloodshed, and as the African slave trade had already been shut down it was only a matter of time before the confederacy would have made that peaceful transition.[/quote]
So what was Lincoln supposed to do, ignore his Oath of Office? The Southern states seceded after Lincoln was elected president, a [i]constitutional[/i] process in which they participated. Things didn't go their way, and so they decided to take their ball and go home. In addition, the Civil War was preceded by a dialog, i.e. the debate about states' rights, nullification, etc. Again, this was a [i]constitutional[/i] process that the Southern states felt wasn't going their way, and so decided to take their ball and go home. No one forced them to either ratify the Constitution in 1789 or join the Union afterwards.

As for the end of the slave trade, that was based on a clause in the US Constitution. I daresay that you hold a rather sanguine view of what you posit as the probable peaceful end of slavery in the South given the continuation of virulent racial discrimination there at least through the 60's.

[CatholicMax]

[quote name='kenrockthefirst' post='1500635' date='Apr 16 2008, 07:35 AM']So what was Lincoln supposed to do, ignore his Oath of Office? The Southern states seceded after Lincoln was elected president, a [i]constitutional[/i] process in which they participated. Things didn't go their way, and so they decided to take their ball and go home. In addition, the Civil War was preceded by a dialog, i.e. the debate about states' rights, nullification, etc. Again, this was a [i]constitutional[/i] process that the Southern states felt wasn't going their way, and so decided to take their ball and go home. No one forced them to either ratify the Constitution in 1789 or join the Union afterwards.[/quote]
It was always understood that the Union was always understood to be optional. in fact the founding fathers did not expect the union to last, what made the union the union was that it was understood to be optional. no state would have entered the union without the understood agreement that they could leave at any time.



[quote]As for the end of the slave trade, that was based on a clause in the US Constitution. I daresay that you hold a rather sanguine view of what you posit as the probable peaceful end of slavery in the South given the continuation of virulent racial discrimination there at least through the 60's.[/quote]

You don't fix peoples rights being violated by creating new ones (which is what affirmative action did).

look people there is a thread on racism this is NOT that thread.