"The Civil War wasn't really about slavery, son. I was taught that in school, but when I I got older I learned that it was really about state rights." The statement was one I overheard a man saying to his young son as he left an exhibit on the American Civil War at the Gene Autry Heritage Museum.
Part of me wanted to jump into the conversation, but it wasn't my place to butt in to his "parenting" moment. Still, I found this very disturbing. Not because it was the first time I had ever heard anyone say something like this in reference to America's bloodiest conflict, but because I'd heard it so often lately. Indeed, it has become fashionable in many quarters to make the argument that the Civil War was really a pillow fight between the Federal Government and the states over the distribution of powers under the constitution. In this world view, the Confederacy was actually fighting for freedom rather than trying desperately to preserve an economic system based on extreme racism.
There are many individuals and groups devoted to spreading this neo-confederate spin on history. The League of the South is the most militant. They want the southern states to try their hand at succession again.
Even the venerable Sons of Veterans of the Confederacy (of which president Harry S Truman was once a member) is also becoming increasing pulled away from its traditional mission of merely preserving battlefields and exploring the accurate history of the Confederacy and has instead been pulled to the far right. During the last few years the SVC has started delving into more questionable activities like commemorating KKK founder Nathan Bedford Forrest and suing states who want the Confederate battle flag removed from license plates.
One popular neo-confederate website (one that claims deep affinity with the SVC) makes an astonishing string of revisionist claims. You don't have to have a PhD in history to see that most of this is pure horse hockey. But for reference I commented briefly on each one in bold italics.
- The civil war was actual the "War of Northern Aggression" started by the North for the sole purpose of financially exploiting the South. Actually, the South attacked the North first at Fort Sumter. Furthermore, there is universal agreement among historians that the southern states seceded from the Union because slavery was not going to extend westward as they hoped. When California joined the country as a free state, the South knew they would ultimately lose their power in Washington to continue slavery indefinitely.
- The South was actually in the process of outlawing slavery before the war began. It would have ended naturally if the North hadn't intervened. In fact, the complete opposite is true. The southern slave owners did everything they could to promote and extend slavery to the west, resulting in a mini-Civil War in Kansas known as "bleeding Kansas" just prior to the big one. Additionally, the South proclaimed their confederacy to be based on racial superiority and the institution of slavery. Read the famous "cornerstone speech" by Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander Stephens. This excerpt sums up their intent:
“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.”
- Few southerners actually owned slaves except for the very wealthy. It really wasn't that big of a problem. While it is true most southerners didn't own slaves, there were still roughly 4 million slaves in the South in 1860. It was an enormous problem.
- Union General Ulysses S. Grant was a notorious slave owner and actually had slaves with him when he was directing the Union Army. He justified it by saying, "Good help is hard to find." There is absolutely no evidence Grant owned any slaves during the war. The quote attributed to him is a complete fabrication. Prior to the war, when he lived in Missouri, Grant was given a slave by his father-in-law. Grant did not keep the man, and moved to a slave free state, making it clear in his personal letters that he would never live in a slave state again.
- Hundreds of thousands of blacks (both slave and free) fought for the Confederacy because they realized the North was invading their beloved homeland and they wanted to defend it. It is estimated that 100,000 blacks were forced to serve as manual slave labor for the South. (It's not exactly "joining the cause" when you're whipped and beaten into doing it.) A very small portion, perhaps 3,000 black men, actively served as soldiers early on in the war under the promise of better treatment from their masters. However, the loyalty of this small fraction was always suspect because most men in these units deserted to the Union side after the North passed the Conscription Act granting them freedom if captured. The entire black regiment of New Orleans, for example, deserted overnight to the Union Army when given the opportunity.
- Lincoln never intended to free any slaves. He was a racist, military dictator who invaded the South to bully it on behalf of a Northern business cartel. There is no evidence Lincoln acted on behalf of a shadowy business cartel. Also, if Lincoln never intended to free any slaves, he sure went to an awful lot of trouble to get the Emancipation Proclamation on the books - strange behavior for a racist dictator who supposedly wasn't interested in freeing anyone.
- The Confederate Army was a multi-cultural international force whose ranks were filled with freedom-loving people from around the world. In fact, the Southern Army, while having a small number of Native Americans in its ranks, was exclusively white and southern. Also, in spite of intense diplomatic efforts to gain international support, all the major world powers declined invitations to form an alliance with the Confederacy. The main issue for nations like Britain and France was the problem of supporting a nation dedicated to the preservation of slavery.
I could go on and on, however, suffice it to say - don't believe everything you read on the internet. However, if you want to delve deeper into the facts, try these links to the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Root to get into the nitty-gritty of the historical record.
It's also worth noting to the "state's rights" crowd that the only amendments to the constitution that occurred after the Civil War were ones that related to the abolition of slavery. You'd think the victors, (if they really were were "big government" goons) would have stuffed the constitution full of anti-state amendments, instead of getting sidetracked with this whole "slavery thing."
Now, I'm not calling attention to this historical distortion to pick on the South, or people who are proud of their Southern heritage. My mother moved to the South and fell in love with it. I spent a lot of time there and also share a deep affection for the culture and the heritage.
I also saw the darker side of it. I saw how the legacy of bigotry shaped and changed people's attitude about race. Living in a small Mississippi town turned my mother from a woman who stood up to her own family to marry my father, a man of color - to a person complaining bitterly about how "they" were turning Memphis into a ghetto. She went from a 60s liberal to a person who lied to her friends about my brown skin, (She said I was "dark" because I went to the beach in California a lot.)
"It's what I have to do to fit in down here," she often told me.
There's an old saying in the South "In the North, you love the race and hate the individual. In the South, we hate the race, and love the person." There's a lot of truth to that statement. Racial relationships tend to be more personal and complex in the South. Paula Dean is actually sincere when she says she dearly loves her black friends but also says racist things. The South is rife with contradictions like this.
It's also true you can find just as much racism in many parts of New York City as any backwater Mississippi town. Racism is everywhere, folks. Sadly, no single race, group, person or geographic area has cornered the market on hatred.
Still, we don't get anywhere embracing fiction as history. There's a reason why Germany has outlawed Holocaust denial. The Germans know how lethal it is to pass off historical lies as truth. Interpreting history differently is one thing, distorting it quite another.
If we allow lies about the Civil War to persist, what's next? Saying Jim Crow was a benevolent racial harmony program, or that lynchings were blacks randomly committing "suicide"? Lies lead to bigger lies and prevent us from coming to grips with the deep issues of race that still confound us. We can't learn anything from history if we deny it ever happened. It's also disrespectful to the brave men and women who served and died in America's most terrible war. Some 750,000 souls gave their lives so we could become the nation we are today. The sacrifices our collective ancestors made were enormous. Both sides suffered horribly and deserve the honor of having their stories told accurately.
Not everyone in the South fought for the cause of slavery, true enough. However, there's no denying the institution of slavery would have continued had the South won. The American slave trade was a human tragedy on the scale of the holocaust - it's not something anyone should reminisce fondly about, or create a false narrative around to justify.
We're still living with the very real legacy of slavery. Mass incarceration, police brutality, segregation, economic inequality will continue plague African Americans for generations to come. With the black community under assault on so many fronts, it's fundamental that we acknowledge that Black Lives Do Matter, then as now.
They say that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. Let us not allow willful amnesia to cloud our collective memory.
The horrors of slavery and the price paid in blood by both North and South to end it, should never, ever be forgotten.