Printer-friendly versionRecently my family stopped at the Civil War battlefield at Vicksburg, Miss., to take a walk and soak in some history. Near the monument to Louisiana’s troops stood a young boy, about 8 or 9, with his mom and dad. The boy was dressed up as a gray-clad Confederate soldier. The combination of the outfit and the Confederate flag sticker on his family’s car told me something important about this boy.
It told me that he was a lot like me at that age.
I grew up in Texas, and the Confederacy was one of my first loves. I don’t recall learning this. Unlike the boy at Vicksburg, not a bit of it came from my parents. They were (to my shame) transplanted Yankees from Iowa. Love of the Confederacy was simply in the air and the water. It was received wisdom.
A favorite game among my neighborhood friends was to play Rebels and Yankees. Nobody wanted to be Yankees, the bad guys. So we went around shooting phantom bluebellies. In our own first-grade way, we were true to the myth of the Lost Cause. We won all the battles while still losing the war. Not our fault, we told ourselves. The Yankees fought underhanded and they had lots more men.
I’ve often wondered where life would have led me if I’d stayed with this line of thinking. It might have led me to downtown Montgomery, Ala., this weekend. That’s where the Sons of Confederate Veterans plan to mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War Saturday. The celebrations will include a reenactment of the swearing in of Jefferson Davis as the first president of the Confederacy. Cannons will be fired. Dixie will be sung.
For the uninitiated, the Sons of Confederate Veterans is a southern heritage group carrying some ugly racial baggage, including past leaders with ties to white supremacists. The group’s email about the mock inauguration stressed that “it is IMPERATIVE that this event be well attended. We must show the world that we will not permit the History and Heritage of the Confederacy to be forgotten and unobserved during the Sesquicentennial. It is up to us to see that this history is remembered and portrayed the right way.”
As a former fan of the Confederacy, I can vouch that this is important. When history is not portrayed the “right way” from a Confederate point of view, unpleasant questions and issues come up. For me, those questions centered around slavery, which I was learning about in elementary school. Naturally, I had no idea what cognitive dissonance was then. But I found it harder and harder to reconcile my worship of Robert E. Lee’s exploits with the “peculiar institution” he was defending. Finally, by fifth grade I realized I had to make a choice. Either my gray-clad heroes were right or ending slavery was right. I could not admire both.
Robert E. Lee is of course the messiah figure in the religion of the Lost Cause. But there are many angels in the Confederate firmament, and none darker than Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. Unquestionably brilliant on the battlefield, Forrest was also unapologetically vicious toward black people. He viewed them as commodities, selling them as a slave trader before the war, murdering them as POWs during the war, and terrorizing them as the Ku Klux Klan’s first grand wizard after the war.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans now wish to commemorate Forrest on Mississippi license plates. That’s not likely to happen. In fact, this effort very much resembles one of Forrest’s own raids—guaranteed to make a splash but largely empty of strategy.
But the Confederacy’s modern defenders more and more resemble the Confederacy itself in its dying days. They are desperate and willing to defend their cause with anything that comes to hand. Let me give another small example. Recently, I was taken aback by a bumper sticker I saw near my home in Alabama. It showed a big Confederate battle flag next to the words “We fought the first war against terrorism.” Yeah, right—you and the grand wizard.
Most neo-Confederates try to ennoble the southern war effort by more traditional means, like tying it firmly to states rights. (Of course, the chief “states right” in question was the right to own slaves, but never mind.) Or, they try to prettify it with Gone With the Wind-type pageantry, like the mock Jeff Davis inaugural.
Unfortunately for neo-Confederates, there is a stubbornly long record of first-hand sources pointing to the centrality of slavery in the southern cause. “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery,” the state of Mississippi declared when it left the Union. And as Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens put it, the southern government’s “foundations are laid, its cornerstone 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 moral condition.”
