Matthew Yglesias (April 03, 2008)

But if that's not the ideology you mean to associate with, then why not drop the flag and adopt some less provocative emblem of Southern folkways?

and let the Yankees tell them what they can and can't do, again ?

Posted by cleek | April 3, 2008 5:36 PM

"When I was growing up in New York City, for example, I don't remember any mass campaigns to celebrate the 1863 draft riots as the city's finest hour."

Similarly, in 140 years, no one will remember New Yorkers' protests against the Iraq War as the city's finest hour.

Posted by Juan | April 3, 2008 5:39 PM

I recommend Bainbridge's take on the South:

http://www.stephenbainbridge.com/index.php/punditry/the_day_freedom_died/

"I came away from this book convinced that the South was readmitted to the Union far too quickly. Granted, I don’t think you can change people’s hearts and minds at gun point, but you can institutionalize legal and political barriers to evil if given enough time. This story makes clear that the South was not ready for self-government by 1875. Federal intervention to protect the freedmen and to institutionalize the political changes effected by Reconstruction was necessary to prevent the Southern white elites from imposing the segregationist institutions that evolved into Jim Crow, thereby frustrating the aims of Emancipation for nearly a century."

Posted by Commenterlein | April 3, 2008 5:40 PM

The moral superiority is suffocating, Matt.

Posted by right | April 3, 2008 5:40 PM

The moral superiority is suffocating, Matt

If it suffocates the treason-in-defense-of-slavery crowd, then it's hard to argue that this is a bad thing. Seriously, your argument is that you find MattY's moralizing uncomfortable? And this is meant as a *criticism*? I should HOPE that the Confederate-celebration-day-people find it suffocating! That's what we want!

Posted by Tyro | April 3, 2008 5:43 PM

Right:

But opposition to white supremacy *is* morally superior to supporting or tolerating it. If you're offended by someone's pointing out that the Confederacy was a morally awful thing, then you'd better re-evaluate your morals.

Posted by James | April 3, 2008 5:44 PM

Blame the fact that Sherman and Sheridan, for political reasons as Bainbridge notes, called off.

Then there wouldn't be any "South Will Rise Again" bullshit.

Posted by Greg | April 3, 2008 5:44 PM

Blame the fact that Sherman and Sheridan, for political reasons as Bainbridge notes, were called off.

Then there wouldn't be any "South Will Rise Again" bullshit.

Posted by Greg | April 3, 2008 5:44 PM

Americans tend to mythologize their own histories, and the South is no exception. People tend to delude themselves into thinking the Confederacy were freedom-fighters against the evil Lincoln Union, because it makes their history look better. It is similar to the popular American myth that Washingtion chopped down a cherry tree and could not "tell a lie". These things that we say about our history are not true, but we say them anyways. Maybe it is because we don't have any real mythology, like King Arthur, so we invent our own out of our history. I think that premise is what John Adams used when composing his opera Nixon in China.

Posted by freddiemac | April 3, 2008 5:44 PM

Right:

But opposition to white supremacy *is* morally superior to supporting or tolerating it. If you're offended by someone's pointing out that the Confederacy was a morally awful thing, then you'd better re-evaluate your morals.

Posted by James | April 3, 2008 5:45 PM

When dealing with idolizers of the confederacy it is
difficult not to be morally superior.

Posted by Taisa | April 3, 2008 5:46 PM

Lmao, you didn't have to go to school with a lot of transplanted southerners who refuses to accept the real history of the Confederacy.

Most of these people have convinced themselves that slaves 'had it good', were well cared for, and that the war was all about the North trying to force the South back into the union.

Juan, if you think you're going to get cast as a hero 100 years from now, you're clueless. You're going to be cast as war profiteering racists trying to cling to outmoded beliefs of empire. You're deluding yourself to think otherwise.

Posted by Soullite | April 3, 2008 5:46 PM

This celebration of the Confederacy shit should have ended over 200 years ago.

Can you imagine South Africa celebrating the legacy of aparteid?

Germany celebrating the Holocaust?

Oh, but don't tread on the South's "tradition!!!"

See Matt, now you've gone and gotten me angry.

Posted by How Insane Is John McCain? | April 3, 2008 5:46 PM

"and let the Yankees tell them what they can and can't do, again ?"

As far as I can see it's mostly Black people in the South who actually get angry enough about Confederate flags etc to try to do something about it. But I suppose it's (thankfully) more politically acceptable to complain about Yankees getting arrogant than Blacks getting uppity, even if the latter is what's really bothering you...

Posted by Kalkin | April 3, 2008 5:53 PM

and that the war was all about the North trying to force the South back into the union

It's sort of startling how widespread this belief is. A couple years ago I was having a conversation with a couple of very well-educated (albeit in the arts, not politics) and very LIBERAL Southern transplants to the DC area, and one of them started trying to tell me that the war was about "states' rights" and it bugged him that people thought it was about slavery. I asked him what "right" he thought the "states" were fighting for, and he obviously didn't have much of an answer. He backed off the whole thing pretty quickly, but it left me very discouraged and disappointed nonetheless.

A similar one you hear a lot is that the war was about secession. Uh...why did they secede? Just to see if they could do it?

Posted by Jake H. | April 3, 2008 5:53 PM

I don't know . . . it seems like we celebrate an awful lot of people who were responsible for massacring Indians and stealing their land. Hey, they were basically good people if you ignore the stealing and killing.

Posted by blah | April 3, 2008 5:54 PM

I can't speak for other southerners, but when I was growing up in South Texas someone gave me a full-size Rebel flag and I thought it was the coolest thing. I did not understand back then that it was considered offensive by some people. It was the Rebel Flag and being a Rebel sounded cool. Heck, the most popular show on TV at the time was The Dukes of Hazzard. Was it racist to think that the Gen. Lee, the Duke brothers car painted to look like a Rebel flag, was pretty neat?
I think rebellion and racism are different concepts for most people. The Rebel flag signified independence and freedom from authority. It had a similar appeal to the Texas anti-litter slogan "Don't Mess With Texas".
Years later, I would support efforts to remove the Rebel flag from the top of state capitals. But I do not feel ashamed that I had a rebel flag during my youth.

