Conference Realignment: I don't want any slaver schools in the B1G

because Waffle House is the true symbol of southern-ness

They’ve both got White Castle :)

the day yesterday in the Central West End and its a lot of fun. Lunch at a great Deli, plenty of shops, restaraunts and bars, and a great place for a ’Stay-cation" at the Chase Park Plaza. Forest Park is right there…great place for a bike ride.

Agree with Ted, not the cultural mecca that Chicago is, but it is a good town. Even though their hockey team sucks. lol…

Stay downtown at the Hilton next to the ballpark. There are a couple good restaurants, but usually I can’t wait to get the hell out of town.
The Landing has all the filth of Bourbon Street, without the charm.

I should have compared it to Detroit, which is my hometown, because it reminds me a lot of the D (the river city, cool buildings, similar industry, rich suburbs, big Catholic presence, etc.).

And I don’t think anyone would argue that Cincinnati is a “deep south hillbilly” city.

There’s an old Pillsbury mill a half-mile upriver from the MN Campus. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if over half the General Mills (which bought Pillsbury) employees are MN grads

A&M is going through with their meeting today also and if they give their president the power to proceed, then things will heat up further. Whatever comes of this, A&M will likely look to bolt the moment they can in the future (OU possibly also).

The big 12 just cant stabilize because of the model and there are no teams to join to help stabilize it; ND could but no way they join that conference.

And to avoid any legal action by the Big XII, the SEC can’t interfere with A and M’s departure at all. I read that TAMU had to apply for membership in multiple conferences, so it looks like the SEC wasn’t the intended destination from the get go, along with some other things.

I think TAMU is in the SEC by this time next week, or well on their way.

None of them took up arms against their country to support their “right” to own other human beings. I am aware of the complicity of the north in the perpetuation of slavery but I am also not shocked that a multi-billion dollar industry (that college football is) built on the labor of an unpaid workforce that is largely black finds its greatest traction in the south.

Minnesota, MSU, Wisconsin etal. do not have a day where fraternity members dress up as United States soldiers from the time of the rebellion. Up until recently many of the large “state” institutions in the south did have days dedicated to wearing the uniforms of their treasonous fore bearers (and may still do).

The first graduating class in MSU’s history enlisted in Michigan regiments going off to crush the insurrection. I’m sure many of the other B1G schools have similar stories. All of the northern states where the B1G schools are located mobilized hundreds of thousands of men to march south and save the union. They weren’t on the fence (Missouri and Maryland) or out right treasonous (VA, NC, Texas). I’m not quite sure how much more different we can be from the southern schools…historically, culturally or even temperamentally. For this reason, I draw the dividing line where I do. None of them are a good fit for us.

As a history nerd, I love these type of discussions and feel compelled to add to it.

Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Maryland were never 100% pro-union or pro-confederacy. West Virginia broke off from Virginia because the western counties did not favor secession. But even in those counties there were a significant number of confederate sympathizers. Missouri and Maryland are similar in that Lincoln used Union troops to quash pro-confederacy politicians from getting a foothold (which ironically had a backlash effect on the populace). Technically, Missouri and Kentucky never succeeded from the Union although the Confederacy recognized both states as members.

I love when LSU fans come out of the woodwork to claim Sherman. Letters from Sherman to southern friends reveal that he was a staunch unionist. Several included a warning that war with northern states would only end in doom and tragedy for the south. Letters also reveal that Sherman was a racist; the man did not like black people.

And if you ever run into someone who claims the Civil War was fought because the south was trying to assert state’s right, tell them to read a book called “America in 1857”. Buchanan’s administration was perfectly willing to use the federal government to enforce its pro-slavery viewpoints on Kansas, Illinois, etc until they were voted out of office in 1860. Only at that point did state’s rights become an issue for the south.

Back to football though. I think Missouri’s populace today is more midwestern and would fit in with the rest of the B1G. However, without a homerun companion (like ND), I don’t see adding them by themselves.

I agree with those advocating a wait-and-see approach at this point.

DHL? I’m really glad Spencer Ware decided to come to LSU, and was surprised he did not go to OSU and had no idea that that was not an OSU stronghold. OSU probably locks up the rest of the state for the most part I would think.

She did grow up in the eastern side of town.

From an outsiders perspective it seems pro OSU enough, but I’m also not around there often enough to know anything about the media elements you cite. I have seen what you’re saying about the high levels of Kentucky supporters though.

By a colleague in Richmond when I worked up there.

Which from their fanbase’s reaction is more important to them than, you know, playing their actual conference mates who sponsor hockey every year.

I glossed over the wikipedia article, saw “African America”, “Iowa” and “Minnesota roughed him up” and mixed up the two… my bad

If only PS

But generally when people claim the Civil War was about “state’s rights” they are attempting to at least partially absolve the Confederacy of their fealty to that one state’s right that really mattered to them. That one state’s right they felt fundamental to their existence. That one state’s right that could have, would have, and did cause them to secede.

So the root cause of the Civil War was slavery, but Southerners wrapped that core reason in the language of state’s rights (especially after the fact) to make their cause more noble and palatable to themselves and others?

I agree.

direct quotes from the declarations of secession of all four confederate states who issued such declarations?

South Carolina, in discussing the only specific state right it deems worth mentioning:

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor. 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.

Mississippi, in theopening of its declaration:

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 have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization… 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.

Georgia, again opening their declaration thusly:

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-slaveholding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic.

Texas, making clear the sole State right it felt has been violated:

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.

I ALWAYS correct the speaker and tell them I’m a midwesterner and that “yankees” are people from the New England states. They usually respond that anyone north of the mason-dixon line is a yankee.

Or the giant confederate flag that flies over I-65 south of Birmingham.

The Big XII and LHN tv contracts are pretty complicated. I’ll be interested to see how tamu and the sec navigate those waters.

Jim Delany would either make a great diplomat spymaster, or both.

He knew full well that everything he did could be subject to a FoI request, and he covered our asses. Don’t think for one second that Nebraska (or Texas A&M) left the Big XII without an implied offer.

I mean, it’s close enough and shares a lot with the Midwest (lots of rural areas and big on agriculture). But I always just kind of grouped Oklahoma as Southwestern, most because of the whole cowboy thing.

Also a plus, though: The possibility of seeing Wayne Coyne around OKC if OU ever plays a basketball tournament there.

With that in mind, I’m not sure I should apologize for being less than conciliatory towards the former slave holding states who by their actions over the past 150 years are similar to those of a recalcitrant child.

I don’t think all southerners are typically racist, but the actions of their governments speak for themselves. We are a democracy, we have the ability to change the things about our country peacefully. It may not be correct to paint the entire south with the broad brush of racism, but if it truly bothered them, the racist actions and symbols used on their behalf, they would change them. Until that point, I don’t think they belong in our conference. A conference that has a strong history of racial inclusion, not exclusion.

I know there were plenty of Cherokees that owned slaves, but I don’t know what their laws were. I mean, it didn’t even enter the Union until 1907, until then it was called “Indian Territory”. And I don’t know exactly how it was governed. Any history majors wanna school me on this? I was only a minor.