Thursday, November 6, 2003

Pseudohistory and the Confederacy (Pt. 1 of 2)

The excerpt I included from Emory Walker in my previous post is a good example of how otherwise sensible people can absorb a pseudohistorical version of events. Even on something so central to American history as the Civil War. I'll do a post sometimes soon about how this came to be.

But here I'll just make a few comments on Walker's view of the Civil War, starting with his comment, "Those in the old Union states who would offer their opinions on this: Thank y'all, but we'll settle this on our own schedule."

This might have been understandable for a Southern critic of segregation to say in, oh, 1953. Today it's just silly. If Southern white folks whose ancestors fought for the Confederacy can get warm and fuzzy feelings from the Confederate battle flag, they shouldn't pretend to be surprised when others have feelings about it, too.

African-Americans (Southern and otherwise) whose ancestors were slaves under that flag may have feelings about it. Americans whose ancestors fought for the United States, democracy and the American flag - and died in large numbers - might also have feelings about the Confederate battle flag. White Southerners whose ancestors were patriotic Americans who refused to support the slaveowners' revolt against the Constitutional government of their country, or whose ancestors chose to fight for America and not for those who wanted to turn their country into a slave republic, may also have strong feelings about it.

Speaking of which, if patriotic Americans of today are going to "honor" Southerners of the Civil War era, don't we owe some special consideration to those patriotic American Southerners who supported America against the Confederacy, even when they were in the minority in their home states? Andrew Johnson of Tennessee (Andrew Jackson's home state, by the way) is probably the best known of the Southerners who backed the Union.

From the standpoint of democracy, human rights and American patriotism, those Southerners who supported the slaveowners' Confederacy were plainly wrong. And those who supported America and opposed the Confederacy were right. A little "moral clarity" is definitely in order here.

No, it's not just an angry-Southern-white-guy thing, or just a Southern thing. It's an American thing.

(Cont. in Part 2)

No comments: