Civil War's Influence on Football

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GopherinPhilly said:
Then maybe all these Southern states should stop taking the money from the Fed to support their citizens. Almost all the Southern states are takers in the Federal system.
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True, no argument from me there.
 

ruppertflywheel said:
Well I know when the Gophers played and beat Alabama in the Music City bowl I've never seen so many Confederate flags on vehicles in my life. The Gopher band didn't play the Battle Hymn of the Republic/swing gate in the pre game,or halftime. My son and I were addressed as " Yankees " at the Coyote Bar in Nashville. It was said in jest but still said. You wouldn't think a war that occurred some 150 years ago would still create a situation.
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Was at a sales conference w/ a guy from Bama and all he talked about the whole week was how they won the civil war
 

GoForGold said:
You just hit it there on the states rights thing. Why is the south still fighting that war? Because they probably still see an assault on there way of life by the Federal government which they continue to lose. The latest being the immigration mandates by our good president that of course affect the south the most.

Think of it this way. What if the state of Minnesota passed a good and sensible law limiting the number of Iowa and Wisconsin fans (bragging that their fans travel so well when we know full well that most of them came from places like Apple Valley and Anoka because their 2nd rate states can't produce decent jobs) who could attend games at TCF Stadium. But then the Federal government steps in to invalidate the law on the grounds of discrimination against oppressed minorities. We'd be yelling for states right too.
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The point is that the CW was not a States Right issue, that is all revisionist history. When you spend a few hours at Gettysburg and read any of the documentaiton (papers, letters, acts of politicians) it is very obvious that the war was about slavery. Abolishing slavery would remove one of the fundamental pillars of the southern economy (slave labor) and they went to war to prevent it.

You are right, the immigration changes will have more of an impact in the south. They should see increased tax revenue as people become documented.
 

alchemy2u said:
The point is that the CW was not a States Right issue, that is all revisionist history. When you spend a few hours at Gettysburg and read any of the documentaiton (papers, letters, acts of politicians) it is very obvious that the war was about slavery. Abolishing slavery would remove one of the fundamental pillars of the southern economy (slave labor) and they went to war to prevent it.

You are right, the immigration changes will have more of an impact in the south. They should see increased tax revenue as people become documented.
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No, I agree with you. I was just looking at it from their revisionist perspective. The fact the south wanted to force Kansas to be a slave state, against majority's wishes, shows their true colors. It was all about preserving the institution of slavery, not states' rights.
 

If you are from the north and haven't spent much time in the south and are interested in broadening your perspective, I recommend reading "Confederates in the Attic". It is on my top ten list of non-fiction reads. I'm not a big reader outside of newspapers - maybe 12 books a year - so if you read at all, I suspect you'll like this. For example, this book informed me that at the time of its writing, a white northerner had about a 1 in 10 chance that an ancestor fought for the union. Whereas, half of all white southerners could find an ancestor who fought for the confederacy. Hence, it's a bigger deal in the south. NY Times review linked below. http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/04/05/reviews/980405.405blnt.html
 


How many other nations that at one time allowed slavery underwent a civil war to end it? It really was about power and control. The Kansas situation is not the proof you think. People in south Carolina didn't care if kansans had slaves or not. It was about the balance of power.
 

Vicksburg, MS did not celebrate Independence Day until 84 yrs. after Lee's surrender. The Mississippi state flag still has one quarter of it as a replication of the Confederate flag.
 

BilldGopher said:
As Southern transplant to Minnesota going on 25 years now I'm glad I can recognize the tongue-in-cheek flavor of most of this. Minnesota is now my home and I'm proud to be raising my kids here.

We may be "one nation under God" as a result of a bitterly fought civil war but certainly there are still regional differences across our great land. These are to be enjoyed and in fact be poked at in good fun. Lutefisk or "My Cousin Vinny" come to mind here

I advised Buck Buchanan's family (and someone on our plane down) to visit the Andersonville National Monument and Prisoner of War Museum. Both reported this visit was a highlight of the bowl trip. If you're in central Georgia on I-75 in the future, it's well worth the 2 hour diversion for this.

A fan board is not really the place to delve too deep into these regional differences but it should be no surprise that to the degree The North vs. The South permeates other aspects of our culture that it would show up in football too. Whether the War Between The States is really what drives what an Auburn fan might think now is pretty tenuous in my mind.

