College Football Talk Hates WVU

Pro Football Talk, and its little brother CFT were both started by a dude in Clarksburg.

5th Year Senior and Country Roads: Well said.

I am SO sick of the absurd meme being propagated by people like Mr. Taylor. Of COURSE was have vile racists in our state – Just like every state in the union (sadly). People seem to forget the ‘West’ in front of our name….We didn’t just oppose the Confederacy, we split from our former state over it – No one else took such a dramatic, difficult action. We then bled, died, and suffered to support the union and end the blight of slavery – and our character remains the same today. H*ll, had Obama’s team decided our (admittedly measly) electoral points were worth having, the state would have once again been blue in terms of presidential politics (as things are, it is ONLY recent presidential politics that allows people to characterize us as a red state – by all other measures we are predominantly blue). McCain, a (very) white war veteran and sitting senator, won by the thinnest of margins in nearly every county in the state – strange for a state that is alleged to be virulently racist.

If one has any doubt about how the players feel about their adopted home, they need only listen to the recent words of Da’Sean Butler:

“We wanted to win this for our state first because the people there love us so much and support us so much,” Butler said. “I definitely know it means the world to them. … That was our main concern, not letting the state down.”

There’s no reason to add the last sentences to the article other than to be a jerk.

I hope you do not object to this post. Someone has posted something so egregiously false that i felt i had to address it.

WVUColumbus:

“Slavery was perhaps a minor factor, if that.”

That you could type abject nonsense like that says a lot about your personal perspective, as well as your (mis)understanding of history.

Whie i have no clue what motivates you, the “state’s rights” contention is often pulled out by southern apologists hoping to sugarcoat the base character/motivations of those involved in the insurrection.

The reasoning behind the argument is specious at best, and an outright attempt at deception at worst.

Did the slave-holding states want independence? Yes, they did – So that they could continue to reap the benefits of their slave-based agrarian economy.

The purpose of southern secession was to maintain the institution of slavery. At the time, “state’s rights” were recognized as being the means to that end.

In modern times, the “state’s rights” issue is used both as a whitewash of the brutal truth of the Civil War and it’s origin, and as a rallying point for those members of our society who wish to diminish or curtail several varieties of current federal protections and regulations.

 Contrary to the opinions of revisionist historians like yourself, the Civil War was the last desperate move of a culture and economy based entirely on the labor and blood of enslaved people. Who better to make that fact plain than the government of the Confederacy itself?

From the so-called “Cornerstone Speech”, given by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens:

“The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. (Applause). This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

Or, from the states themselves:

Mississippi’s Declaration of the Reason for Secession:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery – 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.

South Carolina: Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union:

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution…….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.

Texas:

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people…She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery— the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits— a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time…..In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color— a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States…..We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states…

Georgia Declaration of Secession:

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery…..The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers. With these principles on their banners and these utterances on their lips the majority of the people of the North demand that we shall receive them as our rulers. The prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal principle of this organization……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 tranquility.

I could go on, but i think the point has been made.

 To hear someone assert that slavery was “perhaps a minor factor” in the southern state’s decision to secede is truly stunning. The assertion is categorically false. It is a confabulation. It is willful ignorance of American history, or it is a shameful lie.

Please, Mr. Fanshawe. I have read Zinn’s wonderful book (although it’s been a good five years ago) and I don’t remember ANY references to West Virginia statehood in that text. Am I wrong? If so, please feel free to pass along a page number for me to reference. I wonder if he mentions that out of the some 600,000 people that lived in what is currently West Virginia, only 2,000 voted for Lincoln in the election, with Bell and Breckenridge getting the vast majority of the votes. Those 2,000 votes came from the Wheeling area, which was the ONLY abolitionist hot spot in the whole region. The term “Lincolnite” is one that was used to describe “homemade Yankees” in areas south of the Mason-Dixon line, primarily in the Appalachian mountains. The term was widely used in parts of V irginia (now WV), Kentucky, North Carolina and East Tennessee, where more than 32,000 men served the Union in a Confederate state. Again, read a few PRIMARY source books and you will learn things like this.