I doubt the boy I saw at Vicksburg will hear these words anytime soon. They’re corrosive to worship of the Confederacy. But schools must make sure that students do hear them often during the next four years. Each 150th anniversary event is sure to bring out southern activists who will argue that the Confederacy is being maligned by being tied to slavery. Perhaps this strikes you as an impossible argument to make. But never underestimate neo-Confederates. By definition, they’re suckers for a lost cause.
Price is managing editor of Teaching Tolerance.
Comments
Thank you. We can be proud
Thank you. We can be proud of our southern home without being proud of the horrible errors of our past (and present). I was born and raised in Alabama, and have lived in Georgia most of the rest of my life. There is much to love about the south without telling lies to ourselves and others about what was (and is) wrong here.
I do not celebrate slavery
I do not celebrate slavery and the horrors it visited on those in bondage. I do celebrate sweet tea, and southern foods, like crunch cake and pecan pie. I celebrate manners like saying please, thank you, and sir and mamn. This is southern heritage. Unfortunately so is slavery and it is shameful. Northern states kept slaves also for a while. So slavery was not exclusive to the south. The Emancipation Proclamation was not issued to free the slaves so much as it was a means to break the south and end the war. So do not claim too much praise for the north they treated the freed slaves with prejudice and discrimination just like the south.
Those heritages you ascribe
Those heritages you ascribe to are English societal and menu carryovers that amount to NOTHING. Both of your last names are of English descent. Problem with many today is they fell asleep during world history because they felt learning about a bunch of old guys in powdered wigs would never be of any use to them. Calling a man Sir Man or Mister Man at a CW era BBQ did not wash away the blood and tyranny of the acts committed in the enslavement of human beings. There was no honor in the duels that persisted up to the CW. There were a great many reasons to maintain a Union, the main one being the Constitution (which by the way means "gathering into, joining, adhereing to one from many") No one is completely without blame. TO many people in this country, north of south, to parade about in a Nazi uniform is BAD taste (well not in some right wing circles anymore).. You missed the point of the article when your hurt feelings over the criticism of a group you align yourself with.. not even completely with though. I am of Spanish descent and Roman Catholic.. but national pride aside.. they were monsters when they came here. I can trace my lineage back to Columbus' last voyage, the court of Queen Isabella, Hernando Cortez and Garsilaso De La Vega ( which is my real surname) but they stole this land and killed the indigenous peoples. Take the article for what it was.. a reckoning of the author and enlightenment of her experiences.
There is enough complicity
There is enough complicity and guilt to go around--for Southern AND Northern states. Check out this documentary by Katrina Browne, who traces the history of her Providence, RI family's legacy as the largest U.S. slave-trading family. It's called "Traces of the Trade" and can be found here: http://www.tracesofthetrade.org/.
It seems we need a little less trumpeting of "heritage," pride, and parochialism and a little more emphasis on human rights and social justice. After you watch the TOTT documentary, see what you think of all the flag-waving and Fourth of July pride.
Racism is but one example of
Racism is but one example of conservative compassion.
I have not seen a school
I have not seen a school history book for years...In Texas, a Texas History book was taught for half a semester in the 40's and 50's....Think I'll visit the Library and find out what is taught now.
There currently is a push to
There currently is a push to rewrite CW history to further extremist agendas. Abolition was center and the reverse affect to the meaning of our constitution. Throughout history serfs, enslaved peoples or peoples kept in a perpetual state of poverty and cruelty eventually outnumber the lords and masters. Inevitably these forms of oppression do not last indefinitely, those that oppress are always outnumbered and a common enemy is the greatest motivation to move all... that's why the US is the US.. There is not one successful historic example of an empire or enslaving entity that was able to maintain any success without the abolition of the practices. England, Spain and France are hardly in the same positions they were in the 14 and 1500's. The CW was bloody and horrific enough, but to forsee the uprising of the slaves, who in CW era were 14 blacks to each white southerner and continuing to grow, would have been far worse. We will see the change in N. Korea as we are seeing in the Middle East. Even if the south would have won.. they would eventually fail--"No riches gained on the backs of the enslaved, impoverished or indentured men, can be maintained."
