Lost Cause of the South

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*William L. Ramsey and Sean M. Quinlan. [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=633361 Southern Slavery As It Wasn't: Coming to Grips with Neo-Confederate Historical Misinformation.] Oklahoma City University Law Review, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2005.
 
*William L. Ramsey and Sean M. Quinlan. [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=633361 Southern Slavery As It Wasn't: Coming to Grips with Neo-Confederate Historical Misinformation.] Oklahoma City University Law Review, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2005.
  
==Footnotes==
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==References==
 
*[http://books.google.com/books?id=QWKzf8j2yPoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+confederate+and+neo-confederate+reader&hl=en&ei=CfdSTq-0HeTv0gG7rOmkDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false ''The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader''], eds. James W. Loewen and Edward H. Sebesta
 
*[http://books.google.com/books?id=QWKzf8j2yPoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+confederate+and+neo-confederate+reader&hl=en&ei=CfdSTq-0HeTv0gG7rOmkDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false ''The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader''], eds. James W. Loewen and Edward H. Sebesta
 
*[http://books.google.com/books?id=w2YTF3V3otkC&q=Confederates+in+the+Attic:+Dispatches+from+the+Unfinished+Civil+War&dq=Confederates+in+the+Attic:+Dispatches+from+the+Unfinished+Civil+War&hl=en&src=bmrr&ei=bPdSTv7bEYPc0QGKu73uBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA ''Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War''] by Tony Horwitz
 
*[http://books.google.com/books?id=w2YTF3V3otkC&q=Confederates+in+the+Attic:+Dispatches+from+the+Unfinished+Civil+War&dq=Confederates+in+the+Attic:+Dispatches+from+the+Unfinished+Civil+War&hl=en&src=bmrr&ei=bPdSTv7bEYPc0QGKu73uBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA ''Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War''] by Tony Horwitz

Revision as of 08:38, 4 August 2012

Not just a river in Egypt

Denialism

Icon denialism.svg
A dirty dozen gems
O, I'm a good old Rebel/Now that's just what I am/For this "Fair Land of Freedom"/I do not care a damn!
—"I'm A Good Old Rebel," Confederate folk song

The Lost Cause of the South (also Lost Cause of the Confederacy) is a term referring to a number of interpretations of the American Civil War from an effectively pro-Southern perspective. It is important as it is a good example of denialism, especially in regards to the chief underlying cause of the war. This mythos makes reference to a number of different themes, and these can be found in various popular culture sources and persist to this day.

Contents

History

Almost immediately after the war ended, the defeated Southern states had to form a coherent reason why they engaged in a rebellion against the Union. Furthermore, this reason could not highlight the centrality of slavery to the Southern cause, but instead had to minimize, or even deny the role of slavery. Furthermore, many white Southerners during Reconstruction believed that the Union had, in fact, placed an oppressive regime on their states. As a result, once the Yankee troops left the south, Southerners began forming memorials often funded and driven by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and supported by many Southern veterans' groups. The purpose of this was to try and redefine the meaning of the war to ignore slavery, so that the Southern "heroes" would not seem like evil repressive persons seeking to hold down an entire race of people.

Themes

The Lost Cause mythos has several themes associated with it. Here is a brief summary of some of them.

