Georgia voters narrowly approve outcome of the Civil War
State offices are closed today in observance of Confederate Memorial Day.
According to a three-state survey by Public Policy Polling, Georgia voters – by a slim margin – have come to approve of the way the Civil War turned out. North Carolinians are slightly less satisfied. But Mississippi – here we must invoke that famous Nina Simone tune.
The largest portion of Mississippi voters remain undecided when it comes to the outcome.
From PPP, an N.C. firm:
Except in Mississippi, most voters in these states are glad the Union won the “War Between the States” instead of the South. 53% say that in Georgia, 48% in North Carolina, and 34% in Mississippi. But still fewer in Mississippi (27%) would prefer that General Lee’s troops had prevailed; a 39% plurality are not sure. Similarly, only 21% in North Carolina and 23% in Georgia wish the South had won.
When hostilities broke out, Republicans were the party of Abraham Lincoln and unionism, and Democrats, by and large, were not. But things have changed, according to PPP:
In Georgia 47% of Republicans are content with the Union victory, while 31% wish the South had won. Democrats (58/17) and independents (54/19) are both strongly supportive of the North, making the overall numbers 53/23.
Educators interested in explaining one of the great flip-flops of American history can click here for more details.
- By Jim Galloway, Political Insider
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104 comments Add your comment
robert B. hunter
April 25th, 2011
5:01 pm
Gov. Joe E Brown of Georgia before the State Legislature stated.
” We must defend slavery, without slavery we will have to pay poor white men more money”. Wake up you poor white people, that’s the reason the South was pro-slavery and today is anti-union.
Bob
robert B. hunter
April 25th, 2011
5:01 pm
Gov. Joe E Brown of Georgia before the State Legislature stated.
” We must defend slavery, without slavery we will have to pay poor white men more money”. Wake up you poor white people, that’s the reason the South was pro-slavery and today is anti-union.
Bob
Michael
April 25th, 2011
5:02 pm
I’m happy the Federation defeated the Romulans for the most part. Any other irrelevant queries?
gtfanfrom1951
April 25th, 2011
5:04 pm
It’s still dividing us today but what about the 13,000 black confederates who fought for the C.S.A. or 120,000 in the army. I wish the South would have because we would of had it made! Right Hank!!! One more thing U.S. Grant was a slave owner until the end of the war and Robert E. Lee freed his before the war.
Revisionist?
April 25th, 2011
5:04 pm
“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it.” – Abraham Lincoln. The war was about how the country would be run. Slavery is a good way to make the ends justify the means.
Jay
April 25th, 2011
5:11 pm
I wish the South had been allowed to peacefully secede. Go to any other part of the country and you will hear people ridicule and demean the South. So I would love to know what people in other states think about the issue. Do they think the Southern states should have been allowed to secede. After all many of these people seem incredibly embarassed by the fact that their country consists of the Southern states.
Yes, slavery was an important reason as to why the South seceded. However, Lincoln was most concerned about preserving the Union. He even said if he could keep the Union intact without freeing the slaves he would do so. Most Northerners did not like blacks. Many were not in favor of slavery, but that didn’t mean they wanted free blacks living amongst them. Prior to the War Between The States, even Lincoln thought it was a good idea for blacks to be sent back to Africa.
The South fought a defensive war under President Davis and General Lee. Had Davis acquiesced to General Jackson and his insistence that the South crush the North when it had the chance, the South would have won the war. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not free any slaves in the South. The idea that Lincoln and the North fought the War Between The States to free slaves is post-modern revisionism, just as the idea that slavery was not an important reason as to why the South seceded. However, the winners (in this case the North) re-wrote history to make it seem that wise and benevolent Lincoln bravely waged war, and in the process killed over 600,000 men, to end slavery.
Doug
April 25th, 2011
5:11 pm
@ Epicuris – It is odd that you would insist on a stance of 50/50. Everything that is will be seen differently by different people. That doesn’t mean that some people aren’t correct while others are in error. If every Confederate state listed slavery near the opening of their declarations then why would you accept a different explanation for causality?