Just call it "Southern
Just call it "Southern Heritage" and leave "Confederacy" out of the entire event/name???
Southern culture and heritage is fine...but when you use "Confederacy" it rings of racism and the
way of life that included and was supported by slavery.
SOUTHERN HERITAGE WAS BUILT
SOUTHERN HERITAGE WAS BUILT ON THE BACKS OF SLAVES. IMPOSSIBLE TO SEPARATE CONFEDERACY AND SOUTHERN HERITAGE. RACISM AND THE RESIDUAL OF CONFEDERACY STILL EVIDENT IN THE SOUTH TODAY. WHEN YOU DEFINE OTHERS BY YOU.... GIVE THEM THE CRUMBS AND YOU THE STEAK... HEALTH CARE, JOBS, EDUCATION, HOUSING, NEIGHBORHOODS, WHAT DO YOU GET? A VERSION OF 21ST CENTURY CONFEDERACY. INSTEAD OF LEAVING CONFEDERACY OUT OF DISCUSSION TRY INCLUDING IT ACROSS THE CURRICULUM (Science, Math, English, History) PRESENTED FROM MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES. STARTING IN GRADE SCHOOL AND EXTENDING TO COLLEGE. AFTER ALL AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY IS AMERICAN HISTORY. THE TRUE SHAME IS PRETENDING THAT EVERYTHING HAS BEEN FIXED. AND, ACTING AS THOUGH THAT MENTALITY DOESNT STILL EXIST. THE MORE WE RECOGNIZE THE PITFALLS OF CONFEDERACY, TIE IT TO THE CURRENT POLITICS OF THE SOUTH, (non inclusive) THE LESS GLAMOUROUS IT APPEARS. TIME TO STOP LYING TO OURSELVES. TRUTH BE TOLD, THERE WAS NO GLORY IN TREATING HUMANS AS COMMODITY ONLY LOW SELF ESTEEM ISSUES. ASK BERNIE MADOFF.
YOU USE CAPS TOO MUCH! It is
YOU USE CAPS TOO MUCH! It is possible to celebrate southern heritage (as you can celebrate the heritage of any region) without celebrating the Confederacy. The past makes the present, but you can celebrate the acheivements of the present without honoring the horrors of the past. Every year when American's celebrate the 4th of July as Independance Day, we are celebrating the great, diverse nation that we have become, but we are not celebrating the genocide of the Native Americans that had a part in shaping this present.
If Robert E. Lee was fighting
If Robert E. Lee was fighting to preserve slavery, why did he call slavery a "moral and political evil", personally educate the 5 slaves he inherited from his father and then free them? Why did Stonewall Jackson run a Sunday school for slaves in order to prepare them for abolition? If Southerners only wanted to keep slavery legal, they already had what they wanted: just prior to the war, Abraham Lincoln ghost-wrote a law that would ensure slavery was enshrined as a legal institution forever. This bill passed both houses (with much support from the North), and Abraham Lincoln had declared his support for it. Yet the South still seceded - perhaps it had more to do with the fact that more than 80% of federal tax revenue came from the South and was all spent in the North.
In the Confederate army, blacks fought side by side with whites throughout the war, and were allowed to hold leadership positions.
In the Yankee army, blacks were forbidden initially to serve in the army. Later, they were permitted to serve (as a political stunt), but only as segregated units with white commanders who treated them disgracefully. Grant and Sherman (both slaveholders) refused to allow blacks to serve in their armies throughout the war. Grant stated, "If I thought this was was being waged over slavery, I would immediately hand in my sword and join the other side".
The Confederate army abided by honourable rules of warfare. They respected the rights to life and property of Northern civilians and treated Northern POWs as well as they could (how could they feed Union POWs when Sherman and/or Grant had burned or stolen all their food?).
The Yankee army burned, raped, murdered, looted, and pillaged throughout the South. They used immoral tactics such as the deliberate starvation of Southern civilians through blockades and sieges. They deliberately starved, tortured, and mutilated Confederate prisoners of war.
