Neo-Confederates are groups and individuals who portray theConfederate States of America and its actions during theAmerican Civil War in a positive light. TheLeague of the South (formed in 1994), theSons of Confederate Veterans (formed 1896), and other neo-Confederate organizations continue to defend thesecession of the 11 Confederate States.
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HistorianJames M. McPherson used the term "neo-Confederate historical committees" in his description of the efforts which were undertaken from 1890 to 1930 to have history textbooks present a version of the American Civil War in which secession was not rebellion, the Confederacy did not fight forslavery, and the Confederate soldier was defeated by overwhelming numbers and resources.[1] HistorianNancy MacLean used the term "neo-Confederacy" in reference to groups, such as theMississippi State Sovereignty Commission, that formed in the 1950s to oppose theSupreme Court of the United States rulings demanding racial integration, in particularBrown v. Board of Education (1954).[2] FormerSouthern Partisan editor and co-owner Richard Quinn used the term when he referred toRichard T. Hines, formerSouthern Partisan contributor andRonald Reagan administration staffer, as being "among the first neo-Confederates to resist efforts by the infidels to take down the Confederate flag."[3]
An early use of the term came in 1954. In a book review,Leonard W. Levy (later a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1968) wrote: "Similar blindness to the moral issue of slavery, plus a resentment against the rise of the Negro and modern industrialism, resulted in the neo-Confederate interpretation ofPhillips,Ramsdell andOwsley."[4]
HistorianGary W. Gallagher stated in an interview that neo-Confederates do not want to hear him when he talks "about how important maintaining racial control,white supremacy, was to the white South."[5] He warns, however, that the term neo-Confederate can be overused, writing, "Any historian who argues that the Confederate people demonstrated robust devotion to their slave-based republic, possessed feelings of national community, and sacrificed more than any other segment of white society inUnited States history runs the risk of being labeled a neo-Confederate."[6]
The "Lost Cause" is the name which is commonly given to a movement that seeks to reconcile the existence of the traditional society of theSouthern United States with the defeat of theConfederate States of America at the end of theAmerican Civil War of 1861–1865.[7] Those who contribute to the movement tend to portray the Confederacy's cause as noble and they also tend to portray most of the Confederacy's leaders as exemplars of old-fashionedchivalry who were defeated by theUnion's armies because the Union's armies used overwhelming force rather than superior military skills. They believe that the history of the Civil War which is commonly portrayed is a "false history". They also tend to condemnReconstruction, the era when African Americans were first allowed to vote.
On its main website, theSons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) speaks of "ensuring that a true history of the 1861-1865 period is preserved", claiming that "[t]he preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South's decision to fight the Second American Revolution."[8]
James M. McPherson has written the following about the origins in 1894 of theUnited Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC): "A principal motive of the UDC's founding was to counter this 'false history' which taught Southern children 'that their fathers were not only rebels but guilty of almost every crime enumerated in theDecalogue.'"[9] Much of what the UDC called "false history" centered on the relationship between slavery and secession and the war. The chaplain of theUnited Confederate Veterans (UCV), forerunner of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, wrote in 1898 that history books as written could lead Southern children to "think that we fought for slavery" and would "fasten upon the South the stigma of slavery and that we fought for it ... The Southern soldier will go down in history dishonored".[10] Referring to a 1932 call by the Sons of Confederate Veterans to restore "the purity of our history", McPherson notes that the "quest for purity remains vital today, as any historian working in the field can testify."[11]
In the 1910s,Mildred Rutherford, the historian general of the UDC, spearheaded the attack on schoolbooks that did not present the Lost Cause version of history. Rutherford assembled a "massive collection" which included "essay contests on the glory of theKu Klux Klan and personal tributes to faithful slaves".[12] HistorianDavid Blight concluded: "All UDC members and leaders were not as virulently racist as Rutherford, but all, in the name of a reconciled nation, participated in an enterprise that deeply influenced thewhite supremacist vision of Civil war memory."[13]
In the 1930s,Seward Collins, a self-described "fascist publisher", provided an avenue for white supremacists and neo-Confederates to advance their ideology inThe American Review, a literary journal openly sympathetic toEuropean fascism.[14] The connections and overlap between white supremacist, fascist, far-right, and neo-Confederate ideologies persisted, and remain in place in the present day.[15]
HistorianAlan T. Nolan refers to the Lost Cause as "a rationalization, a cover-up". After describing the devastation that was the consequence of the war for the South, Nolan states:
Leaders of such a catastrophe must account for themselves. Justification is necessary. Those who followed their leaders into the catastrophe required similar rationalization. Clement A. Evans, a Georgia veteran who at one time commanded the United Confederate Veterans organization, said this: "If we cannot justify the South in the act of Secession, we will go down in History solely as a brave, impulsive but rash people who attempted in an illegal manner to overthrow the Union of our Country."[16]
Nolan further states his opinion of the racial basis of Lost Cause mythology:
The Lost Cause version of the war is a caricature, possible, among other reasons, because of the false treatment of slavery and the black people. This false treatment struck at the core of the truth of the war, unhinging cause and effect, depriving the United States of any high purpose, and removingAfrican Americans from their true role as the issue of the war and participants in the war, and characterizing them as historically irrelevant.[16]
In the 1930s and 1940s, supporters ofNazi Germany sought cross appeal with American neo-confederates. Despite a shared commitment to white supremacy and antipathy towards American Liberalism, the Nazis found few sympathizers amongst white southerners, even the KKK itself.[17] Starting in the 1970s, neo-confederate ideals and organizations became increasingly associated with the emergingneo-Nazi movement.[17] Critics often associate Neo-Confederates withfascism in the United States.[18][19][20]
