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“Hi, What Did You Do with the Confederacy?”
I live in Alexandria, VA, a close-in suburb of Washington. On a good day, I can be in DC in 10 minutes. On a great day, I wouldn’t be in DC (rimshot). I love it here, though. According to our local blog, Red Brick Town, “Alexandria, Virginia is the Most Liberal City in Virginia.” I live in a section of town called Del Ray, which is the tip of the liberal iceberg. I like to call it a hippie commune, with multiple yoga studios, holistic medicine practitioners, and coffee shops mere blocks from each other. One of the coffee shops has a Moms Demand gun control sign in their window. As a pretty hard right conservative, I don’t fit in at all, but, that is pretty much the story of my life.
Recently, I started taking water aerobics at the local YMCA. As a 44-year old man, I am 1) the youngest in the class and 2) the only guy. Not a problem as everyone is kind and welcoming, probably because I haven’t told any of them I work for NRA News. The only time I felt awkward was yesterday, when I couldn’t contribute to the classwide discussion of hot flashes. I just stared at the wall and prayed that it would end.
The water aerobics ladies also discussed “Downton Abbey,” another topic I have no clue about, but at least it’s not cringe-inducing. One of them mentioned PBS was coming out with a new series that took place here in Alexandria, called “Mercy Street.” I found that to be an interesting tidbit, then went back to trying not to drown as we did our underwater karate kicks.
I doubt this is just me, but I have noticed that when you hear or learn of something new, you subsequently run into more information about that topic. The subconscious acts in strange ways. Before yesterday, I would have never noticed this tweet:
Alexandria hopes PBS Civil War series will pay off in tourism https://t.co/kpf6WJRwoJ
— Post Local (@postlocal) January 13, 2016
I didn’t know the setting of the show until I saw the Washington Post tweet. The Civil War. Interesting.
“Mercy Street,” a six-episode drama inspired by events that took place in Alexandria during the 1860s, will begin airing at 10 p.m. Sunday on local PBS channels. Rich in period attire, settings and subordinate story lines, the show focuses on two nurses from opposing sides of the war who work at a military hospital in Alexandria, which was a Southern town occupied by Union troops.
…
The Confederate-sympathizing Green family, whose luxury hotel became the Mansion House Hospital, were Alexandria residents who ran a furniture store and left diaries that have been used as background for the show. Their family home is now the Carlyle House. The Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary, now a museum, filled the need for drugs during the time. The cemeteries and restored slave pens of the era still exist.
“Confederate-sympathizing.” Really interesting, and completely ironic.
Ironic, because since the tragic shootings in Charleston, SC last year, Alexandria, like many parts of the South, has been working hard on erasing any vestiges of its Confederate past.
I live blocks from Jefferson Davis Highway. Alexandria is considering a repeal of a law that requires Confederate street names:
An Alexandria, Va. city councilman is introducing legislation to repeal a 1963 law that required, when possible, the naming of any new north-south street for Confederate military leaders.
As a Northern guy, born in Brooklyn, I have no interest in flying a Confederate flag myself, but I am also not a fan of erasing history. Alexandria council voted to prohibit the flying of Confederate flags by the city:
The Alexandria City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to ban the flying of Confederate flags by the city and will form a citizens committee to study whether to rename streets named for Southern military leaders.
The action does not outlaw parades or forbid spectators to wave Rebel flags, council members said. And the waving of other nations’ flags by groups such as those that celebrate Irish or Scottish history will be allowed. But the era of city employees raising a Confederate flag on Gen. Robert E. Lee’s birthday and Confederate Memorial Day is over.
In the middle one of the city streets is this statue, erected in 1889 to commemorate Confederate soldiers who died in battle.
This apparently has to go too. Democrat Calls Old Town Confederate Memorial ‘Problematic’:
A Confederate statue in Alexandria, Va., is the latest memorial associated with the Civil War to be branded “problematic” by Democrats.
Alexandria Councilman Justin Wilson (D.) hinted Thursday that the Appomattox statue at the intersection of Washington and Prince Streets in Old Town should be removed.
“I think there’s an appropriate context that we have to place that history in, and I think there’s a lot of folks who don’t feel like a statue honoring that cause is the appropriate place for that,” Wilson told NPR News station WMAU. “The nature of that memorial and the glorification of that cause I think is problematic.”
Since reading about the PBS show today, I have been picturing in my head tourists coming to Alexandria in the future, wondering what happened to the Confederate imagery sure to be featured on “Mercy Street.” The worst part of the fight over Confederate flags, symbols, and statues, is the wholesale erasing or hiding a vital part of our nation’s past that forever shaped this country. A lot of terrible things happened during the Civil War to be sure, but taking down a statue won’t change the past, it will only skew the future.
In the Washington Post story that led me to this:
Patricia Washington, president and chief executive of Visit Alexandria, the city’s tourism agency, said that the exposure to a national audience is invaluable.
“You cannot buy that kind of marketing at any price,” Washington said. “Our job now is to invite millions of viewers from all over the country to explore the real sites and stories that inspired the series.”
