I'm unapologetic in my defense of the Confederate cause. My efforts are to delink that cause from slavery, which tarnishes it and, by extension, tarnishes the whole concept of secession.
Slavery, as reprehensible as it is, was legal at the time. For a state to be engaging in a legal activity is no excuse for our POTUS to suspend habeas corpus and lock up literally thousands of Northern newspaper editors, police chiefs, mayors, judges and other assorted malcontents in an effort to mute opposition to a war that Ron Paul has correctly called a war to consolidate power in the Central Government. It is no justification for the deaths of over 600,000 Americans nor of dividing the South up into military departments following the war until absolute obedience was achieved.
A glaring example of this is the arrest of Francis Key Howard, grandson of Francis Scott Key.
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The grandson of Francis Scott Key, Francis Key Howard, the editor of the Baltimore Exchange, was arrested as well as others who wrote against Lincoln. While he was imprisoned at Fort McHenry, he wrote the following words. The date was September 13, 1861...... 47 years to the day!
"When I looked out in the morning, I could not help being struck by an odd and not pleasant coincidence. On that day, forty-seven years before, my grandfather, Mr. F. S. Key, the prisoner on a British ship, had witnessed the bombardment of Ft. McHenry. When on the following morning the hospital fleet drew off, defeated, he wrote the song so long popular throughout the country, the Star Spangled Banner. As I stood upon the very scene of that conflict, I could not but contrast my position with his, forty-seven years before. The flag which he had then so proudly hailed, I saw waving at the same place over the victims of as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed."
When he was finally released on November 27, 1862 he wrote:
"We came out of prison just as we had gone in, holding the same just scorn and detestation [for] the despotism under which the country was prostrate, and with a stronger resolution that ever to oppose it by every means to which, as American freemen, we had the right to resort."
From......
"Fourteen Months In the American Bastiles" by Francis Key Howard
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Notice how, when other countries have gained their freedom through secession, we applaud the effort but don't use the word 'secession'. That shows just how taboo the concept has become in America. The breakup of the Soviet Union was brought about through secession, a right explicit in its Constitution. We instead subscribe to an indivisible, more perfect union at any cost. After all, we are the land of the free and the home of the brave. WTF??
On the issue of slavery in America, the best resource I've found on the web is this. You'll find it well sourced and offers a view ranging beyond slavery as a Southern only institution.
http://www.slavenorth.com/
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