Confederate History Month in Virginia

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell made some cardianl sins in the left wing world recently.

First, he stated that there at one time in history was a Confederate States of America.

Second, he implied that there may have been popular support for it.

Third, he did not preface those statements with some sort of disclaimer saying that every Confederate was the equivalent of Hitler, Genghis Khan, and Judas Iscariot rolled into one.

Fourth, he dedicated a month to the history of the Confederacy and those who fought for it.

You would have thought that Governor McDonnell had raised the Nazi flag above the Virginia statehouse.

The Confederacy was not created for the purpose of maintaining slavery. That may not be the politically correct thing to say, but it it the truth. From the time of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, southerners had expressed deep concerns about the advancing power of the federal government and the northern states. As northern populations and wealth grew, Southerners grew terrified at the prospect of a federal government in which they had little say.

What was the role of slavery? It retarded the South economically. It prevented immigration, because immigrants could not compete for unskilled labor jobs. It prevented innovation because societies with slaves are less interested in reducing costs of labor. It inspired some strange radicalism among some of the South's dominant thinkers; some arguments for slavery argue for it as a type of feudalistic communism. Slavery created conditions that led to the political fears of shrinking southern influence. But slavery was not the reason for war.

States' rights concerned the South from the 1790s until the 1860s. It came up in debates over the Sedition Act of 1798, and the Tariff of Abominations of the late 1820s and early 1830s. Southern states wanted reassurances that the federal government would not expand its power to the point that it could overwhelm the states.

The hundreds of thousands that fought for the South certainly did not fight for slavery. Few of those in uniform owned slaves and would have bristled at the notion that they fought for a wealthier man's property. They fought to defend their states. They fought out of fear that an invading army might arrive on their farm one day. Robert E. Lee himself repeatedly expressed disdain for slavery. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson faced heavy criticism, even ostracism, before the war for illegally establishling schools to teach slaves to read. They did not see themselves as fighting for slavery either.

And it is they that deserve the month. Countless thousands of Virginians fought and died for their state. Many more enlisted in Virginia state forces or the Confederate Army itself. The Confederate battle flag is the controversial symbol, but it is the one least associated with slavery historically speaking. The battle flag represents the small farmers and others who rallied to the Southern cause that never owned anyone. Perversely, by the end of the war, the letter of the Emancipation Proclamation resulted in a situation where slavery remained fully in place in several Union states, but was nearly eliminated through most of what was the Confederacy.

And racism was not exclusive to the South. New York City rioters massacred blacks in the streets in 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation killed much of the support Lincoln enjoyed in the early part of the war. Only victories in the Fall of 1864 from Grant and Sherman saved Lincoln's chances. West Virginia statemakers pondered whether or not they could legally exclude free black movement into the state.

I'm not a "South shall rise again" type of person. There are a lot of problems with choosing to secede from the Union. One should want to fight for this country the Founding Fathers established and bring it back to where it ought to be. However, I understand that they fought for political principles over and above slavery. They fought out of fear for their liberties, while slaveowners both black and white unfortunately continued to oppress the natural rights of slaves.