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Are We Rethinking Our Civil War Reconciliation?
My family was in Iowa at the outbreak of the Civil War and I have one ancestor that fought for the Union. I grew up in the South but I was always grateful that the North won the Civil War. Slavery was noxious and a great evil in the American experiment. We could have had a peaceful resolution to slavery but the South broke the rules of the game and as they started to lose politically they tried their very, very best to destroy the United States. It was a very good thing that the Confederacy lost the Civil War — and in the long term — it was very good for all the states in the Confederacy that they lost the Civil War.
Having said that, I have always thought that America’s reconciliation after the Civil War is an under-appreciated miracle. The speed at which the country could unite against a common foe during the Spanish-American War — when many Civil War veterans were still alive — is remarkable. Not only that, but the career of Varina Howell Davis is equally amazing, going from being the First Lady of the Confederacy to becoming a celebrated writer in New York City.
Many have talked about the courage of Lee in making sure the Confederate Army did not break up and start guerrilla war against the Union, and rightly so. But equally important was the fact the the South could have just sat out of the American life as well. That would have been disastrous.
There was a brutal and evil price to pay for the quick reconciliation — the Jim Crow regime — and I can’t emphasize enough how much better American would be today if Jim Crow had never existed. Fortunately, we dealt with Jim Crow fifty years ago and, today, the only people that think Jim Crow was or is a good idea are a tiny lunatic fringe.
The best thing about the reconciliation has been the ability of all Americans to celebrate the martial valor of both sides of the Civil War. This has led military tradition of valor that greatly benefits our current military and contributed greatly to our military success as a nation.
When I watch a movie like Gettysburg, I want the Union to win and I would have been proud to make a stand with Chamberlain on Little Round Top. But how could I fail to be moved by the tragedy of Longstreet, or awed by the bravery and sacrifice of Pickett’s division, or not appreciate Lee’s leadership and audacity? I think it is to the nation’s benefit to that I am able to feel and emphasize with the soldiers and military tradition on both sides.
Now, however we have a strong attempt to disqualify that reconciliation to see the all the men of the Confederacy as unremitting evil. To my great disappointment Jason Lee Sterots argues this view at National Review. He thinks we should see all the Confederacy as racist cowards that deserve no respect for their military exploits. I think he writes this, as he writes much else, with little thought to the cultural consequences of his attitude.
I am more on the side of David French who debates Bakiri Sellers here. French takes the view that the reconciliation process after the Civil War is important and the South’s military history is important and distinct enough from the racist cause of the war to be worth keeping. Mr. Sellers who, at one point, uses the word “Sheroes” does not even seem to understand what Mr. French is saying. I pray that “Sheroes” has not become a thing in the United States.
That disturbs me because every great nation has to stand up and fight for its survival at times and its martial culture and courage is a very important ingredient to a nation’s survival. It bears noting that the French had everything they needed to resist the German invasion in 1940 except the will to fight. While many French soldiers fought bravely — as well as a very few French Government officials — it was not sufficient to the task of stopping the German army, whose military élan and determination was in much greater supply.
Whether the Confederate Battle Flag continues to fly anywhere or not, must we jettison the important reconciliation we have achieved after the Civil War? Am I — are we — not allowed to acknowledge that even the best and bravest of men can sometimes fight for the wrong cause? Is that lesson not important for us all to learn? If you throw away an entire tradition of marital valor and courage you do not easily replace it. Do people even bother to pause and contemplate that? I fear they do not, and we could easily lose an important part of American culture as a causality of a lone man’s racist attack.
Published in Culture, Politics
The thing is that you have to consider the south a conquered people.
Technically, it didn’t even free slaves in the Confederacy (eg, it didn’t free the slaves in areas under Union Control at the time of the proclamation). It only freed slaves in areas that came under Union control in the future.
The Emancipation Proclamation goals were primarily political, the most important of which was to keep Great Britain from supporting the Confederacy.
The thing is, it was literally a different civilization than the one that had emerged in the North at that time. But seventy years before, they had been much more part of the same civilization, the First Wave Civilization. In a sense, they did not leave the north, the north left them and their values behind as they became part of the emerging industrial civilization. The Southrons were trying to hold onto their traditions and their way of life. And there were some concepts there that have largely been lost. One of them was the idea of our sacred honor. Still valuing that is why many Southrons still join the armed forces.
I agree with you that many idolize the Southern Aristocratic paternalism and elevate it far beyond what it deserves as a whole. Still, there are elements of it that are worth recovering.
You sound like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and your average Progressive.
