This might be a dumb question but...
why was this movie called ride with the devil, was jeffery wright the devil being blk and all or was tobey and his crew the devils being crackas.
shareride with the devil, because the pre mentioned were obviously fighting for the wrong side.
sharei don't know anything about american history but i thought the confederates were the bad guys and the more liberal minded crew that wright and maguire were rollin with were the good guys.
sharei thought those wanting to get rid of slavery were the good guys. puh what do i know! NOTHING!. LOL
shareThe "devil" was Quantrill, the leader of the Lawrence raid, and not your run-of-the-mill Confederate.
shareYou are correct. The "Devil" was Quantrill. The title is stolen from Quantrill's Biography, THE DEVIL KNOWS HOW TO RIDE. Quantrill was a notoriously brutal and conflicted leader of the irregular confederate forces. He was often referred to as The Devil.
shareIf you liked the movie you should read the book. It's awesome.
share It seems to me the whole "south=slavery" and "north=abolitioist" thing has become so ingrained in our collective culture that to present it as anything other then a black and white (no pun intended) issue invites labelling as a racist or a revisionist.
About ten years ago, my girlfriend (Now my wife) was a senior in high school. I went to a 'study date' with her and a dozen kids from her history class. They were working on a civil war project. Man, you should have seen their faces when I told them the civil war wasn't 'fought to free the slaves !' Two of the girls in the class were african american, they stopped short of calling me a bigot or a clan member, and then walked out of the study group.
*Sigh*
It is certainly FAR from black and white - it is complex and often paradoxical - but when all is said and done, without slavery there would have been no secession and thus no war, and while the war was not started as a struggle to free slaves, that is what it turned into (regardless of the motives for abolition, which were themselves complex and paradoxical.)
To state that the war was not fought to free the slaves is as incorrectly black-and-white as to say that it was.
"It's like one of those crazy-ass Austrailian wooden Frisbees" - Randy Hickey
P.S. The *sigh* was not directed at you, but was an expression of my weariness at the never-ending "causes" controversy propagated on these boards.
You must start prefacing in YOUR *opinion*..
shareAn opinion shared by virtually anyone who seriously studies the war and its era objectively. Far too many people want to either demonize the South or act as apologists for it. Like most things in life, it is a gray issue that many do not want to think about that deeply, so they try to make it black-and-white - which it is anything but.
The world is a halftone photo, not a line drawing, but many prefer to treat it as a line drawing.
"It's like one of those crazy-ass Australian wooden Frisbees" - Randy Hickey
Quote:"Man, you should have seen their faces when I told them the civil war wasn't 'fought to free the slaves !' Two of the girls in the class were african american, they stopped short of calling me a bigot or a clan member, and then walked out of the study group."
There is nothing like an issue that has been co-opted by a group (any group) for their own political agenda, and being informed that their point of view is a bit skewed. You are right...the whole north-south thing has become a way of separating the bigots from the true patriots. Kind of like the way this current travesty in Iraq becomes a way of separating the treasonous from the truly loyal Americans.
Elsewhere, the "civil" war is painted as a truly "complex" issue, with no clear black and white separation, a grey area of overlapping idealism with political chicanery.
As with any war, follow the money.
We were ALL (in the north) taught that the war was basically about slavery, that Lincoln was a noble president who freed the slaves, that the south was motivated almost soley by its myopic obsession with "states rights" with regard to the institution of slavery and its desire to maintain it at all costs.
So, amazingly, when empirical evidence is brought forth to contradict all of the above, the typical retort is what you found out...you're a bigot, a southern sympathizer, a closet klansman, or a "crackpot".
Yes, the truth does hurt, expecially when you realize your school history books have as much to do with real history as your government wishes you to know and no more.
Misterberns: The reaction of the two young AFrican Americans in the class to which you refer is pretty typical, I fear. Any attempt to present a POV which does not coincide absolutely with the current PC take on anything whatever to do with racial issues is deemed racist and bigoted, and the utmost is done to quash it. This is particularly true of any public sector institution such as schools, public sector workplaces, and anyone in public office, where public censure and threat of dismissal,loss of pension rights is a very effective means of forcing everyone to toe the line. It is a form of suppression of freedom of speech and as such is unconstitutional vis a vis the 1st Amendment.
The truth, along with freedom of expression is slowly being eroded, not just inthe US but in the EU as well.
I understand from reading and instruction received, that the civil war was basically fought on economic grounds - of course slavery was a very large factor in both the south and the north, for very different reasons. I still believe that it was the economic influence that the fact of slavery exerted on the economies of both sides which was the main cause of hostilities.
Having said that, of course the abolitionists were on the side of the angels. When you read some first hand accounts of slavery you simply cannot believe it, even though you know it is true.
<<i don't know anything about american history>>
I can tell.
<<but i thought the confederates were the bad guys and the more liberal minded crew that wright and maguire were rollin with were the good guys.>>
Wright and Maguire were Confederates also. And as far as who were the "good guys" vs. the "bad guys" goes, it's not a cut and dry issue like in WWII. You could say the South were the bad guys because of major part slavery played in their country, but you could also call the North the bad guys for violating the Constitution, waging a war of conquest against a sovereign nation, and claiming to be against slavery while still allowing it in the Border States. The causes and the motivations of the war and its soldiers are incredibly complex, just like this movie.