For those around long enough there was a similar thread back when we played in the two Music City Bowls last decade with Alabama and Arkansas. This one is a little tamer, which for one I'm glad to see.

Go Gophers! Thanks North Carolina for Bobby Bell!
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We are not one nation under god. Thankfully.
 

maroonfive said:
We are not one nation under god. Thankfully.
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Oops. You're right!

I should have said it this way..."We may be "this one nation, under God" as a result of a bitterly fought civil war...

Quote taken from Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863.

Good catch given the North vs. South theme of the thread. ;)

Go Gophers!
 




Many years ago I stumbled on Loose Park in Kansas City. It is a large, beatiful park that has civil war memorial markers that tell the story of the Battle of Westport. It is an interesting story but clearly told from the Confederate perspective. My memory leaves a lot to be desired but I if recall correctly, the last story marker is quite amusing in its account as to why the Confederates lost this battle. Keeping in my I suffer from CRS (can't remember sh!t), the story suggests that the Confederates pissed off some local farmer by stealing his mule or some farm animal which in turn led to the farmer giving away the Confederate's positions to the Union Army. Aside from being greatly outnumbered, this revengeful farmer is what really did in the Confederates and allowed the Union to win this battle.
 

GopherinPhilly said:
Then maybe all these Southern states should stop taking the money from the Fed to support their citizens. Almost all the Southern states are takers in the Federal system.
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The South has different obstacles to overcome that a state like Minnesota does not.
I've lived in both places, and can appreciate the differences between the two.
 

The South seceded. As they had the right to. America was never meant to be a perpetual union, it was a voluntary compact between the states.

Some states, like Texas, were a separate republic before they agreed to join the Union.
 



alchemy2u said:
The point is that the CW was not a States Right issue, that is all revisionist history.
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i disagree. the war was not only about states rights, but it was most certainly a large part of why the southern states seceded. also, as an historian, revisionist history is extremely important. just claiming something is revisionist does not mean that it is wrong. today, one is shouted down when one points out that states rights was an important instigating factor for the war because it is uncomfortable for some people to hear and goes against an accepted political and cultural touchstone: the south=evil. you are repeating the narrative that you were taught by history books that were written by the winners. those history books tell one side of the story. i am not saying that that side is false, but it certainly does not paint the whole picture.

there is a lot of controversy around confederate vice president alexander hamilton stephens, and people point to one sentence in his cornerstone speech in an effort to show that the civil war was only about slavery. however, the civil war is an event in which we have plenty of documentation, not just the sanctioned documents, of the losing side. alexander hamilton stephens left a 2 volume tome A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States that has been largely ignored by historians and law scholars alike. instead of challenging the accepted narrative based on one sentence from a political speech, it is easier to ignore something that causes us anxiety by challenging what we have been programmed to believe.
 

bigtenchamps1899 said:
i disagree. the war was not only about states rights, but it was most certainly a large part of why the southern states seceded. also, as an historian, revisionist history is extremely important. just claiming something is revisionist does not mean that it is wrong. today, one is shouted down when one points out that states rights was an important instigating factor for the war because it is uncomfortable for some people to hear and goes against an accepted political and cultural touchstone: the south=evil. you are repeating the narrative that you were taught by history books that were written by the winners. those history books tell one side of the story. i am not saying that that side is false, but it certainly does not paint the whole picture.

there is a lot of controversy around confederate vice president alexander hamilton stephens, and people point to one sentence in his cornerstone speech in an effort to show that the civil war was only about slavery. however, the civil war is an event in which we have plenty of documentation, not just the sanctioned documents, of the losing side. alexander hamilton stephens left a 2 volume tome A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States that has been largely ignored by historians and law scholars alike. instead of challenging the accepted narrative based on one sentence from a political speech, it is easier to ignore something that causes us anxiety by challenging what we have been programmed to believe.
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You have every right to disagree, but it was not for state rights. The state right they wanted to keep was slavery and the class system that was in place in the south. It was all based upon saving the economics of slave labor, without it the south could not pick cotton or tobacco as cheaply. The south also felt threatened by the industrial might of the north. You can not tell me that the southern states valued states right any more than many of the northern states. If it was all about states rights, why did the form a Confederation?
 

John Galt said:
The South seceded. As they had the right to. America was never meant to be a perpetual union, it was a voluntary compact between the states.

