Edward Sebesta's April 23 selection again focuses on the political and racial sentiments that have long been an integral part of the Confederate "heritage" scam.
It's worth restating that there are groups, like the reenactor groups so far as I'm familiar with them, who keep their distance from this kind of nonsense. It's certainly possible to be a collector of memorabilia or an historian (professional or amateur) with a special interest in the Confederacy without endorsing the present-day goals of the so-called "heritage" movement.
I would go further and say that to really understand the Confederacy requires some real effort to see things from the Confederate point of view. But understanding is not defending, and explanation doesn't have to be apologetics. I once saw a reviewer criticizing Robert Caro's second volume of his Lyndon Johnson biographer, saying that a biographer treating an unsympathetic subject has "to learn to love his monster."
The same thing is true in trying to understand a Jefferson Davis or a Robert E. Lee or a simple private in the Confederate army. But that becomes impossible if we try to erase what they really thought and said and replace it with some pretty story at odds with reality. For instance, in a previous post I linked to the site of some group called the Southern Independence Party, which included this bonehead assertion:
When Abraham Lincoln was elected president, he and the U.S Congress immediately passed the Morrill Tariff (the highest import tax in U,S history), more than doubling the import tax rate from 20% to 47%. This tax served to bankrupt many southerners. This oppressive tax is what pushed Southern states legally withdrew [sic] from the union.
This is a typical tactic of crackpot extremists to bring up some hopelessly obscure issue that even someone very familiar with the actual history of the period would have difficulty addressing without a little research. I've seen it done in online discussion groups, as well, to try to sidetrack a discussion by insisting that people research some dead-end issue like this. If anyone is tempted to do that with the Morrill Tariff, I can tell you that you will search long and hard to find anyone resembling a legitimate historian that will argue that this was the cause of the Civil War. Or any secession convention where the Morrill Tariff was the main topic of discussion. Before you start, though, it might be helpful to know that the Morrill Tarriff was passed after seven Southern states had already seceeded, and signed into law by the proslavery President James Buchanan as one of his last official acts as President.
So much for reverencing "heritage." What kind of honoring one's ancestors is it when you have to make up explanations for their actions that don't even past the snicker test? For a more middle-brown version of the same idiotic argument, see Lincoln's Tariff War by neo-Confederate Thomas DiLorenzo.
Sebesta's April 23 selection, also from the United Daughters of the Confederacy Magazine (Feb 1959) which reproduces the text of a 1958 speech at a luncheon sponsored by the organization in Tampa, FL, shows that this kind of crackpot scamming is by no means new for Confederate idolators. The emphases in red are Sebesta's:
The driving force and the master plan in this [desegregation] crisis stems from the Communist International conspiracy to capture and destroy the United States of America-that organization well knows that if they can deprive the people of their constitutional rights by deceitful propaganda and divide them over internal issues, we will be an easy prey, and our country will fall. ...
The Communist conspirators who are behind this integration movement are past masters in the use of propaganda to win their battles. ...
Yet, some ministers with their great prestige and influence are using "the brotherhood of man" as a lever to force integration in their own churches. This action will lead only to disunity in their congregation, to heartbreak and disappointment for the negro, to intermarriage, a mongrel race and to the destruction of the United States of America. ...
I want you fine ladies here this morning to alwaysremember that the issue at stake right now is the same issue your southern forebears fought and died for.
During the war our southern men gave their lives and our southern women made every sacrifice to fight for a cause in which they believed-their battle cry was "honor" and "courage" - not "compromise" and "surrender"-and now the torch held so high by these men and women is passed on to you to carry forward-- must not fail them!
The time is here for the people of this State to rise up and say to the nation-"we DO NOT believe in the integration of the races-" ...
May the spirit of Lee and Jackson and the long line of departed southern heroes be with you, guide and strengthen you at this time so that this great organization of patriotic southern women can use its power to save our people and preserve our nation.
Heritage not hate? Or just white folks whining?
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