Posted by Mike Thomas | April 3, 2008 5:56 PM

Some of the appeal of Confederate pride is precisely because it rankles New York-born, Harvard educated Yankees...There's certainly an element of "you may run everything in fact, but you still can't tell me what to do..." You find this a lot in what people call "black culture" too, although you don't see the Yglesias' of the world touch that with a ten-foot pole...

There's a lot of nuance in Confederate pride, and to insist that every aspect of it is racial only makes people dig in and have even more pride in their heritage...

Posted by P | April 3, 2008 5:57 PM

While I don't usually have a lot of patience for Southerners, Matt has gravely mischaracterized the events leading up to the civil war. "Rebellion against a democratically elected government" is a stretch, to say the least. Weren't the governments of the individual Southern states also democratically elected? The state governments were arguably far more representative of the wishes of the population than the government in Washington. In any case "democracy" is a stretch for a society where women couldn't vote, senators were not directly elected but appointed by state legislatures, many Americans lived in "territories" with no representation in Congress, and the South was overrepresented in Congress in any case.

Slavery is what muddies the issue, if it weren't for the fact that the Southern states were perpetuating that disgusting and racist custom, the rights of individual states to secede should be at least debatable - the States joined the union voluntarily, why shouldn't they leave if they wanted to? Of course Southerners will do whatever they can to obscure the fact that slavery was the sole motivation for secession - that doesn't make them very sympathetic.

Posted by vanya | April 3, 2008 5:58 PM

Only losers celebrate losing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Lazar

Seriously, can't the southern whites find something nonracial to be proud of? Like BBQ?

Posted by chris | April 3, 2008 6:02 PM

But opposition to white supremacy *is* morally superior to supporting or tolerating it.

Of course it is. That doesn't excuse Matt for being absurdly smug and self-congratulatory about it.

Is it possible that people who observe things like Confederate Heritage month, you know, aren't white supremacists?

This is a much more complicated issue than Matt is willing to acknowledge, probably for two reasons. One, it's difficult for anyone who has never lived in the south to understand all the different cultural connotations and tensions of the Confederacy. And second, it's very easy to call other people racist and demand they change their ways.

Posted by right | April 3, 2008 6:05 PM

and one of them started trying to tell me that the war was about "states' rights" and it bugged him that people thought it was about slavery.

Send them copies of the various southern states' declarations of secession (they are online); they are all about slavery.

Posted by giotto | April 3, 2008 6:06 PM

In my limited personal experience with people involved in the Neoconfederate movement, they genuinely don't seem to be directly motivated by race. The confederacy, in their eyes, really does stand for refusing to let meddling outsiders tell you how to live your life.

That the two major incidents where meddling outsiders told Southerners how to live their lives came about because they committed treason in defense of slavery, and committed tyranny in defense of racial inequality, are completely and utterly beside the point and how dare you bring that up you damn meddling Yankee. It's about sovereignty! Sovereignty I say!

Truth be told, the Civil War wasn't even fought in defense of slavery so much as in defense of the principle that slavery could spread to new territories whenever Southerners damn well felt like it, and the power of the federal government could be used to seize runaway slaves and return them to slavery whether or not the other state wanted to grant them freedom, and the South could secede from the union and seize US Army forts by force if they so desired.

It was fought in defense of the right of southern white people to do whatever they want whenever they want to whomever they want as long as their white neighbors don't mind. This is the prevailing sentiment behind the confederate flag. It's more juvenile and obnoxious than anything else.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | April 3, 2008 6:09 PM

Some of the appeal of Confederate pride is precisely because it rankles New York-born, Harvard educated Yankees...There's certainly an element of "you may run everything in fact, but you still can't tell me what to do..." You find this a lot in what people call "black culture" too, although you don't see the Yglesias' of the world touch that with a ten-foot pole...

There's a lot of nuance in Confederate pride, and to insist that every aspect of it is racial only makes people dig in and have even more pride in their heritage...

I'm not arguing that stupid racists told that they're stupid racists will promptly double down on stupidity and racism, I just don't get why you think it's "nuance".

Posted by Dan | April 3, 2008 6:10 PM

Matt has gravely mischaracterized the events leading up to the civil war

He has to do that in order to stack the deck in his favor. Don't you know? Southerners were eeeevil in the 19th century, and looking back on that time period in any positive light whatsoever makes you a bad person.

There's a lot of nuance in Confederate pride, and to insist that every aspect of it is racial only makes people dig in and have even more pride in their heritage...

That's exactly right.

Posted by right | April 3, 2008 6:10 PM

This celebration of the Confederacy shit should have ended over 200 years ago.

Can you imagine South Africa celebrating the legacy of aparteid?

Germany celebrating the Holocaust?

Oh, but don't tread on the South's "tradition!!!"

See Matt, now you've gone and gotten me angry.

Posted by How Insane Is John McCain? | April 3, 2008 5:46 PM

Celebrating the Confederacy should have ended 200 years ago? That's a neat time travel trick.

I guess both sides of the debate house the historically ignorant...

Posted by hodge | April 3, 2008 6:10 PM

Is it possible that people who observe things like Confederate Heritage month, you know, aren't white supremacists?

Well, they could just be big fans of rebellion, but given the general level of flag-waving and hatred of others' dissent among them, I gotta go with white supremacy.

Posted by calling all toasters | April 3, 2008 6:11 PM

And, to the extent there was *any* doubt about it, it is allayed by the fact that the flag they wave is the battle flag, rather than the political flag of the Confederacy.

200+ years of history, but the only magical time worth remembering was the 4 years they were at war...

Posted by McKingford | April 3, 2008 6:12 PM

I think southerners get their backs up when northerners get on them about slavery as if the North was morally pure on the matter. Setting aside the presence of the practice in northern states until quite late, the war was not started over the morality of slavery and emancipation was the product of political and military necessity more than any desire to do right. True, it was only politically necessary because opinion had moved so much against slavery in the North later in the war, but the war itself was not launched to end it. Southerners have little to be proud of, and inexplicably call attention to their disgrace in the ways MY notes. But Northerners forget their complicity entirely.

Posted by Jack | April 3, 2008 6:13 PM

Maybe he was referring to the original Articles of Confederation?

Posted by blah | April 3, 2008 6:13 PM

Re: Most of these people have convinced themselves that slaves 'had it good', were well cared for, and that the war was all about the North trying to force the South back into the union.

Far be it from (great-great grandson of a slain Union cavalryman) to defend the Condfederacy, but the chief war aim was to bring the South back into the Union. Ending slavery was secondary, and only after Sep 1862.

Re: This celebration of the Confederacy shit should have ended over 200 years ago.

Um, that's a little hard when the CSA did not come into existence until 157 years ago.

Re: "Rebellion against a democratically elected government" is a stretch, to say the least. Weren't the governments of the individual Southern states also democratically elected?

Yes, but that does not preclude Matt's statement. And after all, the Federal govermment had not taken one single action against the South that might justify their revolt (in the manner that the oppressive, high-handed rule of Britain was invoked to justify the rebellion of the 13 Colonies). Quite the contrary: the Federal government had bent over backwards to meet the South's demands for years. What else could the Feds have done? Cancel an election whose results he South did not like? Impose slavery on the North? Conquer the Caribbean so as to gain more slave states? The mind boggles here.

Re: if it weren't for the fact that the Southern states were perpetuating that disgusting and racist custom, the rights of individual states to secede should be at least debatable

There was a carefully defined path for the states to abnegate the Constitution (a contract, even freely signed, cannot be nullified legally except according to its own stipulations). What needed to happen was a new Constitutional Covnention had to be called and any state not ratifying the new pact would be outside the Union.

Posted by JonF | April 3, 2008 6:16 PM

Regarding How Insane's comment, if we stopped celebrating the Confederacy 200 years ago, we would have stopped celebrating it before it existed.

Actually, never mind. That sounds about right.

Posted by Kraz | April 3, 2008 6:17 PM

There's something romantic in rebellion and in wanting to stop outsiders from telling you what to do, but the south always seemed to stand up and pick a fight over the issue only when it came to outsiders talking about slavery, segregation, and lynching.

Mostly that's because the southern politicians had their run of the country, for the most part, and got irritated when there was pushback.

Posted by Tyro | April 3, 2008 6:18 PM

And second, it's very easy to call other people racist

And, it's something Matthew is an expert at. He calls various people racists, what, like every other day? People are still making fun of Matthew for the last time Matthew called someone a racist, on Tuesday - you know, that John McCain celebrated his grandfather... RACIST!

And of course there was the whole "Ohio Democrats who voted for Hillary are racists" post that so much p*ssed Petey off.

I assume Matthew is stepping up his activites in calling people racists in advance of the Obama general election campaign.

As to this particular post, I would think that most people celebrating are not celebrating racism, but rather are celebrating parts of their heritage other than racism. After all, when I celebrate Washington's birthday, that doesn't mean I am celebrating his ownership of slaves.

Posted by Al | April 3, 2008 6:18 PM

That doesn't excuse Matt for being absurdly smug and self-congratulatory about it.

I call bullshit. Not only is Matt not doing this, but what provokes Matt's sentiments is a month long love-in where Confederates act absurdly smug and self-congratulatory about their little racist slice of heaven from 157 years ago.

Is it possible that people who observe things like Confederate Heritage month, you know, aren't white supremacists?

Is this a rhetorical question? "Observe" - maybe. Celebrate, no.

Posted by McKingford | April 3, 2008 6:22 PM

"One, it's difficult for anyone who has never lived in the south to understand all the different cultural connotations and tensions of the Confederacy. And second, it's very easy to call other people racist and demand they change their ways."

this is apologistic garbage. anyone who believes (or states) that the creation of the confederacy and its secession weren't driven by fears of the ban on slavery are not paying attention to history.

the rumbles began decades before 1861. andrew jackson (slave owner) had to basically threaten SC with images of seas of blood to end their 'secession' talk in the early 1830's after a series of provocative anti-slavery pamphlets were delivered to southern ministers in that state. it worked. the tensions of course grew and came to a head in the 1850's as the issue of slavery in the new terriroties and states was confronted (see 'jayhawkers' in kansas and missouri raids). tensions were further exacerbated by john brown's attempted slave rebellion.

then came lincoln and the new, expressly anti-slavery, republican party. for anyone willing to challenge me on the issue of secession, slavery, and the confederacy, consider these two points:

1. the confederate constitution was almost exactly like that of the US except for provisions expressly granting the right to own humans as chattel property (key phrase: CSA constitution Article I section 9, clause 4 - "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."). there are a number of other minor differences, but this is THE big one.

2. the confederate states began seceding in late 1860, only AFTER it was clear lincoln of the expressly abolitionist GOP won the presidential election.

this was ALL about slavery.

all in all, "different cultural connotations" mean nothing. it's all apologetics and resentment of the richer, better educated, more upwardly mobile, yankees. hell, i get called a yankee by the southern transplants i meet in NYC (literally, the home of "the yankees") today. in 2008. cultural connotation? no. intense cultural resentment at being forced to stop owning people at the point of a gun? yes. and it simmers 150 years later. incredible.

