Some of my best friends are Southern
I've been reading "A People's History of the United States" (oh my, how liberal!) and the best description I've come up with so far is that it's akin to if both your parents were having affairs, and everyone knew, but nobody talked about it, and then you had to sit down and have a big family discussion about their infidelity. You still love them, and know they've done great stuff, but now you have to face up to the really awful stuff they've done too. But I digress.
I'm reading the chapters about slavery and the abolition movement immediately preceding the Civil War, and boy, that is some awful stuff. In order to get territories captured from Mexico, namely California, admitted to the Union as non-slave states they had to actually make slavery easier for the current slave states. Awesome! This is not a new feeling for me, but this has only aggravated my deep loathing of the Confederacy. You can say the Civil War was about economics, but it was the economics of slavery. And you can say it was about State's Rights, but it was a state's right to have slaves. It's sick that people still take pride in that, and still want to fly that flag. That's a traitor's flag! Nobody who displays a confederate flag has any right even thinking that, say, a communist is a traitor. And I can't help thinking that whatever happened after the Civil War, we did something wrong that we allow the Confederacy as much respect as we do. It's not be respected, it's to be reviled. Why is that the one time in history when the victors didn't get to write the history books?
Fuck them.
I'm reading the chapters about slavery and the abolition movement immediately preceding the Civil War, and boy, that is some awful stuff. In order to get territories captured from Mexico, namely California, admitted to the Union as non-slave states they had to actually make slavery easier for the current slave states. Awesome! This is not a new feeling for me, but this has only aggravated my deep loathing of the Confederacy. You can say the Civil War was about economics, but it was the economics of slavery. And you can say it was about State's Rights, but it was a state's right to have slaves. It's sick that people still take pride in that, and still want to fly that flag. That's a traitor's flag! Nobody who displays a confederate flag has any right even thinking that, say, a communist is a traitor. And I can't help thinking that whatever happened after the Civil War, we did something wrong that we allow the Confederacy as much respect as we do. It's not be respected, it's to be reviled. Why is that the one time in history when the victors didn't get to write the history books?
Fuck them.
6 Comments:
I don't know if the Confederacy is universally beloved (or even given a pass) by any stretch of the historian's pen.
I concede that the South has produced ample amounts of military historians (and why not; the region's also produced mucho militarism), but most authoritative accounts of the war include substantial chapters dealing with the horrors of slavery and the un-constitutionality of secession.
Also, while there is indeed a neo-confederate movement among a minority of paleoconservatives, respecting the Southern War Dead doesn't strike me as crossing any sort of line. They were the most sinful of all Americans, but they were still Americans (Confederated).
Oh, and I should probably pick up that book myself. I have nary a volume that examines history through a Marxist lens. And I mean that in a neutral sense.
So far (I haven't gotten to the Industrial revolution) it isn't so much Marxist per se as anti-Establishment. I did learn that Pennsylvania was the only state of the big 13 to have voting not be tied to property. I love PA!
I guess I'm mainly referring to the flying of the Confederate flag and the general romanticism (Gone with the Wind springs to mind) that gets attached to that period. I also feel like that "occupied territory" feeling plays out in a lot of current politics as the whole "We hate elitist northerners" thing.
So while other states were busy pitting free protestant English white males with property against free protestant English white males without property, PA was like, "Hey, you know what? Here's a wacky idea: How about all free protestant English white males *with or without* property can vote!"
And the slaves serving drinks were like, "Very good, Sir!"
We take what we can get.
You guys are pure gold.
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