HistorianDavid Goldfield observes:
If history has defined the South, it has also trapped white southerners into sometimes defending the indefensible, holding onto views generally discredited in the rest of the civilized world and holding on the fiercer because of that. The extreme sensitivity of some Southerners toward criticism of their past (or present) reflects not only their deep attachment to their perception of history but also to their misgivings, a feeling that maybe they've fouled up somewhere and maybe the critics have something.[21]
When asked about purported "neo-Confederate revisionism" and the people behind it,Arizona State University professor and Civil War historianBrooks D. Simpson said:
This is an active attempt to reshape historical memory, an effort by white Southerners to find historical justifications for present-day actions. The neo-Confederate movement's ideologues have grasped that if they control how people remember the past, they'll control how people approach the present and the future. Ultimately, this is a very conscious war for memory and heritage. It's a quest for legitimacy, the eternal quest for justification.[22]
Neo-Confederates often hold iconoclastic views about the American Civil War and the Confederate States of America. Neo-Confederates are openly critical of the presidency ofAbraham Lincoln to varying degrees and they are also critical of the history ofReconstruction. Various authors have written critiques of Lincoln and the Union.Major GeneralWilliam Tecumseh Sherman'sMarch to the Sea is singled out for purported atrocities like theburning of Atlanta which neo-Confederates believe were committed against Southern civilians, in contrast to the mainstream historical perspective which argues that Sherman targeted Southern infrastructure and curtailed killing rather than expand it.Slavery is rarely mentioned—when it is, it is usually not defended and is denied as a primary cause of the Confederacy's starting of the American Civil War. Critics often accuse neo-Confederates of engaging in "historical revisionism" and acting as "apologists".[23][24]
Neo-Confederates have been accused of downplaying the role of slavery in triggering the Civil War and misrepresenting African-American support for the Confederacy.[25] The bookThe Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader says that toward the end of the 20th century—in order to support the idea that the Civil War was not about slavery—neo-Confederates began to claim that "thousands of African Americans had served in the Confederate army". A neo-Confederate publication,Confederate Veteran, published by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and theMilitary Order of the Stars and Bars, said in 1992 that "the overwhelming majority of blacks during the War Between the States supported and defended, with armed resistance, the Cause of Southern Independence".[26] Historian Bruce Levine says that "their [neo-Confederates'] insistent celebration these days of 'Black Confederates' ... seeks to legitimize the claim" that the war "hadnever [italics in original] been fought on behalf of slavery; loyalty to the South, Southern self-government, Southern culture, or states' rights — rather than slavery and white supremacy — fueled the Southern war effort".[27]
The honor of the Confederacy and its veterans is another controversial feature of neo-Confederate dogma. The neo-Confederate movement is concerned about givinghonor to the Confederacy itself, to the veterans of the Confederacy and Confederate veterans' cemeteries, to the various flags of the Confederacy and Southern cultural identity.[28]
Political values held by neo-Confederates vary, but they often revolve around a belief inlimited government,states' rights, theright of states to secede, and Southern nationalism—that is, the belief that the people of theSouthern United States are part of a distinct and unique civilization.
Neo-Confederates typically support a decentralized national government and are strong advocates of states' rights.[29][30] Neo-Confederates are strongly in favor of the right ofsecession, claiming it is legal and thus openly advocate the secession of the Southern states and territories which comprised the oldConfederate States of America. TheLeague of the South, for example, promotes the "independence of the Southern people" from the "American empire".[31] Most neo-Confederate groups do not seek violent revolution, but rather an orderly separation, such as was done in thedissolution of Czechoslovakia. Many neo-Confederate groups have prepared for what they view as a possible collapse of the federal United States into its 50 separate states, similarly to thedissolution of the Soviet Union, and believe the Confederacy can be resurrected at that time.[32]
From the 1950s onward, the growth of neo-Confederate ideology was part of a larger reactionary movement againstdesegregation and thecivil rights movement.[33] HistorianNancy MacLean states that neo-Confederates used the history of the Confederacy to justify their opposition to the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s.[34] HistorianDavid Blight writes that current neo-Confederates are "driven largely by the desire of current white supremacists to re-legitimize the Confederacy, while they tacitly reject the victories of the modern civil rights movement".[35]
Neo-Confederates promote foundationalChristian culture.[clarification needed] They support public displays ofChristianity, such asTen Commandments monuments and displays of theChristian cross.[36] Some neo-Confederates view the Civil War struggles as being between Christian orthodoxy and anti-Christian forces.[37][38] Certain neo-Confederates believe in an "Anglo-Celtic" identity theory for residents of the South.[39]
Neo-Confederates usually advocate afree market economy which engages in significantly less taxation than currently found in the United States and which does not revolve aroundfiat currencies such as theUnited States dollar.[31] Some of them desire an extreme type oflaissez-faire economic system involving aminimal role for the state.[30] Other Neo-Confederates believe indistributionism as well as a display of populist tendencies[vague] since the Civil War. Figures such asAbsolom West,Leonidas L. Polk, andWilliam M. Lowe went on to join thePopulist movements of their respective times. There is a minority of neo-Confederates who believe the Confederacy to have beenSocialist citing the writings ofGeorge Fitzhugh; this was also displayed in Louise Biles Hill's book,State Socialism in the Confederate States. Many who believe this also point toAlbert Parsons as another example.