Posted by Brad | April 3, 2008 6:22 PM

What else could the Feds have done? Cancel an election whose results he South did not like? Impose slavery on the North? Conquer the Caribbean so as to gain more slave states? The mind boggles here.

The obvious answer is it could have let them secede. I think we're all glad it didn't, but that would have avoided "violent rebellion."

Posted by right | April 3, 2008 6:23 PM

"After all, when I celebrate Washington's birthday, that doesn't mean I am celebrating his ownership of slaves."

Do you celebrate George Washington's birthday by adorning your house and car with a giant banner of George Washington surrounded by Little Black Sambo caricatures--which you insist is totally just a historical tribute to George Washington's lifestyle? 365 days a year?

Al, I know you have a penchant for bad analogies, but this one is REALLY stupid.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | April 3, 2008 6:26 PM

right, the Confederacy's main beef in the slavery issue was that of their ability to expand slavery into the rest of the states and territories. Had the US allowed the confederacy to secede "peacefully," they would have been brought into the exact same armed conflict over claims to the territories and, by extension, the spread of slavery into those territories.

The pathology of the south was not simply a demand to "keep outsiders from telling them what to do," it was that they demanded that their value system receive carte blanche to spread and perpetuate itself. Allowing the south to secede was just exchanging a violent rebellion for a traditional violent war.

Why people are celebrating the right to spread slavery is beyond me, but there you go. I *hope* they find that reminders suffocating enough to learn to stop.

Posted by Tyro | April 3, 2008 6:29 PM

[Clears throat],

African-American guy here. In the south. Agree with Matt. To the millions of black, half-black, one-quarter black, one-sixteenths black, one-drop-rule black etc., the whole confederate pride thing offends us about as much as the Nazi flag offends Jews.

It's not as if WWII was any less complex than any "state-rights" BS, so don't give me any "it's all a complex part of our history" talk. I mean we did not fight Hitler to save the Jews and millions of others he was torturing in concentration camps.

I, like many others, would prefer if we could celebrate some aspect of southern history that is not as offensive.

GO DAWGS!!!

Posted by DJ | April 3, 2008 6:32 PM

The slave system did not exist in isolation, but was actually in symbiosis with many business interests in New England, Europe, and Africa. Therefore it is not enough to condemn only "the South" for the moral guilt of slavery; one must also condemn any and all who profited from or cooperated with the "triangle trade" in which the seizure and transportation of slaves was one leg of a system that included molasses, rum, and other raw resources. And, of course, the United States itself, which enshrined slavery in the constitution for its first 75 years.

Posted by david | April 3, 2008 6:33 PM

LP - I'm trying to understand your objection, but I can't. Are you saying that the confederate battle flag is like a "a giant banner of George Washington surrounded by Little Black Sambo caricatures"? Because that seems kinda odd.

Posted by Al | April 3, 2008 6:36 PM

this was ALL about slavery.

Secession was, indeed, largely about slavery.

Nineteenth century Southern culture, however, was not all about slavery. It's natural and completely understandable that Southerners today, particularly those with familial ties to the era, would want to celebrate that heritage. While it's a bit disquieting that so much of it focuses on the war effort, there are two pretty obvious explanations for this that have nothing to do with racism: 1) history books, in the north and south, focus disproportionately on the Civil War (and every other war) such that people today are much more knowledgeable about the key figures and details of the era than other, more peaceable times, and 2) people tend to venerate war veterans no matter what.

So, would it be better if there was a better proxy for celebrating Southern heritage than focusing on the Confederacy? Of course it would.

Is the fact that there isn't one obviously due to rampant racism and slavery-nostalgia? No.

Posted by right | April 3, 2008 6:38 PM

There's a lot of nuance in Confederate pride, and to insist that every aspect of it is racial only makes people dig in and have even more pride in their heritage...

For all that nuance, it's pretty striking how unpopular this Confederate heritage stuff is with black southerners. And I doubt if those Confederate pride enthusiasts are holding annual Juneteenth celebrations.

Posted by David | April 3, 2008 6:41 PM

david--
Thanks for explaining why the North constantly celebrates slavery, but I think that's off-topic.

Posted by calling all toasters | April 3, 2008 6:41 PM

There's a lot of nuance in Confederate pride, and to insist that every aspect of it is racial only makes people dig in and have even more pride in their heritage...

For all that nuance, it's pretty striking how unpopular this Confederate heritage stuff is with black southerners. And I doubt if those Confederate pride enthusiasts are holding annual Juneteenth celebrations.

Posted by David | April 3, 2008 6:41 PM

The obvious answer is it could have let them secede.

As I recall, the confederates attacked Fort Sumter, didn't they? Kind of makes a mockery of "letting them" secede. And what happens to Missouri? Kansas?

In any event, "secession" is a polite word for "treason." You don't allow traitors to go on and be happy little traitors - you punish them.

Posted by l2p | April 3, 2008 6:41 PM

right, the Confederacy's main beef in the slavery issue was that of their ability to expand slavery into the rest of the states and territories. Had the US allowed the confederacy to secede "peacefully," they would have been brought into the exact same armed conflict over claims to the territories and, by extension, the spread of slavery into those territories.

I'm not an expert on the history there, but I don't think that's right. As I understand it, the reason the slave states cared about what happened in the territories was a concern (probably justified) that if enough states were added to the union without slavery, Congress would eventually emancipate the slaves. An independent Confederacy would have been more than happy to be side by side with a completely free US.

If anyone has a better history background in this, please chime in.

Posted by right | April 3, 2008 6:44 PM

brad: "all in all, "different cultural connotations" mean nothing. it's all apologetics and resentment of the richer, better educated, more upwardly mobile, yankees. hell, i get called a yankee by the southern transplants i meet in NYC (literally, the home of "the yankees") today. in 2008. cultural connotation? no. intense cultural resentment at being forced to stop owning people at the point of a gun? yes. and it simmers 150 years later. incredible."