As for arguments that Slavery would have died out – that is at best unfounded and in practice unlikely. The slave trade continued even after it was outlawed. The southern states maintained the right to enslave any negroes born to slave parents and enacted a rigorous program to breed more slaves since fewer could be smuggled in. Futhermore the crux of the point and the concern is that the south maintains such an air of affinity repeatedly asking the victims of their crimes to look past this “one teensy weensy issue”. There is a reason we don’t applaud Hitler’s arts initiatives, or his youth development programs. The taint and scar of slavery – much like the holocaust – is far to overwhelming for there to be any redeeming quality in all those that, supported, tolerated, and still forgive it.
gtfanfrom1951
April 25th, 2011
5:12 pm
Atlpaddy
Abe Lincoln (that Yankee President) made the Northern Armies come to Southern soil to fight and die. But they all Americans! I am pround of My family who fought and died defending their homes.
Junior Samples
April 25th, 2011
5:14 pm
Don’t get upset over the whole “states rights” argument, that’s what some of us were taught in grade school.
Some of us made it further…
Wakeup
April 25th, 2011
5:24 pm
According to federal census reports, on June 1, 1860 there were nearly 4.5 million Blacks in the United States, with fewer than four million of them living in the southern slaveholding states. Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in New Orleans. The country’s leading African American historian, Duke University professor John Hope Franklin, records that in New Orleans over 3,000 free blacks owned slaves, or 28 percent of the free blacks in that city.
Ga Values
April 25th, 2011
5:26 pm
If you’ll hate the South so much why don’t you go back up NORTH.
Wakeup
April 25th, 2011
5:28 pm
Abraham Lincoln Quotes:
“Negro equality? Fudge!” — Abraham Lincoln, Fragments: Notes for Speeches, Sept. 1859 (Vol. III)
“If I could save The Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it” — Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to Horace Greeley
“I am a little uneasy about the abolishment of slavery in this District [of Columbia].” — Abraham Lincoln, 1862
“The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these [new] territories. We want them for the homes of free white people.” — Abraham Lincoln, October 16, 1854
“Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this…. We cannot, then, make them equals.” — Abraham Lincoln, “Lincoln’s Reply to Douglas,” p. 444
“What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races.” — Abraham Lincoln, Spoken at Springfield, Illinois on July 17th, 1858; from Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works, 1894, Volume 1, page 273
yuzeyurbrane
April 25th, 2011
5:33 pm
The sad thing is that this is progress.
Ga Values
April 25th, 2011
5:34 pm
4 Jacks
April 25th, 2011
4:44 pm
The Georgia part of my family were also in Phillips Legion also, the most Alabama part were in the 4th & 14th, Alabama. Only the Pelham branch of the family owned slaves and all their men were dead by the early 1863.
Another point of view
April 25th, 2011
5:35 pm
July 1, 1854
“You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own. You do not mean color exactly?–You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own. But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.”
-Abraham Lincoln
My opinion is that whites and blacks (in the South) were bonded together by slavery. Think about this type of bonding experience: How did the white woman feel knowing that her husband was sneaking out the back door to rape one of my ancestors. As a rejected woman she was sick with anger and rightfully so. In addition, this white woman may have had to witness her husband’s children (by the raped slave) grow up on the plantation. Sickening! Therefore, she would take out her anger on the slave, who of course, had no choice in the matter. Slavery was bad and I am glad it’s over for ALL of us!
Now, whether or not, Lincoln actually went to war over slavery is inconsequential. Slavery is over so MOVE ON!
roughrider
April 25th, 2011
5:37 pm
LOL. I didn’t know it was over.
jp
April 25th, 2011
5:43 pm
hey people! the war IS over and yes, blacks need to move on! stop dwelling on the past! yes, slavery = bad, war = bad, andersonville=bad, sherman burning = bad…etc…on and on….it’s done. btw, a friend of mine lived in chicago for 3 years, nyc for 2 and he came home saying how nice they are up there AND how polite they are when they drive!!!!! wtf!!!!
