The War of Northern Aggression initially had nothing to do with slavery. For example, Lincoln's "Emancipation Proclamation" was issued three years after the war began and only abolished slavery in the states in rebellion. Yes, those states still a part of the Union were not affected by the decree (Maryland, Delaware, D.C., Oklahoma Territory, New Mexico Territory, Utah Territory, etc.).
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free..."
And, no, I'm not in favor of a state legalizing slavery - I was just correcting the common, but wrong, notion that slavery, per se, was the primary cause of the North invading the South.
Same here in the US. It was called Armistice Day in my youth. After WWII, it was changed to Veterans Day. Memorial Day is a separate holiday. It started in 1868 as Decoration Day and was to commemorate the soldiers on both sides of the US Civil War. After that, It included all soldiers of all wars.
Ain't that the truth! I remember reading somewhere that most of the population during the revolution didn't give a hoot which side won. That seems to be true of most, if not all, revolutions.
There is a story which may or may not be true, that Lincoln was asked at a party "Mr President, why not just let the South go?" He supposedly replied "Let the South go??? Where then would we get our revenues?"
So when you say "Sure, our side lost," what do you mean by "our side"? Does that mean you're in favor of a state engaging in civil war against the nation? Just what was it that makes you take the position that the Confederate states are "your side"?
There's a well-worn line about those who don't know their own history are doomed to repeat it. Studying the past is not reliving it or glorifying it or being amused by it. That you can't grasp that and instead insist that people are somehow expressing approval of war by buying historical commemorative postage stamps is quite odd.
A revolution is what the winning side calls a civil war provided they were the rebels. Some in the south tried to depict the U.S. Civil War as the second American revolution (in the expectation of winning), but since they lost it remained a civil war.
If memory serves only about a third of the colonists actively supported the rebellion at first, another third were effectively neutral, and the final third supported the crown. Those numbers shifted later of course.
"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the national Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few individuals cannot resist a torrent of error and passion, such as swept the South into rebellion, but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government, and those who insist on war and its desolation."
*****
"You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better. I repeat then that, by the original compact of government, the United States had certain rights in Georgia, which have never been relinquished and never will be; that the South began the war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints, custom-houses, etc., etc., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed, and before the South had one jot or title of provocation. I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands and thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve. Now that war comes to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance. But these comparisons are idle. I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect an early success."
Excerpts from a letter to the Mayor and Councilmen of Atlanta
No state engaged in civil war against the nation. The Confederate States of America was a separate sovereign nation which was conquered by the United States and forced at gunpoint to become part of it.
So if I take may wife and children, and my 1/3 acre of land, and declare that we have seceded from the United States, that makes us a separate sovereign nation? And if officials of the U.S. government act against me, they engage in war and conquest of a sovereign nation?
Yup!. And let's send that uppity O'Bama back to the cotton fields where he and the rest of his Cushite tribe belong. And let's give him a proper Christian name while we're at it instead of that pagan infidel one.
[Yes the above is sarcasm for those who don't get it]
I think you're "trying to put words in my mouth". However, I do find it odd that anyone would want to collect a postage stamp that commemorates the civil war--except in the case where he or she is in a position to view the civil war as a source of his or her "freedom".
I don't think the state should "sell lottery tickets" either, while forbidding businesses from doing so, but I don't "insist that the people who buy them are somehow expressing their approval" of this policy--and I don't view the people who buy stamps as expressing their approval of war (as you have suggested I must). Not only that, I would distinguish the American Civil War from others wars with other sovereign nations. Maybe time will suggest I should not. I hope so.
Ever collect stamps, Bill? It's less about editorial content than completism.
A commemorative stamp is one other than regular postage*, though an argument could be made that a regular postage stamp bearing the picture of a past president, say, commemorates that individual or his years of service (?) to the country. In recent years, commemoratives have become a revenue generator -- if you collect full sheets of stamps picturing cars of the '50s but don't paste the stamps on letters, the post office gets the money, you get little bits of paper, and your bill payments don't get to your creditors .
The commemorative state quarters were the same sort of revenue generator. I found about $600 worth of them in a drawer when I cleaned out Dad's house after his death. (I thoughtfully returned them to circulation, though.)
Oh, and you better cancel your subscription to Smithsonian Magazine -- the latest issue kicks off what will be four years' coverage of the (history of) Civil War. This IS about editorial content.
*Did you see the hoo-hah over the new "Statue of Liberty" forever stamp? Wrong statue... the photo was of the one in Las Vegas (a/k/a Lost Wages). Ironically, this may be a better representation of the current state of the US.
Do you know what quotation marks are supposed to be used for? You seem to employ them almost at random.
Happily nobody has to justify an interest in history.
Nobody is required to buy a lottery ticket, nor are they required to buy a particular series of commemorative postage stamps, so the issue of their approval of govt. policy is raised only by your horror over them supposedly celebrating war:
"What an embarrassment. Celebrating carnage and just how horribly people are capable of treating each other! 150 year Celebration??? I pass. YMMV."
You said you wouldn't be joining in the "celebrating" you apparently think others will be participating in by buying stamps, but if you now get the point that someone buying commemorative stamps isn't actually celebrating in the sense the word is generally used, well that's progress of a sort.
As the man said, war is hell, even the ones fought for a good cause.
Most collectors collect things because that's what they do. A stamp collector isn't going to collect stamps that commemorate the Civil War because they commmemorate the Civil War, any more than he would collect an upside down airplane because he has an interest in inverted flight (if you don't know "upside down airplane" google it with "stamp" on the end). He would collect them because they are stamps that he doesn't have in his collection.
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