No Reason for Pride
Recently, with the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the civil war, there have been what can be best called confederate pride rallies in some southern states. Such marches disgust me.
The only thing worse would be a march of the KKK in a prominent southern city, and frankly, it wouldn’t be worse by all that much.
The argument made by descendants of confederate soldiers must be willfully wrong, unless southerners are truly as stupid as stereotypes would have one believe.
These re enactors claim that the confederacy seceded because of states rights. This is true, but over general. They seceded for one states right, the right to subjugate African American men and women into slavery. That’s it. Of course the question of whether or not blacks would continue to be property was not the only factor in the south’s ultimate decision to secede from the union. There was also the perception that the agrarian lifestyle of the south was becoming outmoded by the north’s industrialization, (which it was,) and the feeling that the north was deliberately attacking the south’s way of life as a slave holding society.
I’m primarily upset with two groups of people here, the people marching, and the news media.
There’s a reason that the grandsons of German soldiers from world War II aren’t marching in Berlin every year. The reason is that these men were Nazi’s in Hitler’s army and are partially responsible for the Holocaust, and the millions Hitler invasion of Europe ultimately killed.
It hurts being on the wrong side of history, I’m sure. I feel bad enough knowing that our country used to allow the buying and selling of men and women I’d feel worse if I knew my great grandfather took up arms to defend that abomination.
Slavery is talked about so much in school and in general conversation that I strongly believe many have forgotten how horrific it truly was. Female slaves were raped, and most were whipped and beaten for not working hard enough. Even if a slave was lucky enough not to experience any of these privations, he or she still experienced something no one living in this country today has ever had to. The feeling of being someone else’s property.
It is equal parts sickening and ironic that the people who have forgotten most completely are the fools marching in Birmingham and other state capitals because it was there ancestors more than anyone else’s who were most responsible for the slave trade.
I’d like to remind those men of a few things. Your “country” was founded almost exclusively to keep the institution of slavery alive and well. While your ancestors who served may have done so bravely, and may have done so ignorant of the larger political implications of what there service meant, the reality is that the CSA was defending its right to hold slaves against a popular trend which was increasingly coming to see slaveholding as the despicable action which it is.
My rage at you is total and complete, because rather than stand up and proclaim the reality, that your great grandfathers were soldiers who fought bravely, but for a cause which was wrong, you stand up and obfuscate the issue with empty rhetoric, when you aren’t lying to people altogether. Anyone with a high school education, (at least where the teachers weren’t spinning history,) knows that the primary cause of secession was slavery, and those who took up arms were defending slavery even if they were too removed from larger events to know it. But ignorant’s has never been a satisfactory excuse for actions which are detrimental to society.
If I thought the members of these diluted groups were a serious sociological movement I’d get on a plain, go down to one of those rallies, and I’d spit at the feet of someone marching. Luckily for my wallet, I feel no pressing need to do this.
These people marching in the south are a dying breed, thank god. They are the last gasps of a world almost two-hundred years gone bye. To be repulsed by them is natural, but to mobilize against them is mostly a waste of time. History is crushing these peoples misplaced pride into a memory more than anyone in the world could, and I must say, for myself, that the sound of them being ground down under times heel is the most pleasant sound I’ve heard in years.
A common complaint from these pro confederate people is that they’re simply proud of there haratidge. They ask why people have to attack them for that pride.
I have an answer for anyone in that camp who hasn’t stopped reading this in rage. I must call you and yours out for being idiots. Your cause was wrong, and gets increasingly wrong with the passing of time. In addition to committing treason, which was bad enough, you didn’t even commit treason for a good cause. Your great grandfathers were sort of evil guys. They weren’t consciously evil, but they were serving a country that was.
The union wasn’t all rainbows and understanding. Many people in it were racist to a degree, and many didn’t see the war as one about slavery at all. But luckily, the war became a violent referendum on that issue as it progressed and the United States found itself on the right side of history this time.
I won’t waste much space on the second reason I’m upset, as my expectations of the news media sink by the day, but why the hell hasn’t anyone taken the trouble to point out all the things I just did. People have a legal right to freedom of speech and the right to assembly, but this doesn’t mean that what they say under this protection is right. Someone should lambaste the sons of the confederacy on national television, otherwise those who hear about the rallies won’t realize how disturbing they truly are.
Pages & Rages 
A really excellent rant. I live in the south..albeit, Austin, Texas; but, it’s still the south. I love the south…love the way of life…love the people. I am also very involved in researching the family genealogy. I was very, very surprised that most every ggg-grandfather in every family line was a Civil War solider fighting for the Confederacy. Some owned slaves – many more did not. Why did they go? I do not know. I’m here to say that I admire their sacrifice and their courage – but it was a wrong cause – and a blight on our American history. Yes, it was all about “state’s rights” but I think a person is being dishonest if you say that’s all it was about. They were fighting for their “way of life” and that included slavery….and that was wrong…wrong…and more wrong. I don’t know how that was justified. Thank you for a very thought provoking post.