I think two things are getting conflated here. One is the practice of celebrating "the Confederacy" and "Confederate Heritage" in a manner that stops just short of an explicit apologetic for slavery, or at least for some argument of the legal soundness and moral virtues of seccession. The second is the much broader, almost universal sense of "Southerness" as opposed to "Northerness". Brad seems to think that this is a direct result of a "cultural resentment of being forced to stop owning people at the point of the gun." This seems unlikely. The majority of the white population did not own slaves and regardless, I think few people look back fondly on their white ancestors "good old days" of slave owning thinking that it all went wrong when their family had to give them up. Rather, there is a cultural resentment and it stems from the premise that seems to lurk behind much of the criticism of the South. I'm not sure Matt holds it (though other posts of his have hinted that he may). Brad certainly does. The premise is that the south resents "the richer, better educated, more upwardly mobile, yankees." This of course entails that the yankees are richer, better educated and more upwardly mobile. I don't want to get into the various arguments that could be made about the truth of that statement (though I will suggest that the standard of living for most people in NYC or DC pales in comparison to much of the standard of living across the South) but I will point out that such an assumed premise is obnoxious, rude and certainly reflects a lack of social decency. That's what Southerners are talking about when they are talking about resenting yankees...

Posted by hodge | April 3, 2008 6:44 PM

As I recall, the confederates attacked Fort Sumter, didn't they?

The Yankees didn't leave - they were occupying Southern territory. The inhabitants of a territory are permitted to attack the occupiers, no?

Posted by Al | April 3, 2008 6:46 PM

Unfortunately this falls into the romantic american myth category. Who can visit Antietam or Gettysburg without some sense that great events of history occurred there. The extreme waste of people is directly evident but a perspective a century and half later allows us to see the distances, the terrain, and perhaps imagine ourselves on that battlefield. In that context, it isn't hard to imagine that many of us would be on the wrong side (just the proportion of the US that seceded) -- and who struck the most romantic poses? Pickett's charge, JEB Stuart's rides, Lee's stoic and masterful management of his side's war.

To sum it up, I don't think the rebel flag controversy is necessarily racist but rather the manifestation of a massaged history of a horrible and, perhaps ultimately, a fully avoidable war. I fully understand why many (including me) would be repelled by the "official" uses of the confederate flag.

Posted by mike c | April 3, 2008 6:47 PM

As I recall, the confederates attacked Fort Sumter, didn't they?

Well sure, after the Union refused to leave. If Lincoln was going to let the South secede, he would have abandoned Ft. Sumter. He didn't, so there were hostilities.

In any event, "secession" is a polite word for "treason."

It is now. Back then it was a genuinely unclear issue, legally speaking.

For all that nuance, it's pretty striking how unpopular this Confederate heritage stuff is with black southerners.

Fair enough. I don't blame them. It's a thorny issue all around, which is why it deserves more thoughtful treatment than Matt gives it here.

Posted by right | April 3, 2008 6:49 PM

In any event, "secession" is a polite word for "treason." You don't allow traitors to go on and be happy little traitors - you punish them.

Heh. So, in a war of independence, you're on the side of the colonial powers, eh? A Tory in 1776?

Posted by Al | April 3, 2008 6:50 PM

If the appeal of Confederate pride is that it rankles Yankees, forget it. Most of us are in favor of creating a "Red nation" and a Blue nation. You know, we get Boston, NY, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Portland, and Los Angeles.

You get Miss., LA, Houston, and New Orleans!

And you get W! And Phill Gramm!

Enjoy!

Posted by tc125231 | April 3, 2008 6:54 PM

Had their treason succeeded, the confederates would've most likely been overthrown by communists. The famous "Dukes of Hazzard" 1969 Dodge Charger would've been either a Yugo festooned with sickles and hammers, or a Volkswagen festooned with swastikas, depending on whether Stalin or Hitler prevailed in WWII. However, I'm afraid that "Yeeee Hawww" doesn't translate well into Russian or German.

So happy confederate heritage month, comrades.

Posted by Aatos | April 3, 2008 6:59 PM

From the Confederate History Month blog:

"On March 5, 2008, Governor Sonny Perdue of Georgia signed a proclamation declaring April as Confederate History Month. The proclamation specifically recognizes and honors Bill Yopp, a black Confederate from Laurens County, Georgia."

Huh?

Posted by Jim | April 3, 2008 7:00 PM

So, would it be better if there was a better proxy for celebrating Southern heritage than focusing on the Confederacy? Of course it would.

That might have the slightest shred of validity if it were Southern heritage month. It isn't. It's Confederate heritage month.

As I said above, 200+ years of history, and the only thing the South wants to celebrate is the 4 years they were at war.

Posted by McKingford | April 3, 2008 7:01 PM

They were U.S. troops occupying U.S. territory, Al. Go ahead and celebrate this sort of rebellion if you want, but don't dare call yourself at patriot. I assume you refuse on principle to pledge allegiance to the flag of the *United* States of America.

#

To get to Matt's original point, the problem was not only the failure of radical reconstruction but an effort at over-rapid reconciliation that gave southern whites the myth of the noble cause, that gave the two sides of the war a spurious moral equivalence. And it's that moral equivalence to which defenders of the Confederacy have clung tenaciously ever since.

Posted by Colin | April 3, 2008 7:03 PM

The pathology of the south was not simply a demand to "keep outsiders from telling them what to do," it was that they demanded that their value system receive carte blanche to spread and perpetuate itself.

Southern politicians pushed through multiple national Fugitive Slave Acts that forced non-slaving-holding states to return runaway slaves (apparently it was alright to tell Northern states what to do); they tried to force through the Lecompton Constitution in Kansas. But as soon as an anti-slavery president is elected (mainly because the South was too short-sighted to support Stephen Douglas), they care about states rights.