Well said, PeterCotton, well said.
In Memory of PBR bullfighter Greg Crabtree 24 Jul 1974 - 29 Nov 2005
Absolutely Peter C. I am an American History teacher and I think you hit the nail right on the head. My students are always shocked when they find out that the common motivations for both Union and Confederacy often had nothing to do with slavery or abolitionism. Billy Yank would probably have said he was fighting 'to preserve the Union'. Johnny Reb would have said he was fighting for his 'town, home, & county'. I should point out (to those of you who think I'm wrong about JR), that only about 15-20 percent of all southerners owned slaves. The common Confederate soldier was probably a poor yeomen farmer who had nowhere near the amount of money to purchase slaves.
As to the movie - I'll keep it short. Most CW movies focus on the eastern theatre (i.e., Lee vs. whatever Union general was in charge that week). This is a good depiction of a forgotten aspect of the war that I think is one of the better CW movies I have seen.
The common Confederate soldier was probably a poor yeomen farmer who had nowhere near the amount of money to purchase slaves.
Another example of how wars are fought by the poor fo support the interests of the rich. It continues to this day, with the possible exeption of WWII.
But if you look at the history of the US before the War, you see it was mostly predicted. Lincoln made his "house divided speech" well before the war.
It was a war over whether slavery would be legal in the new territories and states, more than anything else. Secondarily, about slavery in the south.
But there is no doubt that slavery was an evil that could not be long abided in a nation that fancied itself civilized. Those who deny that the American Civil War was fought in the main over the continuation of slavery are revisionists of the lowest order and are accounted to my mind in the same vein as holocaust deniers.
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Poor man fights the Rich man's war
Another example of how wars are fought by the poor to support the interests of the rich.
* * *
But there is no doubt that slavery was an evil that could not be long abided in a nation that fancied itself civilized. Those who deny that the American Civil War was fought in the main over the continuation of slavery are revisionists of the lowest order and are accounted to my mind in the same vein as holocaust deniers.
Well said. share
<<But there is no doubt that slavery was an evil that could not be long abided in a nation that fancied itself civilized. Those who deny that the American Civil War was fought in the main over the continuation of slavery are revisionists of the lowest order and are accounted to my mind in the same vein as holocaust deniers.>>
And I always thought those who most resembled the Holocaust-deniers were those revisionists who would have you believe that the North fought the war to end slavery... Slavery may have been the cause for secession, but the war was due to Lincoln's unwillingness to allow the Southern people to exercise their right to self-determination. The war was brought to the South, and when the Union was victorious, "abolition" was a guise used by revisionists then and now to justify the slaughter of a generation.
We call it the Civil War, but it wasn't a civil war in the usual sense: two parties or two armies fighting to control the same territory. The southerners were not making war to seize control of the entire country, only to secede from it. Caesar waged a civil war for control of Rome, Parliamentarians and Royalists fought for control of England, the Spanish Civil War was fought to control Spain not to divide it.
There are many who would say Lincoln was right -- that preserving the Union was paramount, despite the opinions of others who claimed any state that joined the Union could also vote to leave it. Lincoln was right, constitutionally anyway, but most Southerners were not persuaded.
<<Lincoln was right, constitutionally anyway>>
Based on what, exactly?
Start with the Preamble: "We the People... do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
If the States had established the government, then the States could disestablish it. But in fact what was ratified was "a more perfect union" between the People -- not between the States.
Go to Article I, Section 8, the Powers of Congress: Congress has all the powers which the confederate states claimed to possess when they seceded from the Union.
What are you talking about?? The U.S. Constitution was ratified by the states...all the states. The states were never forced to join the Union. So why would they not be allowed to voluntarily leave just as they had earlier voluntarily joined?
shareTo Peter Cotton: Son, you might as well go out and bark at the moon to bring rain as try to explain anything to a know-it-all Yankee. Don't you know by now that they have all the answers?
Southron
P.S. Oh, and if you enjoyed "Ride With the Devil", I would take the liberty to suggest that you watch "Pharoah's Army"; it is an unadorned masterpiece. Why Patricia Clarkson's role as the war widow is alone worth the price of admission.
Quoted here are the first two paragraphs of the declaration issued by the State of Mississippi of why it was attempting to secede from the United States of America.
A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union
In the momentous step, which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
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.
Source: http://www.civil-war.net/pages/mississippi_declaration.asp
There may have been other factors. But none other than slavery itself of sufficient moment and gravity so as to result in the attempted sundering of the United States of America. share
Lincoln's own public rationale expressed in his first inaugural speech, March 4, 1861:
I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.
Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it—break it, so to speak—but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."
But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.
I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it so far as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.
Make of it what you will, I think he was onto something. For instance, in more modern times, it seems the disintegration of Yugoslavia has yielded mixed results - better for Slovenia and possibly Croatia, worse for the rest. Same with the Soviet Union - mixed results, at least so far. In the 19th Century, the north would probably have been better off economically letting the Confederacy go, but the precedent of allowing states to freely leave the US could have had dire results as each state used the threat of secession to extract concessions from the federal government.
Follow this link for the complete text: http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html share
Sovereign nation? Not really.
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