VA Governor and Confederate Heritage Month

[Dave Roberts]

To the embarassment of many Virginians, our new governor has proved himself inept again by issuing a proclamation about Confederate Heritage Month that initially ignored the role of slavery in the conflict focusing only on states' rights. I have friends who are part of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and who refer to the Civil War as "The War of Northern Aggression." Saying it does not make it so. I also have a great-grandfather who was in the Confederate Army. He went because conscription agents caught him in the hayloft of the barn and took him foir the duration.

The strange mythology of the "Lost Cause" and of "the Moral Superiority of the South" keep surfacing. I realize that Gov. McDonald has only one real interest--he wants to promote tourism beginning next year to tour VA sites from the war during its 150th anniversary. VA will keep attention on the Civil War as long as there are dollars to be made from out-of-state tourists. That is fine. However, ignoring slavery and providing only a states' rights explanation is an affront the 1/4 of the citizens of this commonwealth. Does the church have a role to speak to the 150th anniversary of the War Between the States in the midst of militias and secession threats in our era?

[William Thornton]

[Dave Roberts]

Not of we quit trying to resurrect the great "lost cause" theories for current political gain. The Governor is elected to serve all the people, not just to promulgate the grand Republical Southern Strategy.

[Lamar Wadsworth]

I am all for historic preservation, and I cannot fault any state for trying to capitalize on its historic sites in order to attract tourists to the state. However, it is wrong to glorify the "Lost Cause." Of my eight great-great grandfathers, seven served in the Confederate Army. The other one, my great-great grandfather Wadsworth, worked for the Georgia Railroad all through the war, helping to keep the trains running. My great-great grandfather Bailey was captured at Gettysburg and died as a prisoner of war. There has been great suffering, great sacrifice, and great heroism on every side in every war that has ever been fought. However, the fact that people have fought valiantly for some cause does not make the cause itself right or morally defensible. The Civil War, like many other wars, was a rich man's war and a poor man's fight. The ones who really wanted to lead the southern states into secession and an unwinnable war against the Union were the wealthy plantation interests whose wealth was built upon the uncompensated labor of black slaves. Not unlike the illegal US invasion of Iraq--to see who really wanted to take us into that war, just follow the money and see who has profited from it. Thousands of US soldiers have given their lives in a war that had no higher purpose than lining the pockets of war profiteers. Most of the fighting and dying or getting maimed for life in the Civil War was done by poor people. Of my seven Confederate soldier ancestors, four could not read or write, so they could hardly be faulted for believing the propaganda about the nobility of their cause and their leaders. Maybe, as we approach the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, it might be a good idea to remember the voices of wisdom and sanity in the south who warned against the folly of secession. I might just have to make a pilgrimage about 15 miles from my house to the Allgood's Chapel Methodist Church and put some flowers on the grave of state senator John Young Allgood. Allgood represented Polk County where I live and neighboring Paulding County. Allgood spoke passionately for preserving the Union, and he led the fight against secession in the Georgia state senate. Maybe we could name some state government building somewhere for him. Some of Georgia's 159 counties are named for scoundrels, and one (Peach County) is named for a fruit, so maybe we could even rename a county for him. Come to think of it, the 150th anniversary of the Civil War is a wonderful time to talk about the injustice of war and how wars are often fought at the behest of the wealthy who stand to profit from them at the expense of poor people who do a disproportionate share of the fighting, getting maimed, and getting killed.

[William Thornton]

[Dave Roberts]

That's not the original proclamation. All references to slavery were omitted in the original one which raised the firestorm about it. As I stated earlier, the whole aim of this thing is tourism dollars. For the past several years, I have often walked past the Museum of the Confederacy and the White House of the Confederacy. Both try to get tourist dollars as do numerous battlefield monuments. My greatest problem with McDonnell is that he originally tried to rewrite history by completely ignoring the role of slavery in the war. Yet, his governor's mansion sits within half a mile of the slave jails and slave auction sites along the James River in Richmond--items he is not promoting in the tourism of the area. He did not share a sensitivity to wider issues that was shared by his predecessors by basically putting his signature to a proclamation promoted by someone else. He tried to proclaim the war as solely a fight for the rights of the state, a position he still proclaims in the health care fight by championing a law to exempt VA from federal mandates for health care and by having his attorney general waste VA money to fight the health care bill in the federal courts when we can't give state raises. There is a hidden agenda behind his "states rights" language.