Posted by David | April 3, 2008 7:08 PM

OH YEA!!!!!!!! You northerners are still a bunch of punks. Ya'll had to enslave all the new immigrants coming to america to fight your war of invasion. And now ya'll want to move down to the south and tell us how to think and behave; Come by my house and I will make you my punk. So There!!!!!!!!!1

Posted by B Rad | April 3, 2008 7:11 PM

IF you want to celebrate your ancestors bravery and sacrifice and not secession and slavery get yourself the regimental flag of the unit they served in or one formed in their home state.

I am partial to the following for the Rebs:
the various Irish guards of the 7th, 9th and 13th Louisiana, the 5th Georgia, the O’Connell Guards of the 17th Virginia or the 8th Alabama Emerald Guard.

Posted by The Fighting 69th | April 3, 2008 7:13 PM

I don't know . . . it seems like we celebrate an awful lot of people who were responsible for massacring Indians and stealing their land. Hey, they were basically good people if you ignore the stealing and killing.
Posted by blah | April 3, 2008 5:54 PM

Excellent post. Slavery was not America's only original sin. You're right that most of us still thoughtlessly celebrate the American genocide as "manifest destiny", or "God's grace", or the advance of "civilization". Who knows how long it will last?

But that's not as obvious as Matt's point, or better, DJ's. Celebrating the Confederate flag is as offensive to decency as celebrating the Nazi swastika.

Posted by Gary Sugar | April 3, 2008 7:15 PM

Right,

I am a Ph.D. student in American history, so I feel like I am on pretty solid ground here when I say that the future control of the trans-Mississippi West was a crucial contested issue between the North and the South. The West was always at the heart of the contest, as thinking people realized it represented the future of the country.

A number of points in support of this: for one thing, you have the whole notion of a "popular sovereignty" solution to the question of the West. The idea being that each individual territory -- Nebraska, Kansas, Dakota, etc. -- would hold a plebiscite on whether it would be free or slave. This was accepted by moderate forces in the North (abolitionists hated it), but southerners militated strongly against it, both at the political-rhetorical level and with actual violence. It's why you see so many pro-slavery Missourians from the western counties of that state attempting to derail Kansas' admission (via popular sovereignty principles) as a free state; some simply committed voter fraud, slipping over the border for election day only, while others engaged in outright guerilla warfare (to which Free State forces responded in kind). This is the infamous "bleeding Kansas" of the 1850s.

It's also important to note the importance of 1857's Dred Scott decision in this question of the West. Dred Scott, under the aegis of Chief Justice Roger Tawney, essentially stated that a runaway slave who escaped to a free state -- which heretofore had meant freedom -- was actually still in a condition of forced servitude, was still a slave, no matter what, and that if the runaway slave's owner sought to recover him, the federal government would have to force the free state to extradite said slave to the slave state. This essentially required that the Northern states consent to a nationalisation of the slave system; while this was less of a concern in places where systems of free labor had already taken route, i.e., New England, the mid-Atlantic, the Great Lakes, it was deeply problematic for the trans-Mississippi West. Because that land was not yet settled by white Anglo-Americans, there was the chance that, under Dred, slavery and the slave system could be de facto extended to states like Nebraska, that were by their own desire free states. The concern, then, is not that Dred Scott makes slavery likely in the North, but in the West. And with Western slavery would come Southern, rather than Northern, hegemony over the country as a whole (indeed, over the Continent).

Besides all this, I think it is particularly galling for the slave states to ask the rest of us to be their slave-catchers (as abolitionists said at the time).

Posted by Ben Cronin | April 3, 2008 7:18 PM

Southerners, I suppose, aren't the only one to partake in celebrating some of the less-proud moments in our nation's history. Go to Salem, Mass during the month of October! They seem to love celebrating the needless death and mental damage of numerous women!

Posted by Brett | April 3, 2008 7:21 PM

"But opposition to white supremacy *is* morally superior to supporting or tolerating it."

But the Civil War wasn't fought between pro- and anti-white supremacy forces. Both sides [the whites at least] were white supremacist; slaveholding remained legal in parts of the Union throughout the war, and even after Appomatox, though blessedly on its way out [The Thirteenth Amendment was ratified in December 1865]. Nor was there any widespread white support for racial equality even during Reconstruction, which was one reason why the North abandoned it [Another reason being that giving the federal government the right to decide if a state was "ready for self-government" was regarded as a pretty damn dangerous thing to do; what if in the future that precedent were used against, say, Illinois?] Finally, this "treason" business only works if you accept the Union side's definition of treason--when in fact the Civil War was fought precisely over the question of whether an individual owed his ultimate loyalty to his state or the Union. During the war Confederates, in fact, referred to southern white Unionists as "Tories"--reflecting their own identification with those slaveholding white-guy "traitors" of 1776. As the [impeccably liberal] historian Kenneth Stampp showed years ago, the question of whether or not the Union was perpetual wasn't a settled issue in 1861--and indeed it never got settled as a matter of law, only on the battlefield. Calling the losing side "treasonous" is just another way of saying "Our side won, nyah, nyah, nyah." It's really tiresome and immature, and makes you "progressives" sound disturbingly like the silly wingnut triumphalists on the other side.

Saying this is not, BTW, to be pro-Confederate. I teach this stuff, and it's impossible to disentangle the Confederate cause from slavery; that was the point of secession. It is to say, though, that Lincoln was right in the Second Inaugural Address. Neither side deserved bragging rights for the role it played in a war that was a bloody, wretched horror, and whose very existence was an admission that Americans couldn't deal with a fundamental issue except by mowing each other down. If the war ended slavery, it wasn't because either side had intended it; it was because the logic of events [or some unseen force, call it God or whatever] brought it on. In fact, slavery was an American sin, not just a southern one; that's why Lincoln trotted out that "In malice toward none, with charity for all" line at the end. Don't be so goddamned smug! he was telling his audience. Y'all might want to take that to heart.