While I get what you mean here, he’s trying to point our the fact that Slavery was condoned under our National flag just as it was under the Confederacy. It seems a little hypocritical of some to claim that one flag is forever tainted while the other isn’t. Slaves lived under both, in both the North and the South during the Civil War. It doesn’t mean the Stars and Stripes should get the same treatment, but it should cause those who seem so virulently hostile to pause and consider that fact.
Now, why would you say that, Mark?
This is a good point, but I think it just goes to show that the South’s worst enemy was always itself. They refused to develop, created an ossified economic system, and further crafted a pernicious ideology to justify it in the face of mounting evidence of its inadequacy. The antebellum South I think is vastly more deserving of contempt than it receives. The South has finally become classically liberal and they pine for their old aristocracy? To me it seems as bizarre are some one day dreaming of the glories of the Tzars.
Re: #Comment 59
Well, of course much of that “southern aristocratic culture”, self interest and vanity you talk about sure was not apparent in the perfect puritan North where every one was free and equal. That southern aristocracy you deprecate was primarily responsible for the Constitution of the United States to include the Bill of Rights. Had the Northern approach prevailed much of what you take for granted might not exist today.Take some time to study the economic and cultural differences that separated the Constitutional delegates between agricultural South and mercantile North and the compromises that were reached that we take for granted.
I agree with Rush Limbaugh that much of the Flag discussion is about isolating political power in the South and trying to paint everyone with a racist brush. All i know is that if you want to look at the worst hegemonic region look to the Northeast. Nothing has changed, always look down at the rubes.
Isn’t comparing any one on Ricochet to Noam Chomsky a CoC violation?
Yes exactly right and not only must you denounce them but you want to get rid of the culture of valor that produced them and made them great soldiers when they fought for the American cause. That is a high price to pay for an attack by one lone gunmen who held extremely marginal views.
I don’t think that you should look at the South only through the eyes of Confederate soldiers and their families. Looking at from the view points of the slaves is very important. As Jefferson Davis’ widow wrote, “God meant for the South to lose the war”. The right side won. At the same time the Confederate soldiers were very brave, very determined and very dutiful. Their passion and loyalty to the cause of defending their States, right or wrong, was not a product of slavery but it was a product of what was good in the South. That good tradition continues to this date and benefits our country today especially in our military efforts. That is not something we should cast off lightly without thinking it through.
Actually, the French crafted it. They just adopted it. What of good has ever come out of France?
There’s an old phrase, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” You’re sort of saying that there was a whole lot of dirty bathwater and no baby. I disagree. While I do think there was plenty of dirty bathwater in Southern Culture, there was also a baby that was worth saving, and a baby that just might grow up to save us all. The separation of the two things and preservation of that worthy baby is the difficult part.
Let’s wait for his reply before we jump to conclusions. ;^D
Which is why us Midwesterners are the best and truest Americans. After all it took two Midwesterner to save the union (Lincoln and Grant).
But really if the Northeast is hegemonic it is because it was richer and more industrious than the South. Simply put they had a better culture which showed up in their success. If they are vain one might say they at least have good reason to be. What did the South really have after Madison?
As conservatives we tend to not believe in cultural relativism. Simply put Northern culture was superior to Southern culture in maybe everything but the culinary arts.
Thank you so much Blackford for the heads up. I respect David French greatly and the fact that he bothered to read my post is wonderful.
Simple, the rhetorical comparison on the flags. When you say the American flag is the flag of slavery that’s the Chomskyite rhetoric he loves to employ designed to dull the senses about making critical factual distinctions. For Howard Zinn it didn’t make a difference, American or Confederate flag it’s all crap.
I think the better reason they were not charged with Treason was that the country wanted to unify and reconcile and not cause the mass execution of men that had surrendered. It was the right call. The war proved that you should not secede over adverse election results. The 2nd Amendment remains so the right to resist actual tyranny is still with us.
Well if you want a clean baby you still have to throw out the dirty water, and once it is down the sink why be all nostalgic for it? Because it was your water?
That is because at Ricochet what you write matters!
(How is that for a tagline?)
Indeed. The South had no legitimate claim to rebellion so long as the democratic process was in place that allowed them to redress their grievances. Once the Union was formed the only way to legitimately dissolve it would have been with the consent of the North. All agreed to form it therefore all must agree to dissolve it.
I’ll grant you Grant, but Lincoln was a Southerner by (Kentucky) birth and spent his entire life below the Mason-Dixon Line. Illinois is a very long state. My family moved from southern Virginia just a little south to northern North Carolina and west to Kentucky and then west again to Illinois. They did not move further north until my grandfather got a job near Chicago. It was straight west from North Carolina to Illinois. And we were definitely Southrons.
Springfield Illinois is at 39°41′54″N latitude.
The Mason-Dixon Line is 39°43′20″ Nlatitude.