Contractor
April 25th, 2011
5:43 pm
atlpaddy,
How about you read a book about Robert E. Lee. If you even did the tiniest bit of research you would realize he was against slavery, but would not fight against his family and state brothers. It’s idiots like you that falsify the facts and give people and events bad names. You would also learn that Union Generals had more respect for Lee than some of their own, and how great of a leader he actually was. You’re a disgrace to America by your lack of knowledge about the United States’ past.
dou
April 25th, 2011
5:47 pm
aaaa, not all slave owners “raped” the slaves… and the “white women” weren’t running around being nasty to their slaves….that’s like saying all blacks commit crimes….you see?????
In summation....
April 25th, 2011
5:48 pm
The South seceeded because of slavery.
The North went to war to preserve the union of this great American country.
Can we move on?
Dilbert
April 25th, 2011
5:51 pm
Hey Contractor, note the 3:40pm HISTORICALLY ACCURATE post by Ha Ha.
Mr. History
April 25th, 2011
6:01 pm
Actually, you are both wrong Dilbert and HaHa. Robert Lee never owned Arlington House. By marrying his cousin, he only got to live in the house, and he never owned it.
YankeeCarpetBaggers
April 25th, 2011
6:18 pm
Enter your comments here
Contractor
April 25th, 2011
6:21 pm
Dilbert,
You sound about as cool as your name, which is one I wouldn’t admit to. Please show me some evidence she was his cousin. Instead of a post by someone with as little intelligence as yourself.
Ga Values
April 25th, 2011
6:26 pm
Contractor
April 25th, 2011
6:21 pm
If you can trust the Federal Government, this is from the “Arlington National Cemetary” web site.
George Washington Parke Custis and his wife, Mary Lee Fitzhugh (whom he had married in 1804), lived in Arlington House for the rest of their lives and were buried together on the property after their deaths in 1857 and 1853, respectively. They are buried in their original graves in Section 13, at map grid N-30. On June 30, 1831, Custis’ only child, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, married her childhood friend and distant cousin, Robert E. Lee. Lee was the son of former three-term Virginia Governor Henry (”Light Horse Harry”) Lee and was himself a graduate of West Point.
Between 1841 and 1857, Lee was away from Arlington House for several extended periods. In 1846 he served in the Mexican war under Gen. Winfield Scott, and in 1852 he was appointed superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, his alma mater. After his father-in-law died in 1857, Lee returned to Arlington to join his family and to serve as executor of the estate.
Under the terms of her father’s will, Mary Anna Custis Lee was given the right to inhabit and control the house for the rest of her life. Custis’ will also stipulated that upon Mary Anna’s death, full title would pass to her eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee. Contrary to popular belief, Robert E. Lee never owned the Arlington estate. Lee did serve as custodian of the property, which had fallen into disrepair by the time he returned to execute his father-in-law’s will. By 1859, Lee had returned the property and its holdings to profitability and good order.
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/historical_information/arlington_house.html
Contractor
April 25th, 2011
6:38 pm
I stand corrected, and can admit that in this case. How “distant” of cousins though? I have stopped counting after third because I can’t follow the tree that far, so eventually we are all related down the line.
Another point of view
April 25th, 2011
6:50 pm
@ duo the point was that it was a nasty deal no matter if you were white or black. I never made a blanket statement that all white men raped their slaves BUT it was common and it was sickening. Hence, we were all enslaved. Interesting that how you took offense to that suggestion though.
Jeff
April 25th, 2011
6:52 pm
The worst part of the whole business is all the poor white people from the south who got HOODWINKED into fighting and dying for the rich white big-daddy plantation owners who didn’t respect them then and wouldn’t now either.
Read the slave narratives by the WPA from the 1930’s, you can read first hand accounts of what it was really like. And it wasnt pretty.
Had the south won , fat chance, the north would like the USA of today and the south would be like a poor backward third world country such as Haiti with the working poor supporting an ultra small rich minority.