I welcome everyone here to this beautiful and historic city. I would just prefer that when tourists get here, they see the unvarnished, real history of Alexandria, VA, not the bleached, polished, and politically correct history city leaders think they need instead.
Published in Entertainment, History
I love Lexington. Another beautiful and historic Virginia town.
Cameron
I grew up outside of Alexandria in Mount Vernon and as a kid remember the town, like Georgetown, to be very run down and crime ridden. After the riots of the 1960s the City would sell you an abandoned house in Old Town for $4,000 and give you a $100,000 subsidized loan to rebuild. Our home was robbed 3 times in the 1970s; each time the robbers were located in Georgetown, all junkies stealing for heroin. Thanks to them there is no Family silver left. Glad to see some things have changed, although theft comes in many forms.
Richmond has a similar problem with its Confederate history. Although studies show this history to be the number one draw for tourism, it has never been acknowledged. For all of the criticisms of statues on Monument Avenue, try mentioning getting rid of them and the subject gets changed very quickly. It is hard to find a picture of Richmond without the statues, despite all of the new micro-breweries growing here. Money always talks.
I could understand if Virginia had Confederate amnesia immediately after the war. The Old Dominion was hard done by.
This is a perfect example of the kind of Northern triumphalist ignorance I’m talking about. That is not why VA seceded, and it’s not what Lee was defending. VA seceded in response to Lincoln’s call to raise an army to attack the already seceded Southern states. Up until that point, the Unionists in VA had outnumbered the secessionists and had been hoping to reach a compromise that avoided war. When Lincoln called for VA to send 2300 men to fight in SC, Governor Letcher told him his request was unconstitutional. Lincoln wanted a war, and he got one. VA realized that a federal government that was willing to override the sovereignty of the state by force of arms over one issue was one capable of doing so over any issue, and the tide of opinion swiftly changed to support secession.
This is true as far as it goes. But I believe Lincoln’s formal request came after the assault on Fort Sumter started. That event triggered the up-swell in support, then Lincoln’s request amplified it.
I understand why Virginia rejected the request and voted for secession. However, I’m not sure they realized that the Commonwealth would be dismembered and devastated the way it was.
All of that is true. There was some dispute as to whether Lincoln had made a promise to the VA Unionists not to defend Ft Sumter if they would adjourn the secession convention. He claimed he had, they claimed to have never received it. Ultimately, the Unionists learned of the Ft Sumter attack in-person from Lincoln when he told them he was going to respond with force. The attack itself had started moving opinion, but it was Lincoln’s call for mobilization of the militia that cemented public opinion in favor of secession.
Every single effort to undo the preservation of history by eliminating distasteful(to some) elements has an equivalence to something akin to Orwell’s notion of ‘doublethink’. Events take place in a time and a place and history is the record of those who were there and what they thought and did. The Founders did what was possible and it was, in my estimation, among the greatest achievements ever. That they could not at the same time correct the boil on society of slavery was recognized and unfortunate, but money talks, as we all know. Once again, problems of this nature are best solved by compact groups of people with something in common in their lives. This was the vision of federalism provided by the Founders. My guess is the conditions and politics surrounding slavery and economics differed by state and had we entered the boom of the industrial period without having had that conflict, we perhaps would have seen a completely different approach to changing it. The money provides the national leadership and we always get what we pay for.
Whiskey Sam…
This is true as far as it goes. But I believe Lincoln’s formal request came after the assault on Fort Sumter started. That event triggered the up-swell in support, then Lincoln’s request amplified it.
I understand why Virginia rejected the request and voted for secession. However, I’m not sure they realized that the Commonwealth would be dismembered and devastated the way it was.
What warring parties ever do Whiskey Sam? As Dr. Kagan reminds us from a time far, far away: War is the product of Interest, Honor and Fear. I think many moderns blinded by the material world today think that only Interest matters, but it does not. Honor is right up there. Think the Middle East.
I would urge Tom Meyer, who is usually sensible, to take the time to read the letters of the people involved during the time to understand what is about. Constantly vilifying my ancestors without knowing their background, history or context does not come off as someone as interested in understanding the reality of the human condition.
This is so wrong that, if propagated, would be termed a lie.
And a normally reasonable act by a newly declared sovereign to remove foreign troops from its territory opened the door for Lincoln to act in a manner antithetical to the American ideal (end justifies means) at a cost of over 600,000 lives.
When the Confederate states wrote wrote a new constitution, they explicitly protected race-based slavery. In contrast, the US Constitution allowed it and permitted states to pass abolitionist legislation. Here’s the CSA constitution:
Elsewhere:
And:
The framers of the US Constitution clearly had a guilty conscience about slavery. The framers of the Confederate Constitution did not and put that into law.
The US had not outlawed slavery prior to states seceding. What law did the South break by seceding? What part of the Constitution authorized use of force to keep states in the Union? The North has ever since been desperate to portray the sole cause for all secession as slavery on purely moral grounds because to admit that it was Lincoln’s unconstitutional war-mongering that drove the upper South into seceding delegitimizes the North’s claim to moral superiority.
