Confederate History Month

A few years ago I sat at meeting of the Exchange Club in a modest sized Arkansas town. I was there to give a brief talk on the passing of Ronald Reagan, but I was preceded by a couple of Civil War reenactors in full Confederate uniform. One of them made the comment that the Civil War wasn't about slavery. Every head in the room vigorously nodded in agreement, except for mine. I know better.

It was the issue of slavery, and that alone, that brought the United States repeatedly to the point of dissolution between 1820 and 1860. It was slavery alone that finally pushed the country over the edge. Secession and Civil War could never have happened had the South not committed itself to the preservation of slavery.

On April 7^th, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell declared April Confederate History Month in that state and issued a proclamation honoring those

who fought for their homes and communities and Commonwealth in a time very different than ours today.

He was speaking, of course, of men who served in the armed forces of the Confederacy. He also removed anti-slavery language that had been included in the last such proclamation in 1999.

This is a very delicate issue, but I generally agree with the Governor's decision to issue such a proclamation. Shelby Foote, whose appearances on Ken Burns' Civil War epic were among of the most memorable moments in that incomparable series, put it very well. I am going from memory here, but he said that war ended in an agreement between the two sides. The North would admit that the South fought honorably, and the South would admit that the North won.

You might think that the North admitted too much, and you might be right. But bringing the South back into the Union was no small achievement. We could easily have ended up with a situation not unlike that of the six counties of Northern Ireland. We might have had a permanently militarized South, with a hostile majority that considered itself no part of the United States. That would have been terrible almost beyond imagination. The Governor's proclamation was an act under the terms of Foote's agreement.

That said, it was both politically stupid of the Governor, as well as morally and historically incorrect, to remove the anti-slavery language. My esteemed Keloland colleague and NSU colleague emeritus, Professor David Newquist, puts it this way:

A huge part of American history is reflected the reconciliation and healing that took place after the Civil War and extends up to our time. When Gen. Grant framed the terms of surrender with Gen. Lee, he did not insist that all Confederates give up their arms and present themselves to huge prison camps. Rather, he let them return to their homes with the horses and firearms needed to resume the productive pursuits of their lives. That can be studied and celebrated, but not without acknowledging the malignant history of slavery as central to what happened.

Professor Newquist's comment is dead spot on. "Malignant" is precisely the right word here. Slavery was a malignancy in the nation while it lasted, and the disease would continue to work its terrible damage for another hundred years after the war extinguished that peculiar institution. The Governor should have known that removing the anti-slavery language would discredit whatever good he hoped to do.

The men in that Exchange Club were all of them good Americans and good Southerners. In believing that slavery was not the central issue in the war, they were trying absolve the South of its greatest scandal and America's greatest scandal. But there is no absolution except by remembering everything. Most of those who fought for the South were not slave owners. They thought they were fighting for their country, just as Union soldiers did and just as their patriot forefathers did. But they were in fact fighting to preserve slavery. The trick is so show how they can recognize the latter fact and still preserve their honor. That would be the point of a properly worded proclamation.

Comments

[Erik]

KB: Very eloquent, spot on!

[KB]

Thanks, Erik! This one hit close to home.