I’m sorry you have a problem with the truth, but the truth is exactly what it is. I’m also sorry to disappoint, but I’m not the Confederate-loving bigot you want to make me out to be. I hate Glenn Beck (just as I hate Michael Moore—-extremism is our country’s biggest obstacle) and I have never condoned slavery in any fashion. I can’t, however, accept rewriting history for the sake of appeasing people who are angry about something that happened several generations before us.

And condescending I am not. Angry that revisionists like yourself exist, I am. I bet it kills you knowing I will be teaching my children the TRUTH about history rather than your watered down version!

For those tired of the history debate, I apologize for taking up space on a sports board. I don’t normally post to any kind of board, but felt it necessary when the misinformed Mr. Fanshawe stood on his soap box. I promise this will be my last post on this topic to bother you with.

Mr. Fanshawe: I apologize to you if I have come across as rude or condescending. My tone most certainly was condescending, but only out of frustration. It bothers me when individuals such as yourself open debates but fail to fully support their views, or consider their views in a holistic manner. A person who knows nothing about historyn or is more interested in who was voted off American Idol the night before might view your post and say to himself, “The Civil War was about slavery and nothing else and West Virginia seceeded from Virginia because of slavery.” That person then passes this along to another uneducated friend and so forth and the next thing you know everyone has only a surface understanding of the topic. Life is too complicated in general, and the workings of that war were especially, to narrow a “reason” for occurrence to a single event. So I pose this question to you: If slavery was the reason for West Virginia’s secession, then why didn’t the Appalachian people come to John Brown’s aid when he attacked the arsenal in Martinsburg? Did he not intentionally start his “revolution” there with the belief that the mostly non-slave owning citizens would back him up? But they didn’t, did they? Why not then, if slavery was at the forefront of their thoughts? Could it be because WEST Virginians were more concerned with GAINING state rights by actually being represented for once? I don’t see how State rights don’t take the focus in their decision to branch off on their own.

As for your remarks: I can assure you I am one of the most humble people you will ever encounter because my West Virginia raising dictates as much. Perhaps you are so passionate about the slavery issue (the MAJOR cause of the war) because you are African American yourself or because your liberal political nature mandates this understanding. After all, you leaned heavily on Zinn, and though I appreciate his contributions to the field of HIstory, anybody who reads him knows he was really an activist who fought for minorities of all shapes, sizes, and colors. He just happened to know those peoples’ stories as well and thankfully gave them a voice in history. But he is only one side and not always the objective side, just as some of the Neo-Confederate historians are not objective as well. It was you, sir, who made a point to spout out your credentials to speak by stating you took this course and studied in that program and so forth. THAT came across as very pretentious to me, especially since your argument lacked any sufficient evidence. If you earned this degree of yours from WVU, then I’m left wondering if your last name is Manchin, because throwing out the title to a Zinn book doesn’t make one “well-read”. It only means that person has ventured to the bestseller list at the local Barnes and Noble at some point or searched the top-selling history books on Amazon. I think you are probably a very insecure man who needs to feel smart by constantly trying to look smart. You certainly didn’t accomplish that when you threw out that red herring in your previous post by attempting to get the whole site mad at me (if you recall, I only called out the two of you who started the civil war debate, NOT every member logged into this site). The old “create a distraction” tactic is so cliche, and one that I would expect from the likes of Don Blankenship, not a well-educated person as you claim to be.

So in conclusion, I again apologize to all here and wish to put this debate to rest. Best of luck WVU in the upcoming football season, and though the state’s boundaries do indeed contain a large number of redneck, racists, let us remember that the majority of those living there are good, God-fearing people and that the article that prompted this thread was done so out of another line of erroneous thinking—-the sweeping generalization. Cheers!