In the last
posting we tried to define the Neo-Confederate (hereafter abbreviated as “NC”) movement,
and the first point the Wiki
article made in its summary was this:
“Honor of the Confederacy and its veterans — Much of the
Neo-Confederate movement is concerned with giving honor to the Confederacy
itself, to the veterans of the Confederacy and Confederate veterans'
cemeteries, to the various flags of the Confederacy, and to Southern cultural
identity.”
Another point in their summary of the movement:
“Black Confederates — The book The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader notes that toward the
end of the Twentieth Century, in order to support the idea that the Civil War
was not about slavery, Neo-Confederates began to claim that “thousands of
African Americans had served in the Confederate army.” A Neo-Confederate publication,
Confederate Veteran, said in 1992 that “the overwhelming majority of blacks
during the War Between the States supported and defended, with armed
resistance, the Cause of Southern Independence.”
Let’s
address these for a moment.
I’ll
quickly stipulate that there were a lot of brave soldiers who sacrificed much—up
to and including a horrible death--for what they believed in. I’ve heard some
Neo-Confederates make the claim that most of the southern soldiers on the front
line weren’t fighting to uphold slavery but to defend their homeland against
what they considered to be tyrannical foreign invaders. I have some doubts
about their thesis--the complete disassociation with slavery in the mind of the
Confederate soldier--but let’s concede it for the moment for the sake of
argument.
Let’s also
stipulate—for the sake of argument—that the NC’s are right in their claim that
1000’s of blacks volunteered to take up arms for the South in the conflict. I
confess I haven’t done enough research to confirm or deny this assertion.
I’ve also heard it pointed out by NC’s that only a minority of white Southerners ever owned a single slave. This is absolutely true.
I’ve also heard it pointed out by NC’s that only a minority of white Southerners ever owned a single slave. This is absolutely true.
None
of this is relevant to the point at hand.
None of this is
relevant to the question of why the South seceded, whether or not secession was
right or wrong, or whether or not the main reason for secession was slavery.
What
matters in any conflict is not why
any number of soldiers are fighting on the front lines. They might really
believe in the national cause, or they might’ve been pressured (or forced) to
join, or they might be fighting in the hope of scoring some war booty, or they
might be fighting to defend their comrades in arms right next to them in the
foxholes. The common understanding of most soldiers’ motives is that they’re
fighting for their buddies next to them, not for any high-minded principle, and
I think there’s a lot of truth in that.
Why any
particular soldier, or group of soldiers, were fighting in the Civil War (on
either side) is largely irrelevant to the questions I’m trying to address here:
1) Was the Civil War over slavery or something else?
2) Was the War inevitable?
3) Did the Southern states have a right to secede?
4) Which was more pro-freedom, the North or the South?
5) What were Lincoln's views on slavery and race relations?
6) If the South didn’t have a right to secede, then were
Lincoln’s actions during the war justified?
7) Why are so many conservatives NC’s? What’s their
thought-process on this?
8) So what difference does it make? What's the big deal? Why
should we care if some conservatives are NC’s?
Those brave
soldiers might’ve been sincerely fighting for what they believed was a just
cause, but even if in their minds
their fight had absolutely nothing to
do with slavery, that has nothing to do with the questions above.
Before we
go any further, I have to confess that just about everything I’m about to argue
in the remaining posts on this topic is almost completely based on Vindicating Lincoln: Defending the Politics
of Our Greatest President by Thomas Krannawitter. I’m not going to
footnote every time I’m summarizing one of his points or arguments, since this
isn’t a school research paper. The problem is that the people I’m trying to
convince on this—NC’s and those leaning towards their viewpoint—aren’t very
likely to pick it up, so I can’t just link to it and say “Just read this.” So
I’m going to summarize some of his main arguments in this series. Once we get
back to my own thoughts (which aren’t directly based on his book), I’ll let you
know. For the time being, however, just assume that anything reasonable or
worthwhile coming off these web pages comes from him, not me.
The plan is
that I’ll address each one of the eight questions in a posting, mostly using Mr.
Krannawitter’s arguments to answer it. If you’re a Neo-Confederate or lean that
way, or if you’re like me in your concern for the NC streak in the conservative
movement, then I hope you’ll join me.
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