This past Monday night, folks at the Secession Gala in Charleston danced, drank and denied that the Civil War was about slavery. They claim it was about tariffs and states rights.

That’s wrong, of course. If you’re not sure, take a look at documents from some of the states as they seceded.

From Edward Bell in the New York Times:

South Carolina: “The non-slaveholding states … have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery” and “have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes.”

Mississippi: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world. … There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union.”

Georgia: “A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia.”

(By the way, the Disunion blog on the NYTimes.com chronicles and analyzes the events of the Civil War as they happened 150 years ago. It’s fantastic!)

A couple of weeks ago on “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart and Larry Wilmore took on the folks who celebrate secession and think saying slavery caused the Civil War is politically correct. No, “It’s correct correct.”

See Also:
The Old South Isn’t Folksy or Elegant
Confederate History Month

It shouldn’t be a surprise that Confederacy is celebrated in some states when the it and the Confederate flag get away with little or no criticism in popular culture. It’s because those other representations of the antebellum South are romanticized as if straight out of Gone With The Wind. That film begins with the following on the screen:

There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind…

What’s incredible is that the quote includes slavery as part of the pretty world of the film’s “Old South.”

Flash forward to today. For some, the Old South is still that pretty world. For them, it’s either country and folksy or, just the opposite, elegant and aristocratic. There are films like Sweet Home Alabama where the parents of Reese Witherspoon’s character have sofa pillows with the Conferderate Flag on them. And I like watching fast cars jumping over things as much as the next guy. When The Dukes of Hazzard movie came out, though, with the General Lee and the Confederate flag on top of it, I couldn’t go see the film. Then there is the country-pop act Lady Antebellum. The story behind their name is that the band thought they looked good in pre-Civil War style photo shoot. Ok, but is that the only name they could think of? Didn’t anyone think it might be a problem for a country band from the South to be called a name that references and glamorizes (that would be the “Lady” part) the pre-Civil War era?

This might all seem petty. You might say a movie prop or pop group’s name doesn’t mean anything and it doesn’t mean they’re racists. No, the people in the movie and in the band probably aren’t racists. But it might mean they don’t know the Confederacy and the Gone With The Wind plantation-style aristocracy was fighting to protect the institution of slavery. All those images, symbols and references do mean something. It’s a tip of the hat to a time when blacks, and anyone else who wasn’t a white male, didn’t count for anything (except maybe 3/5 of a person).

So, is it ok to portray the Confederacy in a positive or sympathetic light? Is it ok when two governors set aside an entire month to remember that history? Is it ok to refer to the Civil War as the “war of yankee aggression,” like Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) did in March on the floor of the House of Representatives – as if the nation shouldn’t have stayed together and the Confederacy should have continued to engage in the barbaric business of slavery?

No. None of that is ok. The Civil War was about slavery. The states in the Confederacy seceded from the Union because of slavery. You can dress it up however you like – with a charming drawl or a glamourous gown. It doesn’t matter. The Confederacy always comes back to slavery.

That “pretty world” talked about in the beginning of Gone With The Wind is thankfully gone, but it hasn’t been remembered. It’s been rewritten into something it never was.

See also:
Confederate History Month

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell came under fire earlier this month for leaving slavery out of his declaration of April as Confederate History Month. He apologized, put slavery in the new declaration and the story died shortly after that. I don’t think the controversy should have been about why was slavery left out of the Virginia declaration. The controversy should have been why is Virginia, as well as Georgia and Alabama, having Confederate History Month at all?

The Civil War wasn’t a noble struggle for states’ rights. The only state “right” the Confederacy defended was slavery. The Civil War was only about slavery. Defending slavery wasn’t just about perpetuating a the slave labor system (which, even if Lincoln hadn’t ended it, probably wouldn’t have been able to sustain itself anyway). It was about having a population that boosted slave states’ representation in Congress and the Electoral College. Even though slaves couldn’t vote, they counted towards 3/5 of person toward representation in Congress. Not only did that influence the passage of laws, it influenced the Electoral College which elects the president. Southern states seceded because they saw their voting power and economic way of life being threatened by abolitionists and the balance of power toward the free states in North. The balance of free and slave states was maintained by the Compromises of 1820 and 1850 and helped keep the Union together. But numerous events in the 1850s began to shake this fragile balance. One event was the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act which empowered the federal government to capture, try and return escaped slaves to their masters, even in free states. Slave-holding states didn’t care about “states’ rights” when it came to getting their slaves back.

History, both good and bad, need to be remembered, studied and understood. But let’s not confuse understanding and studying history with having a month “to understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens” as Gov. McDonnell suggests Virginians do for Confederate History Month. It’s important to remember the Civil War as a whole, to understand the reasons for it, to know what happened during the conflict and to study its consequences for the entire nation. But to distinguish the Confederacy as sympathetic as a way to understand their “sacrifices,” is impossible for me. How can I have sympathy for them? Their “sacrifices” were made to enslave people: My ancestors! I don’t mind seeing historical sites of any type, but saying specifically that “the White House of the Confederacy and other Confederate sites are open” to “encourage tourism in [the] state” isn’t appealing to me. In fact, making the Confederacy sympathetic to bring in tourism dollars is offensive as well.

The Confederacy fought for an economic system based on human-trafficking and forced labor that was enforced by violence, rape, castration, lynching, fear and cultural extermination. The Confederacy seceded so that system could be maintained. That’s what the Confederate flag represents. That’s why so many people are offended by the flag and the romanticization of the Confederacy. That’s why the Confederacy and what it represented isn’t something to be honored.