The Ignoble Cause

In the century and a half since the Civil War, myths have grown up about the South's motive for secession from the United States. States' rights, tariffs and taxes, etc. are some of the motives cited for the treason. Perhaps the best testimony as to the major motive was given by the Confederacy's own vice president, Alexander Stephens in March, 1861(emphasis added):

"The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the 'rock upon which the old Union would split.' He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the 'storm came and the wind blew, it fell.' Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; 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."

Writing in today's special commemorative supplement to the Kaplan Daily, Philip Kennicott documents the historical whitewashing that took place after the end of Reconstruction in 1877, and that contributed to 90 years of Jim Crow laws denying civil rights to African Americans. One peculiar product of the false narrative of Southern honor was the erecting of statues throughout the South:

"Southern states, primarily led by women’s Confederate groups, were in the middle of a frenzied campaign to clutter the landscape with memorial statuary in celebration of the humble foot soldier. Between 1900 and 1913, by one accounting, the South was unveiling Civil War statues at twice the rate of the North. And these statues had become more, rather than less, bellicose in posture, with a once popular image of a soldier at 'parade rest' yielding to more aggressive and animated statues, depicting troops with guns at the ready."

Recent Confederacy-supporting statements from Virginia Gov. Bob "Old" McDonnell, Texas Gov. Rick "Hair" Perry and Mississippi Gov. Haley "Boss Hogg" Barbour reinforce the idea that the struggle continues to represent the Civil War in a truthful manner, not as the New Confederate/Rethuglican Party would have it. In this weekend's Parade magazine, Jon Meacham writes about the Rethug/ New Confederate Party revisionism that's attempting to position the reactionary fight against health care reform and climate change as a continuation of the South's "noble" fight against "Big Government" in 1861-65. Yeah, right. Disgusting.