Lee was a coward and traitor to MY COUNTRY and by some accounts a bad leader as well. He was gracious in defeat at least, a lesson sadly forgotten by the ignorant southerners spewing revisionist history in the years following the end of the civil war.
Only 34 percent of Mississippians glad Union prevailed | ATLmalcontent
April 25th, 2011
6:53 pm
[...] Except in Mississippi, most voters in these states are glad the Union won the “War Between the States” instead of the South. 53% say that in Georgia, 48% in North Carolina, and 34% in Mississippi. But still fewer in Mississippi (27%) would prefer that General Lee’s troops had prevailed; a 39% plurality are not sure. Similarly, only 21% in North Carolina and 23% in Georgia wish the South had won. [...]
YankeeCarpetbagging101
April 25th, 2011
6:53 pm
Slavery was wrong!No two ways about it BUT that said,the North was hypocritical in their fighting to abolish slavery so as to camoflauge the real reason for the war on the south!That was that the South would not take “orders” from the government as to how to run their STATES! Does this sound familiar? We have just about come full circle again. Once the North had won the war and the slaves were “FREED” did conditions become better for the black man in this country? Carpetbaggers stole & pillaged legally and did more harm as it was done all in the name of emancipation! Yes, free to work and earn a living but @ slave wages>Where do you think the term came from? Not all Southerners owned slaves.Many Southerners KNEW SLAVERY WAS WRONG! Even those who owned them were at least not hypocritical in their purpose for owning them or treatment of their slaves. Even during the war, BLACKS were “allowed” to fight for the North(under close scrutiny & objections by many)BUT in segregated units. Even the pay was less than that of the white soldier. SO, give me a break with how the NORTH was the BLACK MAN’S saviour or knight in shining armour coming to save them from the cotton fields only to put them in factories making just enough to stay behind! It’s akin to the kid that beats up the playground Bully and you want to think you are better off until your realize he is the new bully!
Last Man Standing
April 25th, 2011
6:56 pm
Ignorance abounds here with regard to the causes of the War of Northern Aggression. I guess that is to be expected for anyone who hasn’t done extensive study of the subkect.
Last Man Standing
April 25th, 2011
7:00 pm
Jeff:
“Had the south won , fat chance,”
If the south was attempting to add land, they very well could have, and should have taken D.C. It was within their grasp. The South was fighting a defensive war, merely wanting the north to leave them alone.
Just how long do you think the war would have lasted if the South had elected to take D.C.?
Red
April 25th, 2011
7:02 pm
It’s about as bad as glorifying Thomas Jefferson…the man who had relations with a piece of “property”. He wouldn’t deem his slave anything more than 3/5 of a human being and considered a slave property. I always thought that sort of intercourse was considered illegal.
Last Man Standing
April 25th, 2011
7:02 pm
In summation….:
You are SO wrong that it would take more time to educate you than it would be worth . . .
Alabama Communist
April 25th, 2011
7:29 pm
In Georgia 47% of Republicans are content with the Union victory* Jim
In another Poll by the North Carolina firm, they asked the same voters were they happy with the total fight card of the USA. Beating the German twice, downing the Japs once, losing a tight fight in Nam and fighting to a draw in Korea, and going to the Super bowl of Wars, the cold war and winning by default when the other side promoter couldn’t sell enough of tickets to the final match.
4 Jacks
April 25th, 2011
7:30 pm
Thanks Ga Values. I have just researched some of this about my great grandfather, and actually found where he is buried. I did that for my father before he died in January. This subject is something that northeners will never understand as their families were not subject to the brutaility of reconstuction that our families suffered through. My great grandmother lived to be 103, she died in 1961 in Tallapoosa, Ga. She told us stories when she was a little girl about yankees coming to their farm and pillaging it, taking every chicken (8) their only cow, and the vegetables they had. They basically took everything they had and left them nothing to eat. She hated yankees and although I do not hate any one person, I am tired of all these damn yankees down here telling us what we should think and what we should do. I am all fo suceding from the union and this mess of a federal government that we are now dealing with. Stupid yankees are to arrogant to realize that we as a country or nation might have been better off today if the south had won, although slavery would had to have been abolished. Thanks again Ga. Values.
