Secession/Civil War Anniversary Celebrations Miss the Mark
By April of 1861, a total of eleven southern states had left the Union, a fact that generally is undisputed by most students of American history. Still, as we stand a century and a half removed from the politics that would pit brother against brother in mortal combat, a point of contention remains as to why the southern states chose to leave the Union in the first place.
Most of us were taught as children that the Civil War was fought because of one issue— slavery. While there are a number of sub issues emanating from this central tenet, it is generally accepted that the likelihood of secession—let alone war—would have been less pronounced had the Founding Fathers ended slavery outright during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. This, of course, was a difficult proposition at the time when considering that many of early America’s brightest leaders, including future Presidents Washington, Jefferson and Madison, were slaveholders.
With the original Constitution codifying Slavery by allowing the Census to count slaves as “three-fifths” of a person, the first seventy or so years of American political history is littered with disputes over the expansion of slavery into new states. The Missouri Compromise of 1820, forged to settle whether slavery would be extended into territories emanating from the Louisiana Purchase, ultimately allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state while Maine entered as a free state.
The Wilmot Proviso, sponsored by Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, would have prevented the extension of slavery into lands won during the war with Mexico had it passed the Senate in the 1840’s.
A few years later, the Fugitive Slave Act, one of the more bitterly debated segments of the Compromise of 1850, required law enforcement in non-slaveholding states to return escaped slaves to the South.
Reflecting on those events, I find it disingenuous when modern historians, politicians and civil war buffs attempt to portray the Civil War as being fought over something other than slavery. Whenever I hear someone exclaim that “the war was fought over states’ rights” I find myself shouting, “of course!” A state’s right to keep slaves!
Or, perhaps, the favorite of Confederate apologists, that “the war was fought to maintain our southern way of life!” Indeed, the war was fought to maintain a way of life that centered upon the “peculiar institution” of slavery.
And lest we forget those who contend that slavery would have naturally died out. The skeptic in me, the one who realizes how much industrialists and agriculturalists love cheap labor, has a difficult time concluding that free labor would have lost its natural luster.
And yet, in several southern states, commemorative galas are being planned to celebrate the end of the first Union and the dawning of the Confederacy.
The problem that I have with this is that such events do precious little to bridge the gap between the races. While we know that no one alive today has ever owned a slave or been in bondage, the stories –particularly the murders, the rapes, the beatings and the separation of families, remain a sore spot for millions of blacks who have had these stories passed down orally, or who have read the accounts from the Works Progress Administration writers’ projects of the 1930’s that chronicled this history in lurid detail from former slaves.
I do not dare suggest that the history of the secession movement does not deserve recognition. On the contrary, I believe that in schools and communities across America it is important to study this divisive period in our history to observe how America travelled a bumpy road on its way to the greatness for which it is currently recognized.
And I certainly do not begrudge those who wish to honor their Confederate military ancestors, as I am well aware that most did not own slaves. But I find it important to remember that when we consider human suffering, whether it is the Trail of Tears that killed thousands of Cherokee Indians, American Slavery or the Holocaust, these historical events should be treated with solemn respect— not bacchanalian festivities where people eat, drink and are merry.
To that end, I support the protests of NAACP chapters in South Carolina and Alabama, states in which a number of its prominent citizens have yet to realize that the war waged by the Confederate government was immoral. More importantly, it is absolutely critical that those who long for the not so bucolic days of master and slave recognize that the strength of the New South remains in its diversity in economy, its diversity in experiences, and yes, diversity in color. Dredging up the past in such a manner makes our region look backwards—literally and figuratively.