The War itself

  • A common claim is that the principles of Constitutional originalism allowed for the legality of secession and that it was unconstitutional to use military force to keep the Union together. Thus, James Buchanan is often portrayed as adhering to the true meaning of the Constitution while Abraham Lincoln violated it by disallowing secession.
  • Confederate generals will often be described as pious, gentlemanly figures, that often opposed slavery (despite owning slaves). Their motives are because their "home" was invaded. These generals are often products of another gentlemanly era, and hold "Southern honor" in high regard. Their subordinates often treated them as if they walked on water. Lost Causers will often highlight the daring tactics of the Southern generals, or the dashing nature of the cavalry units.
    • Typically Robert E. Lee or Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson are overly glorified.
    • Southern general James Longstreet is often the exception to the above. Having become a "scalawag" (Confederate turned Republican) after the war, he is often demonized as a traitor to the South and especially to Lee, and somehow gets blamed for singlehandedly losing Gettsyburg, despite Lee taking full responsibility for the loss.
  • In contrast, Union generals are often portrayed as bloodthirsty, incompetent commanders. These are commanders who do not respect private property (Benjamin Butler), were violently bloodthirsty (William T. Sherman), or alcoholic atheists (Ulysses S. Grant). These generals supposedly had little regard for the lives under their command. They are enframed as having sub-par tactical skills and only being able to win because the Union either had more men, resources, and (rarely) technology.
  • There is a strong focus on the eastern front of the war, especially the battles that took place in Virginia. It ignores the west, primarily because the Southern forces were routed there in 1862, while the Union forces just couldn't win against Lee in the east.
  • War-time atrocities committed by Union troops are highlighted, but similar actions by "chivalrous" Southern troops or the terrible conditions at various POW camps such as Andersonville are ignored.
  • Robert E. Lee is claimed to have magnanimously "granted" an end of the war by surrendering in order to stop the bloodshed.
  • Invoking the myth of the United States as a Christian nation to frame the war as a religious one, once again, with Confederate troops as pious and Union troops as sinners.

African-Americans

  • Lost-causers claim that slaves were content with their lot.
  • Likewise, they claim that slavery was a "mild or benign institution" that was for the "betterment" of Africans.
    • Examples include claims that slave owners were paternalistic figures to their slaves, that they loved their slaves like children and vice versa.
  • They highlight and present as typical the rare occasions where African-American slaves may have fought against Union forces.
    • Black women will fall into a "mammy" stereotype to defend the white families that they somehow love more than their own.
  • They overemphasize the (very few) free Blacks who did indeed own slaves or fought for the Confederacy.
  • They ignore the fact that millions of slaves fled to Union lines with whatever property they had, hoping to gain their freedom. Or if they do talk about them, consider them traitors, thieves, or collaborationists (especially during Reconstruction).
  • There is an inordinate focus on atrocities committed by Union forces against slave or freed persons.
  • They also emphasize the cruelty of black units against white populations. Northern black troops are also presented as being alien to the southern slaves, and because of that they were not willing to join. This claim is made despite the fact that the black troops were often the North's best recruitment tools for southern slaves to join the army.
  • They point to the fact that slavery was ended in the Southern states before it was ended in the Northern (border) states, as a sign that the war was not really about slavery or that the North enjoyed slavery more.

Reconstruction

Reconstruction refers to the period of time in between 1865 and 1876 when the US Army was in effective control of the former Confederacy. While not a part of the war per se, it is nonetheless important. Important myths include:

  • That freed slaves were coerced by Union forces to vote in elections for puppet Republican governments.
  • Conversely that freed slaves conspired with the Union forces to install harsh Republican governments and suppress and harass white people.
  • That many freedmen and women were content to engage in share-cropping.
  • That Jim Crow laws were needed in order to deal with a "small number of malcontents", or that most black people liked it.
  • That Congress was overly harsh in its reconstruction policies (this is still disputed).
  • That the Ku Klux Klan was not a terrorist organization, but was some type of veterans or civic group (and if you believe this I have a really nice bridge in Brooklyn that I'm looking to sell).

Conclusions

All of the above themes are present in the myth of the Lost Cause of the Civil War. Sadly, they have not fully gone away, especially in popular culture. Notable examples include the movies Birth of a Nation, Gone With the Wind, and more recently Gods and Generals. There are some historians today who still persist in presenting these myths (though very few of them are mainstream academics). In their more extreme forms these myths are still alive and well in neo-Confederate organizations and other hate groups.

Right from the horse's mouth

Still believe that the Confederacy wasn't about slavery and racism? Well, their own vice-president, Alexander H. Stephens, disagrees with you. An excerpt from his famous cornerstone speech:

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

Now do you think the South wasn't racist, or that slavery was just a minor issue?

See also

External links

References

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