April 9, 1865

Tomorrow marks the 150th anniversary of General Lee surrendering to General Grant. To keep things in perspective, it also marks the 100th anniversary of... well, nothing all that specific or eventful in WWI, save for just the ongoing carnage and stupidity. But, in two weeks, the Germans launch the first official poison gas attack at Ypres, so we got that to look forward to...

Finally, after the idiocy of four years, the South loses. Well, hate the sin not the sinner. (Although... I know there are people in the South that equate Lincoln to Hitler, a mass murderer. Those people should keep in mind that I equate the Confederate Stars And Bars with the Nazi swastika flag).

image courtesy styleweekly.com

This essay isn't about gloating over the defeat of the Confederacy, although I am glad that particular vision of America suffered a setback. Some are proposing a new national holiday, a National Reunion Day.  I don't know.

Let's not kid ourselves. It wasn't state's rights that drove the rebellion. It was always about slavery. The threat of losing the labor of African slaves, as noted in the Mississippi Secession Document, is what drove the rebellion.

I don't want to hear this weasel shit about state's rights anymore. That's loser talk.

I think it important to point out a section of the Mississippi document (emphases mine) which provides the premises for the logic of 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. 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".

The aristocratic planters of Mississippi come very close to admitting that the real cash crop was human chattel, food powered robots that to this day most of world still relies upon to extract wealth.

That extractive process is still in place, and America's biggest cash crop is still it's peoples of color.

(They've merely extended the franchise beyond skin color to all those below the income level which marks the Harvest Line).