It is important to honor those who fought for both sides, but I have a great deal of trouble glorifying the Confederacy or its misguided defense of slavery. Yet, more blood, union and confederate, was spilled in VA than in any other state during the Civil War, simply because Washington and Richmond were only 100 miles apart. That was the most contested ground of the war. It was only after the 1863 invasion of the North that ended at Gettysburg that the North shifted to the total war of Grant and Sherman, so even that is anchored in the point-counterpoint thinking of both sides.

The continuing study of history is important, and there are noble leaders on both sides and misguided scoundrels there. Our governor appears to want VA to be the hero of all things.

[Chris]

[Kaylor]

[Jonathan]

This is another one of those issues where few want the whole history because it would interfere with their own preferred narrative, not just of history, but of how they wish to view the current world (Chris's comment about sedition is a good example on one side, a recent comment I heard about the "lost cause" and the way that a number of carpet baggers acted above the law almost justifying Jim Crow is a good example on the other).

[Kaylor]

[Jonathan]

[Big Daddy Weaver]

[ET]

[Kaylor]

[Chris]

[Dave Roberts]

The South has created a number of post-Civil War myths. The first is the moral superiority of Southern Culture over Northern culture. The second is the lost cause mentality, first popularized in the writings of Confederate General Jubal Early. The third is the superiority of Southern Religion over Northern religion. That is the ideal that led Southern Baptists to go into the North and West to establish Southern Baptist churches that had to be superior to American Baptists since southerners, though they didn't have enough troops to win the Civil War, still have the superiority that needs to be exported.

[Big Daddy Weaver]

So is it mɪˈzʊəri or mɪˈzʊərə? And does this mixed identity have anything to do with pronunciation? I had a couple of classmates from Missouri a year or so ago who pronounced it differently - kinda odd I thought. But then again, I was in a class a while back with a bunch of real evangelicals (not SBCers). I pronounced it one way; they another. I think it was Randall Balmer who said that if you are really an evangelical, you'll pronounce it like eh-vangelical while non-evangelicals stress the E.

[Haruo]

There are Washingtonians who rhoticize "wash" and Washingtonians who don't rhoticize "woarsh"; I'm a non-rhoticizer, but I don't know how far back that goes. When my ancestors were cheechakos, maybe they all rhoticized.

[William Thornton]

Not sure I understand. Other than Chris, are you guys OK with the proclamation as presently written? I don't see anything in it about Lost Cause stuff, moral superiority, militias, secession, or Obamacare, Dave. Even you stated that the guvnor has "only one real interest" and that is none of the stuff above.

[Dave Roberts]

[Chris]

Our local newspaper has a front page story today about the future of Fort Monroe (which is being shut down by the Army next year, as part of the base closure program).

http://www.dailypress.com/news/military ... 0902.story

The article refers to the theme "Freedom's Fortress" at least twice, yet one of the proposed uses is for a "Museum of the Confederacy." If I'm not mistaken, Ft. Monroe was in Union hands during the entire Civil War. It is said that President Lincoln came there and spent the night, and watched a naval battle. If it's true that it stayed in Union hands, it would make more sense to have a "Museum of the Union!"

[ET]

[Dave Roberts]

I worked for a radio station years ago where we had to read the list every morning-hot off the wire-of all the designations of each day. It is absurd. There is everything from national french fry day to neuter your pet day.

[Dave Roberts]

Today, CNN has posted two very excellent discussions of Confederate history from differing perspectives. The first is by Grace Elizabeth Hale, Associate Professor of History at UVA. It seeks to set the history in a broader sweep.

The second is by S. Waite Rawls, III, Director of the Museum of the Confederacy.

Both are worth reading for this discussion.

[Chris]

Dave, If there is already a Museum of the Confederacy, howcum someone thinks we need one at the Ft. Monroe site?