Posted by David in Nashville | April 3, 2008 7:24 PM

Also, Al is being particularly outrageous today. It's all the more infuriating since I seem to recall him as a Garden Stater; his support for the Confederacy is a betrayal of the Great State of New Jersey.

Posted by Ben Cronin | April 3, 2008 7:26 PM

Ressentiment is an inextricable part of 'Confederate Heritage'. It's not the whole part, but you can't take it out. The south's culture goes way beyond that, of course, but slavery and the war to preserve it are the lines beneath the painting.

Lmao, you didn't have to go to school with a lot of transplanted southerners who refuses to accept the real history of the Confederacy.

I think that's established in the school system. Most people I know brought up in the northern states went through the Civil War in history class fairly quickly; those raised in the South literally struggles to get past it, so much time was devoted to covering it and Reconstruction.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | April 3, 2008 7:29 PM

Quoting Matt:

". . . as best I can tell these days (it was different in the past) most of the folks who like to wave the Confederate flag are perfectly genuine when they get offended that others see them as waving a banner of violent white supremacist ideology."

Having lived in Eastern Kentucky for the last eighteen years and four years in North Carolina before that, I can confidently say that the above statement is nonsense.

The Confederate flaggers play a simple but effective symbolic game. They're racists and they're proud and defiant about their racism. They also identify their regional pride, family pride, and religious pride with their racism and they roll all of it together into the Confederate flag, Confederate celebrations, participation in Civil War re-enactments, and their defense to the death of monuments, school names, and county names that honor the Confederacy.

The flaggers like to claim that the Confederate battle flag just represents "regional pride" but that's a scam. The flaggers view the "regional pride" claim strictly as a form of "plausible deniability" and don't believe it any more than the rest of us should.

If someone wishes to test the sincerity of the "regional pride" arguments, they should ask themselves a simple question. Do the Confederate flaggers ever show any "Southern pride" in black Southerners like Martin Luther King, John Lewis, or the Freedom Riders of the Early Sixties. Did any of the Confederate flaggers feel proud about Rosa Park's defiance of segregation or seek to incorporate the lunch-counter sit-ins into their "non-racial" idea of Southern pride. How many songs from the old African-American blues or jazz masters of the South get played at Confederate celebration events?

The answer is No! None! Hell No! Zero! The idea that the Confederate flag is just a symbol of regional pride is just as knowing a lie as the idea that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9-11.

We shouldn't be so easily fooled.

Posted by Ric Caric | April 3, 2008 7:36 PM

Ben,

Thanks for responding.

I wasn't trying to dispute the West's importance in the argument between North and South in the years leading up to the war. My understanding was that while, on the margin, the South probably preferred to expand slaveholding areas westward, its real priority was to maintain the practice in the states where it still existed. Southerners viewed the West as likely future congressional and electoral votes that either would be pro- or anti- slavery, so it was in their interest to see that they were pro-slavery.

Had the South seceded peacefully, this would no longer be a concern, so my assumption was that there would be no ongoing conflict with the North over the Western territories (at least regarding slavery; perhaps they would have some plain, old-fashioned territorial disputes).

Does the history support this point of view, or was the South truly committed to pushing slavery West for economic or pseudo-moral reasons?

Posted by right | April 3, 2008 7:36 PM

Quoting Matt:

". . . as best I can tell these days (it was different in the past) most of the folks who like to wave the Confederate flag are perfectly genuine when they get offended that others see them as waving a banner of violent white supremacist ideology."

Having lived in Eastern Kentucky for the last eighteen years and four years in North Carolina before that, I can confidently say that the above statement is nonsense.

The Confederate flaggers play a simple but effective symbolic game. They're racists and they're proud and defiant about their racism. They also identify their regional pride, family pride, and religious pride with their racism and they roll all of it together into the Confederate flag, Confederate celebrations, participation in Civil War re-enactments, and their defense to the death of monuments, school names, and county names that honor the Confederacy.

The flaggers like to claim that the Confederate battle flag just represents "regional pride" but that's a scam. The flaggers view the "regional pride" claim strictly as a form of "plausible deniability" and don't believe it any more than the rest of us should.

If someone wishes to test the sincerity of the "regional pride" arguments, they should ask themselves a simple question. Do the Confederate flaggers ever show any "Southern pride" in black Southerners like Martin Luther King, John Lewis, or the Freedom Riders of the Early Sixties. Did any of the Confederate flaggers feel proud about Rosa Park's defiance of segregation or seek to incorporate the lunch-counter sit-ins into their "non-racial" idea of Southern pride. How many songs from the old African-American blues or jazz masters of the South get played at Confederate celebration events?

The answer is No! None! Hell No! Zero! The idea that the Confederate flag is just a symbol of regional pride is just as knowing a lie as the idea that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9-11.

We shouldn't be so easily fooled.

Posted by Ric Caric | April 3, 2008 7:36 PM

Quoting Matt:

". . . as best I can tell these days (it was different in the past) most of the folks who like to wave the Confederate flag are perfectly genuine when they get offended that others see them as waving a banner of violent white supremacist ideology."

Having lived in Eastern Kentucky for the last eighteen years and four years in North Carolina before that, I can confidently say that the above statement is nonsense.

The Confederate flaggers play a simple but effective symbolic game. They're racists and they're proud and defiant about their racism. They also identify their regional pride, family pride, and religious pride with their racism and they roll all of it together into the Confederate flag, Confederate celebrations, participation in Civil War re-enactments, and their defense to the death of monuments, school names, and county names that honor the Confederacy.