Wendy Breeze
April 25th, 2011
7:32 pm
The War of Northern Aggression……
Hollis
April 25th, 2011
7:47 pm
Lincoln would have been a “BIRTHER”
Ga Values
April 25th, 2011
7:55 pm
4 Jacks
April 25th, 2011
7:30 pm
I would give anything if I had got Grandmother to write down the family stories that she told me.
Both my Grandmothers taught me to hate Yankees. I wish all the complainers would just move back up to haven in the north but I guess we got the worse of the Yankees down here and the good Yankees don’t want them back..
Most of my Georgia family are buried at the family church in Marietta. Than Alabama families are buried at various family cemeteries, Several of my cousins did the Ted Turner’s recreation of Picket’s Charge, they cried all the way.
Lt Dan
April 25th, 2011
8:07 pm
What’s there to approve or disapprove? We learned…as we did during World War II…that a Country’s industrial base is the cornerstone of sustained civilization…add to that a unified constituency with direction and purpose. Now, fast-forward to the first 10 years of the 21st Century…we can’t build “nuthin” of lasting value, we can’t agree on “nuthin”, we can’t “edicate” kids to function as free-standing entities without a ton of electronics in support…but hey! We’re fast approaching 3rd world status in terms of abject poverty, unwanted pregos, and National health standards mirroring those of a country with a fraction of a fraction of the current GNP. Any questions?
Easy now
April 25th, 2011
8:24 pm
Careful with the stereotypes of Southerners. There are many places outside the states of the Confederacy where hatred and racism is far more prevalent. I spent cinsiderable time in Boston and was astonished at the racism and anti semitism I encountered in private among the “enlightened” of the Northeast.
Lt Dan
April 25th, 2011
8:39 pm
Easy, I can only quote my bud, Private Gump: “Stupid is as stupid does”. Some of the most “enlightened” people on the face of this blue bb in space are entirely devoid of anything resembling humanity. They will go home to their lovely wives, their 2.6 kids, sing their lil’ ole hearts out in church, and go through life fooling (almost) everyone…even themselves. Like a swarm of gnats, they’ll always be there.
Coneal
April 25th, 2011
8:55 pm
Slavery??? That show’s what allot of you actually know about the civil war. everyone thinks that the war was fought totally over slavery. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Actually it was fought because the south got tired of the north pressing things on them they did not like. And they decided to take a stand. For instance, see what the north (Washington) is pushing on everyone now? And pretty much everyone is getting sick of it. It would not surprise me if another sort of civil war didn’t happen, if things don’t change.
Jeff
April 25th, 2011
9:36 pm
The war was fought because rich planters and their buddies in the senate tricked enough southern poor people into declaring war. Oldest story in the world.
After the dust settled (by force) the rich folks did it again by blaming black people and ‘yankees’ for all of the atrocity and refusing to take responsibility for trying to destroy the greatest nation on earth.
“What if” Lee had occupied Washinton? Why would the north have just left it at that? Wouldn’t have made a difference, just prolonged the conflict.
The problem is that being proud of having southern heritage is somehow intertwined with hating black people, hating Yankees and still getting really pissed off over the civil war. Why do southerners hate black people?? That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Remember folks it is United we Stand and divided we just get taken advantage of by politicians and corporations.
Gary
April 25th, 2011
10:30 pm
I don’t think they hate blacks. I do believe that many people in the South do distrust the federal government. This was true before the war and continues today. It has not been helped by the things that are going on today in Washington. The policies of the Democratic party run counter to this distrust of strong federal authority. We know who won the war. We know that we are all Americans. We probably by any objective measure show our love of America more openly than any region. That being said there is always an underlying distrust of centralized government. The problem with Northerners here in the South has always been one more of joking about them than actual hate of them. Northerners need to relax and quit trying to solve this riddle of the South. We don’t understand it ourselves sometimes. It is Just in our DNA.