At the time of the war, there were four times as many anti-slavery societies in the South as there were in the North. Southerners realized that if the government simply freed slaves by legislative fiat, this would solve nothing (as indeed was proven during Reconstruction). Legislation could not undo the fact that the slaves were economically dependent on their masters; therefore, only by a gradual and peaceful process of education, training, and gradual or compensated emancipation could slavery truly be abolished. This is what happened in every other civilized nation, but not in the U.S. This is the reason why it is only the U.S. that continues to suffer from acute racial strife between blacks and whites, while other countries where slavery ended peacefully suffer no such problems.
Abraham Lincoln was an avowed white supremacist who wished to deport ALL blacks (free and slave) to Africa. He believed that whites were superior to blacks and could never live in harmony with them, except by domination. He simply wished for a different solution, as did many of his Yankee brethren. Incidentally, committed abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison were all for secession - they wanted the Northern states to secede from the Union. If Lincoln really wanted to end slavery, why didn't he just let the South go? The fact was that Lincoln wanted to continue his economic exploitation of the South and had nothing but contempt for blacks, both free and slave.
The basic fact is this: the victors write the history books. Hence, our history books deify and lionize the North while demonizing the South. But this fairy tale view of history is Yankee propaganda, pure and simple.
I don't know where you found
I don't know where you found your facts, but you might want to locate other sources.
Most of the "facts" you quote are absoulutly wrong. Try doing research without a preset agenda. You won't write foolishly if you perform better research.
Really? I'd be interested to
Really? I'd be interested to hear you refute the facts I've quoted. If you're going to dispute the veracity of my statements, please present some evidence rather than simply stating that my facts are wrong.
Here are some other quotes from the War which have gone down the Orwellian memory hole:
"I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." - Abraham Lincoln
"It would be folly to liberate or materially modify the condition of the Slaves." - U.S. General Sherman
"[Slavery] is and was no cause for a severance of the old Union, but [I] will go further and say that I believe the practice of slavery in the South is the mildest and best regulated system of slavery in the world now or heretofore." - U.S. General Sherman
"If I thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission, and offer my sword to the other side." - U.S. General Grant
"I have denounced, from the beginning, the usurpations and the infractions, one and all, of law and Constitution, by the President [Lincoln] and those under him; their repeated and persistent arbitrary arrests, the suspension of habeas corpus, the violation of freedom of the mails, of the private house, of the press and of speech, and all the other multiplied wrongs and outrages upon public liberty and private right, which have made this country one of the worst despotisms on earth for the past twenty months; and I will continue to rebuke and denounce them to the end." - Clement Vallandigham, Congressman, OH (Lincoln, proving his tyranny, had him exiled for exercising his right to free speech).
For a brief catalogue of the long list of war crimes which were deliberately inflicted upon the South by the Yankees, with the full approval of Washington, D.C., see below. Rape, murder, pillaging, burning, etc. were routinely committed by Yankee troops against innocent women and children. Anyone who defends the North must answer for these horrendous atrocities, which bear the mark of the devil.
http://www.scv674.org/SH-13.htm
Everything listed above is a matter of historical record. If you'd like to try and refute them, please do, but please also back your claims with historical evidence.
Even if everything Logan said
Even if everything Logan said is true, slavery was still abolished and the amendments were passed. Now, in reality did that solve anything? Very little. However, over the next hundred and something years it has moved. No doubt about that. And we can safely presume that would not be the case if the south had prevailed. So really what's your point? Anger over the hypocrisy? You remember the past and are angry. I get it. Good. People need to remember. But there is a lot to remember and people got different perspectives on memories. The war was not just about slavery, it was about the way of life of a people and a new country that was growing quickly.