The North’s decision to force change militarily and not legislatively or via constitutional amendment led to the de facto end of slavery but hardened the hearts of those in the South resulting in the KKK, Jim Crow, and Lincoln getting a bullet in the head. The South was conquered militarily but not defeated ideologically. Contrast that to the UK where Wilberforce and Clarkson first did the difficult work of persuading a nation that slavery was morally indefensible, were willing to reimburse slaveholders for losses, and had it abolished legislatively. As a result, they didn’t have to endure a civil war over it.
If Obama were able tomorrow to pass comprehensive gun control and disarm American citizens and SC seceded over it, would it still be moral for Obama to declare war on SC? If Obama were able to force through tax-payer funded abortions and MS seceded over it, would it be a legitimate use of power to force them to stay and accept it by force of arms? Or are these only constitutional uses of authority when they are for causes we support? The South was wrong about slavery, but the North was wrong about secession. We have been dealing with the consequences ever since.
I’m not criticizing secession itself — positive feelings toward it in general, mixed-to-negative ones regarding 1861 — so much as what the Confederate States did with it. Specifically, in forming an explicitly racist and anti-abolition government.
The South was wrong on slavery, but the North had no legal justification for forcing change at the point of a gun. The war divided my commonwealth, and that scar still runs down the Appalachians separating us from our western half. The North didn’t outlaw slavery either until after the war. They North has also never had a reckoning for its racism like the South did. Yankees are quick to remind the South of its transgressions and pretend the South is the originator and propagator of racism in America, but they were rioting in the streets of Boston when schools were integrated. There is more than a little hypocrisy in Northern moral grandstanding. They were all ready to end slavery so long as the freed blacks stayed down in the South so they didn’t have to live with them.
Sorry Tom, but IMHO, this is the type of global, catch-all generalization that would make President Obama proud. Please quit digging the hole deeper.
On that — all of it — we’ve no disagreement.
Too much focus on what those Confederates did. Lincoln completely destroyed the Founders’ concept of a federal republic.
Wait… what?
Do you disagree with my characterization of the Confederate Constitution as explicitly racist? If so, I’d be curious to read a rebuttal.
Another NoVA native here and graduate of West Springfield HS. I used to love heading down to Old Town Alexandria to hang out on weekends. :)
Thanks for this update. I remember taking a field trip to Alexandria when I lived waaaaaay out in (what was then) the “exurbs” around Quantico Marine Base. So much history…but apparently less today than yesterday. Sigh.
Out here in Fauquier County, we’re holding the line…for now. The problem is that as the close-in suburbs bleed out and Fairfax County liberals move out of McMansions and into farmettes, they bring their politics with them.
Thank you, Layla.
Cameron
Hey, we must be neighbors (‘downtown’ Springfield)! I used to roller blade to the Springfield metro all the time to get to work. But farthest east I usually go though these days is Kingstowne theater.
A very worthy, but different, subject.
Based on his comments here, I don’t take Mr. Meyer for a Northern triumphalist, even if there are plenty of others (e.g., most of the Democratic Party and half of the Republican) who are, and even though he wants to see Jefferson Davis removed from street signs.
In any case, the triumphalists who should concern us are those who want to erase history from our land and schools, substituting instead a stupid pseudo-Marxist fairy tale in which leftists are heroic and brilliant and conservatives are evil and moronic, and independent knowledge and understanding are very highly… discouraged, shall we say.
I just realized that I totally missed this comment.
First, I take “usually sensible” as a rather high compliment, so thank you. Genuinely.
Regarding the substance a few quick thoughts:
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
—U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
(letter to Col. William F. Elkins)
Bob – Snopes says that quotation is wrongly attributed to Lincoln. I haven’t checked myself; perhaps Snopes is wrong. But I suspect it is correct because the writing is not his style, and the prediction is too pat.
Yeah, I thought about that, but if he didn’t say it, he should have since that conflict is where the bad stuff really got momentum. Thanks.
For those of us early 21st Century Tumi ‘carpetbaggers’ new to the South, I highly recommend “The Mind of the South” by W.J. Cash. It gave me an appreciation for my neighbors and neighborhood I would not otherwise have had. It’s an old book–but the history and attitudes we ‘newbies’ need to ‘get’ are the old ones.
Bob – If you have an article or book on that topic to recommend, let me know. Thanks.
If you mean on the topic that the war and Lincoln’s administration is about when things started to go very badly for the people and the power went with the money, I don’t. But it seems that the war is about the dividing point when states had exercised substantial control over corporations through the charter process and began to lose that power. It is when the first income tax was levied. It when the federal government first issued fiat currency. This last was challenged in the 1860’s and declared unconstitutional, IIRC, so the Grant Administration waited until they could get the ‘right’ justices on the court and it was affirmed OK in 1871, I believe. Then, in 1886 the Court declared, ipse dixit, that Corporations were persons for purposes of most Constitutional and statutory issues. This unsolicited Court opinion cited the 14th amendment. The power wielded by the wealthy and corporations transformed our system from a government of and by the people to one of, by and for the money. That’s where we are now in my view. If I made misstatements, I apologize. And I’m sure there are any number of like influences omitted, especially in the 20th century before WWII.