Some states, like Texas, were a separate republic before they agreed to join the Union.
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I laugh when people get obsessed with the state vs federal rights. America has evolved, if we went to the "all powerful states" in place of the "temporary union" we would all be speaking Russian or German right now.
 

just to point out - another reason for southern resentment of North - after the Civil War, the south had to deal with Carpetbaggers and other Northerners who tried to take advantage of the situation.

Bigtenchamps is definitely right about one thing - history is written by the winners. (and after a gopher loss, Gopher hole is written by the whiners......)
 

alchemy2u said:
I laugh when people get obsessed with the state vs federal rights. America has evolved, if we went to the "all powerful states" in place of the "temporary union" we would all be speaking Russian or German right now.
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They formed a confederation because they wanted a loose affiliation between the states, similar to what was in place during the articles of confederation. Certain powers were granted to the federal government, and all others were left for the states.

It's interesting that so many people despise the south and their way of life, yet would go to war and die in order to prevent them from seceding.
 

John Galt said:
The South seceded. As they had the right to. America was never meant to be a perpetual union, it was a voluntary compact between the states.

Some states, like Texas, were a separate republic before they agreed to join the Union.
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They had no right to. The reason the constitution was signed was because a permanent strong federal government needed to be established after the articles of confederation failed to deal with issues like shay's rebellion.
 

John Galt said:
They formed a confederation because they wanted a loose affiliation between the states, similar to what was in place during the articles of confederation. Certain powers were granted to the federal government, and all others were left for the states.

It's interesting that so many people despise the south and their way of life, yet would go to war and die in order to prevent them from seceding.
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They threw out articles of confederation and formed a stronger national government when the articles failed to provide a sustainable system. It is interesting to see some peoples' selective interpretation of history.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
just to point out - another reason for southern resentment of North - after the Civil War, the south had to deal with Carpetbaggers and other Northerners who tried to take advantage of the situation.

Bigtenchamps is definitely right about one thing - history is written by the winners. (and after a gopher loss, Gopher hole is written by the whiners......)
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Yes the south had to deal with carpetbaggers and blacks in office during reconstruction.

The south was definitely better off once reconstruction ended and racist vengeful confederates were in office again.

#sarcasm
 

Some guy said:
They had no right to. The reason the constitution was signed was because a permanent strong federal government needed to be established after the articles of confederation failed to deal with issues like shay's rebellion.
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I'm here to talk football, we can leave this for the OT board...
 


John Galt said:
The South seceded. As they had the right to. America was never meant to be a perpetual union, it was a voluntary compact between the states.

Some states, like Texas, were a separate republic before they agreed to join the Union.
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Only someone with your moniker could say something so stupid. It's baffling how you were allowed into the U of M. I suppose standards changed dramatically over the years.
 

TruthSeeker said:
Only someone with your moniker could say something so stupid. It's baffling how you were allowed into the U of M. I suppose standards changed dramatically over the years.
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Are we sure Galt graduated from the U?
 

Dean S said:
Are we sure Galt graduated from the U?
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If John Galt went to school, you can bet he got financial aid and now lives on social security payments...lol (just like the author that created him).
 

The event that led to the southern states leaving the union was the election of Abe Lincoln. Lincoln only one 40% of the popular vote and only one slave state even had him on the ballot. New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio had more electoral votes between the 3 then all of the slave owning states. The south saw that they have lost the power to do anything in congress and that the northern states would be able to create any law they wanted. Also another thing is that the north needed the trade resources that they had tobacco and cotton, these were the 2 pillars that created the wealth of America. When the southern states left the union the North had to find a a rallying call for all the states to go to war and that was slavery. I have a hard time believing that was the main reason since after the war the lives of black did not improve at all and the majority of slaves just continued working for their slave owners, and the poor treatment did not change a bit for many years.
 

alchemy2u said:
If John Galt went to school, you can bet he got financial aid and now lives on social security payments...lol (just like the author that created him).
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A=A

Honestly, you have to be pretty far gone to not understand this--let's say the south wins. You would have a country still holding slaves on your border, ( they never really say that was wrong, you know), and a serious refugee problem.

Or we could just imagine the terrible loss to country of Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas...

Economic drain, social nightmare. Call me a bigot. Show me a stat where it makes sense to keep these states in the union. Secede? Give them their flag and ask them to leave. That can still keep slaves, too. Just try.
 

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