Here are the things about me that appear to inspire others to label me as a neo-confederate:
- I am a southerner with ancestors who served in the Confederate military, and I am proud of and honor those ancestors for what they thought they were doing. I am not about to stand by and let anyone piss on their graves and attribute motives to them that they probably did not have. The war in which they fought was about freedom and defending their homeland, from their perspective, if family history is any guide. For some others, it was probably about slavery. The war was "about" as many things as there were people who experienced it. My ancestors had no slaves and had little love for southern elites; therefore, it is unlikely that slavery was a motivating factor for them.
- I think that symbols such as the Confederate Battle Flag mean different things to different people and that the meaning of such symbols is subject to negotiation and discussion. Don't tell me that it has a single meaning.
- I like to refer to the "Civil War" as "The War Between the States" or "The War of Northern Aggression" or "The War to Prevent Southern Independence". These terms are more descriptive, in my opinion.
- I believe that the Union's actions in the WBTS were not constitutionally permissible, that the states had (and still have) the right of secession.
- I believe that, legality aside, the WBTS was arguably immoral and unnecessary and that slavery could have been eliminated without so much bloodshed, destruction and oppression.
- I believe that these issues are legitimate and appropriate subjects of discussion and historical interpretation and not absolutely settled by some standard of official history or political correctness.
- I believe that the checks and balances in the federal system were an important safeguard of liberty and that the loss of these has increased the likelihood of tyranny. This is a cost of the WBTS that should be discussed and considered.
Yet, and here is where folks who call me a neo-confederate have me all wrong, I am anti-slavery and deplore racial discrimination. The views I have listed above say nothing about my views on race. Southern heritage and culture and history are not to be defined solely by the deplorable history of slavery and oppression of blacks. I don't seek to minimize this by any means, but I decline to condemn my ancestors for the social structure and environment in which they found themselves and over which they had little or no control. I am not proud of slavery or segregation or discrimination, and I am sorry if any of my kinsmen participated in any of it. I am proud of my family and my heritage otherwise (except for the stealing land from the Indians thing), and I will not shy away from saying so.
2 comments:
It's unfortunate that the "Civil War" and the Confederacy are so closely tied to the issue of slavery. But what is more unfortunate, in my view, is that the slavery that was practiced in the South is tied to the issue of race. It's little known that not only were there white slaves in the South, but from what I understand, the majority of slaves were white.
My parents are avid family tree buffs. They discovered a missing link in our family tree recently, and an ancestor surfaced who wrote about his kidnap from London and sale into the Colonial slave trade in the mid to late 1600's. I couldn't believe my eyes, so I did some investigation (try Googling "white slavery", for example) There are historical sources out there (or so it is claimed) that say that not only was slavery not limited to blacks, but that slavery in the Colonies was exclusively WHITE for almost 100 years. Slaves were kidnapped from the British Isles and Ireland and sold to the Colonies. Not only that, but black slaves from Africa were sold to the colonies through black slave traders. They were already slaves owned by other blacks. I don't know what percentage of this stuff is conspiracy theory junk, but I do know that I have a white ancestor who was a slave. Sure, much history developed into race issues, but like you said, we can't impute this stuff to the majority who lived back then.
My ancestor was a Swede of German descent, whose parents were servants in the court of the king of Sweden. He was studying in London when he was kidnapped and sold to a family in Virginia. He served five years, then made his way to Delaware and found Swedish settlers. He petitioned the King of Sweden for bibles and money to build churches. The church built is the longest continually operating pulpit in the States to this day, originally Swedish Lutheran.
Sorry for the additional political incorrectness attached to your blog. You're free to hate me and erase my comment, of course! - Steve
I would say that you are fully qualified to be a Neo-Confederate. You think you aren't racist since you have good middle class manners and don't wear funning clothes.
http://newtknight.blogspot.com
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