CHARLOTTESVILLE, THE NEW CONFEDERACY, AND THE CIVIL WAR
The statues of Confederate heroes of “The War Between the States” or “The Rebellion” are not really the driving force behind the battles in this country surrounding those antique pieces of metal. They, like Trump, are symbols of a cultural struggle in this nation.
Disputes over these Civil War monuments, such as that in Charlottesville, just serve (like the president) as focal points that entice our modern-day white nationalists, Neo-Nazis, the KKK, neo-fascist militias, and other assorted white supremacists out into the open.
The members of Vanguard America, Identity Evropa, and other white supremacist groups don’t really give a damn about a statue of Bobby Lee. They just want to revel in the opportunity to hang out with other rightist creeps who look a lot like them, maybe knock together the heads of some people who don’t look like them, and get their share of any media sunshine that comes along.
But, the KKK and other Southrons do care about these monuments. The fact that they remain in place constitutes a validation of The New Confederacy or Lost Cause arguments about the civil war. This movement takes two things as proven facts, when they are really both articles of faith. These refer to the right to secede and the argument that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery.
The spokesmen for the ‘New Confederacy” argue that the secession involved an agriculturally-based southern region’s cry for freedom from a voraciously intrusive industrialized north that wanted to dominate national politics and the national economy.
The “Right” to Secede
As for the argument that the States had a right to secede, the Declaration of Independence speaks of “these united colonies,” and it was not until the Second Continental Congress (an organ of those united colonies) that colonies became “states.” One should add to that the first major sub-heading of the Articles of Confederation, which preceded the Constitution, was “ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION AND PERPETUAL UNION.” The US Constitution then went on “…to form a more perfect union…,” which would seem to make that perpetual union more perfect.
But, it is true that someone somewhere, frequently a politician, in the nation is usually rattling on, or at least whispering, about secession. There was talk of the northeastern states seceding and joining Canada during the War of 1812. The Nullification Crisis, which came to a head with Congress authorizing President Andrew Jackson to use Federal troops to enforce Federal law in South Carolina in the 1830s, smacked of intimations of secession.
Just recently, the American Legion Boys State of Texas voted that Texas secede from the Union. We wait with bated breath to see if Girls State follows suit. Basically, whoever is at some moment dissatisfied with the direction that the Federal government is taking bandies about the word “secession.
The Civil War Wasn’t About Slavery
Surprisingly, this argument has played relatively well with the American people. As the Civil War Trust noted:
In 2011, at the outset of the sesquicentennial, a Pew Research Center poll found that Americans were significantly divided on the issue, with 48% saying the war was “mainly about states’ rights,” 38% saying the war was “mainly about slavery,” with the remainder answering “both equally” or “neither/don’t know.
It’s true that many northerners were wildly racist. It’s true that Lincoln came into office with no real intent to free the slaves in the southern states. It’s true that most Southrons who voted for secession did not own slaves. It is true that many people’s attitudes about slavery (e.g., Grant and Lincoln) changed during the war, either because of enlightenment or some attempt to obtain political advantage.
Much of that seem to make the “not about slavery” argument sustainable, if it weren’t for a few other facts.
- If you look at any state’s articles of secession, then there can be no mistake. They were pissed that someone might try to deprive them of their “property” or their opportunity to create more slave states 