Illinois has changed and is more “Yankee” in culture further down than it used to be. These days, one has to pretty much get down into Egypt to see the Southern influence. But in the 1860’s, that wasn’t so.
Now, Lincoln was from a family that originally settled in Massachusetts and branched out to Pennsylvania before dipping down to Kentucky and then up to Indiana and over to Illinois. He may have been culturally Northern, but by birth and life, he was a Southerner.
I have only read a little of Steorts work. I don’t like him. He reminds me of that guy in high school who thought all his favorite bands were the coolest and all your favorite bands were lame and you were stupid for liking them.
I think loyalists to a foreign crown should be honored by the crown they were loyal to don’t you think? Loyalists left America or integrated into American society they had tired to stop from forming. They were British in sentiment and loyalty. That is fundamentally different from Americans that disagreed with other Americans about the universal claims of liberty and what kind of liberty we should be practicing at home.
Listen on your broader point you can say that the reconciliation in America after the Civil War was a mistake. It would be better for the South to have truly tasted and owned their defeat like the Japanese or the Germans and have them become passive members of American life that eschew military service and oppose war. I am not sure you would like that America better or that we would have benefited over all as a country.
One other point if you look at pre World War II Germany you find people like the Bonhoeffer family who were to a man and woman wonderful and amazing people. They were also very, very German. At the same time most of German culture allowed the Nazis to take over so over all German society was sick. When looking at Germany as a culture I can say the parts of the culture that produced the Bonhoeffers was excellent and building on those German traditions might be good for the broader culture. I can say that at the same time as criticizing German culture over all for allowing the Nazis to become so dominant. If there had been more Bonhoeffers in Germany, like if there had been more Lees in Virginia, much evil could have been prevented.
I sure as hell am. Reconciliation? There was an implicit deal post-Civil War; southerners could have their own cultural identity, and even some institutions, as long as they laid down their arms against the Union and took part in the nation again. For the most part, this deal was honored on both sides.
Now, the rest of the country… prodded by Progressivism, is reneging on that deal. Now southerners have to prostrate themselves, and confess their shame in Maoist cultural revolution style. And the greatest knife in the back on this: fellow “conservatives” that laugh and twist the blade. Many of them here.
Come to heel, you rednecks. Come to heel.
I’ve had it with Conservatism, Inc. Not only is the GOP worthless, the broader conservative movement… which moved at lighting speed to cave on the flag issue…. has become as worthless as virtue in a whorehouse. I’ve even seen southerners… here, even… using leftist buzzwords about this whole damned issue.
Reconciled? Hell no.
Its better to share an editorial page or suarez with the likes of Jason Lee Steorts, better to share a battlefield with the likes of David French.
(in case you’re a NY intellectual inclined to equate the two….just…..don’t.)
I say that as a Yankee whose family settled the nation, and has fought in many wars, including the Revolution and the Civil War from the North, up to the present; as one who honors that heritage and keeps it.
Were there some men who went to war because they believed in the inhumanity of blacks? There were. And where there some men who went to war because they believed states had the right to decide such questions and not the federal government? There were. And were their men who went to war because their state went to war and they had signed up for the militia? There were. And were there men who went to war because they loved their homes and couldn’t imagine fighting against their neighbors? There were. Were there men who went to war because their older brothers had, and they couldn’t imagine fighting against them? There were. Were there men who went to war because they needed the money? There were. Were there men who went to war because they were ambitious, and thought it was a way to win honor and distinguish themselves? There were.
The list could go on. If you think the list is any less complex for the North, you’re fooling yourselves.
What one man joins the war for is not “the reason” for a war—and we shouldn’t mistake the two, nor should we forget the one for the other. But neither can you neglect the myriad of reasons that men go to war, or castigate their descendants for honoring the valor of their forbears.
There is a difference too though. The slaves were eventually freed from under the Stars and Stripes while the Confederate battle flags sought to preserve slavery that does make an important distinction. Your over all point is valid however but my post is not centered on any flag but on the benefit that Civil War reconciliation brought our nation and that we are endanger of losing that.
I’d take Grant over Lee. I much prefer the cause Grant chose to fight for over Lee’s.
I like to consider the Civil War victory as a Republican accomplishment. When the first president of your political party preserves the Union, that is something worth celebrating.
Boy howdy to all of this!
Well, my reasons for saying what I say are very different than the reasons of those individuals. All I’m saying is that there was slavery under the Stars and Stripes for more than twenty times as long as under Confederate flags.
Of course, it also existed for years before that under the English and other colonial powers. There was no slavery in Colonial Georgia until an English minister pushed the idea to support an orphanage. Let’s put the blame where it really lies, the British, who instituted it before either nation we’re discussing ever existed.