Logan, "facts" like these are
Logan, "facts" like these are useless when stripped of context. Yes, you can find quotes from famous Union leaders that sound racist to modern ears. But what does that prove? Contrary to what you apparently think, these quotes and others like them have not gone down the "memory hole." Most modern biographies and histories tied to the Civil War make the exact points you made about racial attitudes. For people who have read their history, there is not one thing shocking or surprising about them. All this shows is that racism and a dislike for slaves was common in both North and South. It hardly refutes the original blog post's contention that the South's existence was based on the defense of slavery. And if you're looking for sources, they have already been supplied.
It's also true, and unremarkable, that ending slavery was not a Union war aim early in the war. Lincoln himself stated that he would gladly preserve slavery if it saved the Union. Over time, he came to change his mind. If you need evidence of this, I suggest you read the Emancipation Proclamation.
I have no idea why you included the quote from Vallandigham. Again, this is absolutely unremarkable. But as for "horrendous atrocities," both sides can fairly be accused of committing them. For instance, both sides treated POWs horribly and needlessly killed thousands. Confederates as a matter of policy butchered U.S. Colored Troops, even after they'd surrendered. Confederate accusations of atrocity -- especially rape and murder -- are frequently tied to Sherman's March. But according to historian Berke Davis, there is actually very little evidence for rape or civilian murder by Sherman's men. However, there is overwhelming -- and uncontested -- evidence for pillage and burning. Sherman's stated goal was, after all, to destroy the South's ability to wage war.
All any of this proves is that there are ambiguities -- both moral and political -- within the whirlwind of a great war. But through those ambiguities it is still possible for most of us to see the larger picture. For instance, it is possible to see which side fought to preserve slavery and which side ultimately fought to end it. It's also possible to see that efforts to trash Union leaders do not put a shine on the Confederacy. All the selective sourcing in the world cannot prop up this long-dead cause.
The Confederate States of
The Confederate States of America rebeled to preserve slavery, Lincoln declared war against the treasonous south (and they were traitors to the very Constitution that their states had signed) not to free the slaves, not because he was less racist than the southerners (for he was racist all the same) but to preserve the United States of America. The northern souldiers committed many crimes, but you have yet to answer for the crimes of slavery: forced labor, torture, and countless murders, these had gone on for more than a century while the war lasted only years. The "proof of Lincoln's tyranny", you so eagerly spout, was enacted by every president of the United States during every declared time of war, those freedom's we love go away when we need to defend them and don't come back until we are successful. The one source you provided is as useful and non-biased as learning about WWII from a sight that opens with a chorus of "Sieg Heil!" and a flurry of Swastikas. As for some evidence that the war was very much about slavery, try on these lines from the Confederate Constitution for size.
“No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.”
-Constitution of the Confederate States of America, Article 1, Section 9.4
“The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.”
-Constitution of the Confederate States of America, Article 4, Section 2.1
“No slave or other person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the Confederate States, under the laws thereof, escaping or lawfully carried into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such slave belongs; or to whom such service or labor may be due.”
-Constitution of the Confederate States of America, Article 4, Section 2.3
“The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.”
-Constitution of the Confederate States of America, Article 4, Section 3.3.
In fact, the only major difference between the CSA Constitution and the USA Constitution is that the CSA Constitution doesn’t allow ANYONE, including the states, to outlaw slavery. Unlike modern southerners, the ones at the time of the Civil War, were well aware that the war was about slavery. Case in point: “Our new Government is founded on exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone 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 moral condition.”
-Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, 1861
VP Stephens sums it up well, the south left the north because they felt that the north was inevitably heading for equality (though at that point they were very VERY far off). They were right, but they signed the U.S. Constitution and as much as they may regret it, they're along for the ride!
Have you read about
Have you read about Andersonville Prison Camp? Check out the National Park Service website.
http://www.nps.gov/ande/index.htm
I don't think 13,000 Northern POWS died from courteous Southern hospitality. Or did Sherman burn all of the blankets, too? Atrocities happened on both sides of the war. Your claim that NONE were committed by the Confereracy is mistaken. People aren't going to take you seriously when you recite bad facts and write as though you have an ax to grind.