We cats visited Manassas National Battlefield Park this weekend and picked up a book at the visitors' center gift shop. Published by the U.S. Department of the Interior, The Civil War Remembered is a collection of essays exploring the conflict's legacy and meaning — socially, politically, racially, militarily and culturally. We're finding it much more educational than a lot of the Civil War stuff we studied in school, back when we were kittens.
But — oh, my. We can't stop thinking about the teabaggers while we read. Because we're sure they would not like this book at all. From the introduction by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar onward, there is much in this tome that an angry, Gadsden-flag-waving right winger would brand as "P.C. moonbattery" but which is, in reality, thoughtful and reasoned sense. Here's a small sampling:
"While slavery was not the only cause for which the South fought during the Civil War, the testimony of Confederate leaders and their supporters makes it clear that slavery was central to the motivation for secession and war...African-American slavery was the only thing that stood between poor whites and the bottom of Southern society, where they would be forced to compete with and live among black people." —James Oliver Horton, professor emeritus, George Washington University
"The abolition of slavery...did not end racism, discrimination, and caste segregation of which slavery had been the most extreme manifestation...The issue of racial justice that came to the fore in the Civil War era is still with us today." —James McPherson, professor emeritus, Princeton University
"Traditionally portrayed by historians as a sordid time when vindictive Radical Republicans fastened black supremacy upon the defeated Confederacy, Reconstruction has lately been viewed more sympathetically, as a laudable experiment in interracial democracy." —Eric Foner, Columbia University
"The myth of the 'Lost Cause'...held that the South had fought for a noble cause; had a constitutional right to secede; had been led by morally superior leaders; had fallen short in its quest for independence due only to the North's superior resources; and had been motivated by the defense of the Southern homeland and states' rights, not chattel slavery. This genteel narrative...justified both massive resistance to concepts of equality and the inferior social and economic positions accorded African Americans [in the South]." —Rick Beard, American Association for State and Local History, and Richard Rabinowitz, American History Workshop
"Above all, the Lost Causers...have advocated a story about [their] nation's triumph over the racial revolution and Constitutional transformations of Reconstruction. In his 1881 memoir, former Confederate President Jefferson Davis argued that...slaves had been 'contented with their lot.' He also declared the Lost Cause not lost: '...This is the great victory of total non-interference by the Federal government in the domestic affairs of the States.' To this day, whether they realize it or not, all advocates of states' rights doctrine, and resistance to federal authority, must get right with Jefferson Davis." —David W. Blight, Yale University
Egad. We cats fully expect that the next time we drive by the battlefield, we'll see hundreds of teabaggers protesting in the visitors' center parking lot. In reply, we can only advise our right-wing friends to man up. The Civil War sesquicentennial will require us all to accept some hard truths. We cats know. Because until the Great Migration, the election of 1932, the 1964 Civil Rights Act — and of course, the Republicans' infamous "Southern Strategy" — it was the Democrats who were the racists.
(IMAGE: "The Kit Kat Klub," a set on Flickr. Check out all 14!)
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