UGA75
April 26th, 2011
2:40 am
Slavery was a contributing factor to the Secession of the Southern States. The reason every Southern State mentioned it in their ordinance of Secession is because of 3 simple facts. First, the John Brown raid, while John Brown was captured, tried, convicted and hanged, he was lauded as a hero and a martyr, He wanted to arm Slaves and kill all the Slave owners and their neighbors who didn’t own slaves as well. The fact that so many citizens of the North praised this man and his activity didn’t make Southerners feel they could trust those Northern folks all that much. Second, Slave and Free States were a way to keep score in the Senate where the laws were passed. Once the decision was reached to make all new states “Free States” that meant that the votes were present to abolish Slavery (which wasn’t done) or pass exorbitant Tariffs which is what President Lincoln’s platform was all about. The tariff rate was doubled in the first Congress after President Lincoln was sworn in. Third, The Southern people felt they were in the same position as the Colonist when they seceded from England. They were going to be taxed (tariffs) into poverty, the institution of Slavery could be eliminated at any time, and the two sections of the Country did not trust or like each other. These are some of the contributing factors to the States Seceding. The acts of secession didn’t start or make a war inevitable. The War started when President Lincoln attempted to re-provision Ft. Sumter after he promised not to do so.
My personal opinion is that Slavery ended in most of the world without bloodshed and would likely have ended in the Confederacy before 1880 as it did in most other countries. Had the Confederacy survived, I do not see how it could be worse than our current government. We have two parties neither of which listens to or cares about the people they are supposed to represent. Maybe Southern Politicians wouldn’t have sold all our jobs to other countries. One can only wonder what if…………
J. Davis
April 26th, 2011
7:17 am
The outcome of the WBTS put the South into the hands of freedom hating socialists, and we’re in trouble today because of it. dishonest Abe is the most overrated President in the history of the universe.
Quiet neighbor
April 26th, 2011
7:41 am
Great Grandfather was a confederate soldier and, after the war he left his family to move west with another woman. As a southerner of 390 years heritage, I can safely say that I love the South – that I am of the southern family. But like any family, there are relatives and chapters of the family history that are better acknowledged for what they are. Slavery is, was an abomination. That we are in the 21st century, near 150 years removed from that sad chapter and we are still “honoring” a bad decision is unfortunate at best and pathetic at worst.
In the 1970s, I had a grand optimism that Georgia and the South was moving toward enlightenment. Given the tenor of this blog and the recent posts about immigration, I am no longer optimistic I will live to see the “new south.”
Jackets21
April 26th, 2011
2:24 pm
You are very ignorant if you believe the Civil War was about slavery. It was only the issue at debate about which the underlying philosophy was being debated – states versus federal rights. The founders of this nation came here to get away from an oppressive, dominating government in England. The South was trying to prevent this country from simply evolving back into that which the founders were trying to avoid. In our political system, government is created to serve its population. State rights better represent local views the same as city, county, to even home owners associations are more representative of its member. People in Utah or California do not know the needs of people in Tennessee and should not have input on how it is governed. Since the CSA failed, or more precisely, the French and British were too slow to support the CSA, which they now assuredly regret, we now have a dominate, big brother Federal government that has ruined this country dictating unwanted policies and laws to causing death citizens by getting involved in every other country in the world’s problems. That’s another story obviously but the failure of the CSA to stop Federal oppression will be remembered years from now as the deciding event that led us to a New World Order very much resembling Nazi Germany. Read a newspaper people, see it in every day changes going on in our country. Read a book, like 1984 or Brave New World. Better yet, think for yourself instead of listening to what government propaganda tells you and being a sheep led to slaughter. Enjoy your idiot boxes, sports, and “american” idol while our Federal government destroys this country and the world.
ladyliberty
April 26th, 2011
9:33 pm
proof that Mississippi has not been corporatized and yankeefied and another reason we wish to leave GA and move to MS