The flaggers like to claim that the Confederate battle flag just represents "regional pride" but that's a scam. The flaggers view the "regional pride" claim strictly as a form of "plausible deniability" and don't believe it any more than the rest of us should.

If someone wishes to test the sincerity of the "regional pride" arguments, they should ask themselves a simple question. Do the Confederate flaggers ever show any "Southern pride" in black Southerners like Martin Luther King, John Lewis, or the Freedom Riders of the Early Sixties. Did any of the Confederate flaggers feel proud about Rosa Park's defiance of segregation or seek to incorporate the lunch-counter sit-ins into their "non-racial" idea of Southern pride. How many songs from the old African-American blues or jazz masters of the South get played at Confederate celebration events?

The answer is No! None! Hell No! Zero! The idea that the Confederate flag is just a symbol of regional pride is just as knowing a lie as the idea that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9-11.

We shouldn't be so easily fooled.

Posted by Ric Caric | April 3, 2008 7:37 PM

I consider myself reasonably well educated but I have what may be a pretty stupid question:

What's wrong with the South's decision to secede even if it was to uphold something as unjustifable as slavery. Let me just note: Slavery was clearly an immoral institution and one that the North rightly started doing away with well before the Civil War. I am just not sure why the South was not allowed to go its own way? If the answer is that slavery was an evil that had to be done away with wouldn't that logic apply in certain current situations? Why have we not gone into Africa to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing. Why not go into China to protect against human rights violations.

I am not trying to be difficult and I am not asking rhetorically. Perhaps my history education is pretty lacking.

Posted by rabbit | April 3, 2008 7:39 PM

One of the most interesting aspects of the Southern attitude toward the Civil War is the veneration of leaders like Robert E. Lee. To listen to the present day Confederate pride enthusiasts, one would get the impression that Robert E. Lee was one of the greatest Great Captains of history who lost only because of the inadequacy of Confederate munitions and numbers. Such was not the case at all. Actually, of course, in many respects, Robert E. Lee was one of the most incapable commanding generals in all history.

Posted by SLC | April 3, 2008 7:46 PM

At least Al has pegged himself as a Confederate apologist now. remind him of that next time he pulls out the Byrd KKK bullshit.

Don't you know? Southerners were eeeevil in the 19th century, and looking back on that time period in any positive light whatsoever makes you a bad person.

That's some pretty serious moral relativism. The Southern planters who ran the Confederacy were a nasty lot. If anyone was evil, they were.

That's why Lincoln trotted out that "In malice toward none, with charity for all" line at the end.

Lincoln was probably wrong on that one.

Posted by John Emerson | April 3, 2008 7:53 PM

rabbit,

My interpretation is that once you strip away the romantic ideal of "the union," you're left with the prima facie rejection by Lincoln, the Republicans, and pro-Union Democrats of the idea that the South "decided" or was in any substantial way unified behind the secession cause.

Secession was seen as a boutique fantasy of the southern planter class. Further the reality that those planter held levels of political power and influence radically out of proportion to their numbers. "Secession" was as much or even moreso a regionalized coup d'etat and power grab by political an economic elites as it was an act of separation and independence from the Northern states.

Posted by dry_fish | April 3, 2008 7:55 PM

The Southern planters who ran the Confederacy were a nasty lot. If anyone was evil, they were.

Interesting. How do you feel about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson?

Posted by right | April 3, 2008 8:00 PM

It's just how white folks are.

Posted by sherifffriuitfly | April 3, 2008 8:00 PM

rabbit,

To actually answer your question, Lincoln refused to simply "let the south go" because he didn't take secessionists seriously as representatives of anything beyond their own narrow financial interests.

For Northerners, abolishing slavery was much less attractive than reasons of pure nationalism, basic law enforcement, and smacking down loud-mouth agricultural tycoons.

Posted by dry_fish | April 3, 2008 8:04 PM

Jefferson and Washington were ambiguous figures with redeeming qualities. They don't deserve the adulation they sometimes get.

I'm perfectly happy for the Republican Party and the conservative movement to be regarded as Confederates. Perhaps soon we can get someone to say that the KKK wasn't really all that bad.

My heritage is Yankee and Union and they killed Confederates. But not enough of them it seems.

Posted by John Emerson | April 3, 2008 8:08 PM

Lastly, just think of it this way. The election of 1800 is celebrated because it was seen as one of the few times in the history of the world that a political party with control of the executive willing acknowledged the results of an unfavorable election and transferred power to their opponents. What makes the election of 1860 so critical (disputes about the election of 1824 aside) is that it was the first time in US history that the party in power refused to give up power to the winners of the election. Their compromise was that instead of throwing up barricades around the White House (because, really, who gave a flip about Buchanan?), they took their stand back in the states and southern state capitols.

Posted by dry_fish | April 3, 2008 8:18 PM

One of the frustrating things about neo-Confederacy is that it makes the South look bad; in other words, it's this neo-Confederate crap that makes it easy for Northerners to argue that Southerners are a bunch of racist rubes. In fact, the Civil War was mostly about slavery, which is why *many Southerners opposed it*. There were resistance movements throughout the South; the Richmond underground was particularly active and effective. And, of course, black Southerners -- who are, you know, Southerners -- were overwhelmingly on the Union side. A lot of the anti-racism which is one of this country's great gifts to the world came out of the Reconstruction period (which is, of course, a Southern phenomena) when blacks and whites formed some of the first interracial power-sharing governments in the world.

Southerners have a ton to be proud of about race relations. But the neo-Confederate line serves a lot of people, north and south, who would like the south to be proud about pretty much everything wrong, instead of everything right.

Posted by NoahB | April 3, 2008 8:31 PM

General Grant had it right about the South:

"a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse."

Posted by macheath | April 3, 2008 8:33 PM

General Grant had it right about the South:

"a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse."

Heritage

Comments (188)