HistorianDaniel Feller asserts that libertarian authorsThomas DiLorenzo, Charles Adams andJeffrey Rogers Hummel have produced a "marriage of neo-Confederates and libertarianism". Feller writes:
What unites the two, aside from their hostility to the liberal academic establishment, is their mutual loathing of big government. Adams, DiLorenzo, and Hummel view the Civil War through the prism of market economics. In their view its main consequence, and even its purpose, was to create a leviathan state that used its powers to suppress the most basic personal freedom, the right to choose. The Civil War thus marks a historic retreat for liberty, not an advance. Adams and DiLorenzo dismiss the slavery issue as a mere pretext for aggrandizing central power. All three authors see federal tyranny as the war's greatest legacy. And they all hate Abraham Lincoln.[40]
In a review of libertarianThomas E. Woods Jr.'sThe Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, in turn Hummel refers to the works by DiLorenzo and Adams as "amateurish neo-Confederate books". Of Woods, Hummel states that the two main neo-Confederate aspects of Woods' work are his emphasis on a legal right of secession while ignoring the moral right to secession and his failure to acknowledge the importance of slavery in the Civil War. Hummel writes:
Woods writes 'that the slavery debate masked the real issue: the struggle over power and domination' (p. 48). Talk about a distinction without a difference. It is akin to stating that the demands of sugar lobbyists for protective quotas mask their real worry: political influence. Yes, slaveholders constituted a special interest that sought political power. Why? To protect slavery.[41]
Hummel also criticizes Woods' "neo-Confederate sympathies" in his chapter on Reconstruction. Most egregious was his "apologia for the Black Codes adopted by the southern states immediately after the Civil War". Part of the problem was Woods' reliance on an earlier neo-Confederate work,Robert Selph Henry's 1938 bookThe Story of Reconstruction.[41]
Historian Gerald J. Prokopowicz mentioned apprehension toward recognizing Lincoln's role in freeing slaves as well as libertarian attitudes towards the Confederacy in an interview regarding his bookDid Lincoln Own Slaves? And Other Frequently Asked Questions about Abraham Lincoln:
Some critics look at his careful and politically practical approach to ending slavery and mistake it for reluctance to help African-Americans. Others overlook slavery altogether and romanticize the Confederacy as a libertarian paradise crushed by the tyrant Lincoln.But since even Lincoln's most extreme opponents can't deny that the end of slavery was a good thing, they have to try to disassociate Lincoln from emancipation, and that leads to the absurdity of implying that Lincoln must have been a slave owner.[42]
Some intellectuals who have helped shape the modern neo-Confederate movement have been associated with libertarian organizations such as theMises Institute. These individuals often insist on the South's right to secede and typically hold views in stark contrast to mainstream academia in regards to the causes and consequences of the American Civil War.[43][30] Zack Beauchamp ofThinkProgress argues that because of its small size, the libertarian movement has become partially beholden to a neo-Confederate demographic.[44] In contemporary politics, some libertarians have tried to distance themselves from neo-Confederate ideology while also critiquing President Lincoln's wartime policies, such as the suspension ofhabeas corpus, from a libertarian perspective.[45]
HistorianNancy MacLean writes that "since the 1960s the party of Lincoln has become the haven of neo-Confederacy. Having long prided itself on saving the Union, the Republican Party has become home to those who lionize the slaveholding South and romanticize theJim Crow South". According to MacClean, this embrace of neo-Confederate views is not exclusively about race, but it is related to a pragmatic political realization that the "retrospective romanticization of the Old South" and secession presented many possible themes that could be used as conservatives attempted to reverse the national changes initiated by theNew Deal.[46]
According to MacLean, after the defeat ofBarry Goldwater in the1964 presidential election and the successes of thecivil rights movement, conservative leaders nationally distanced themselves from racial issues, but they continued to support a "color-blind" version of neo-Confederatism. She writes that "even into the twenty-first century mainstream conservative Republican politicians continued to associate themselves with issues, symbols, and organizations inspired by the neo-Confederate Right".[47]
Two prominent neo-Confederates—Walter Donald Kennedy and Al Benson—published the bookRed Republicans and Lincoln's Marxists: Marxism in the Civil War, in which they argue that Lincoln and the Republican Party were influenced byMarxism.[48]
George Ewert, director of the Museum of Mobile, wrote a review of the filmGods and Generals in which he pointed out that the film was "part of a growing movement that seeks to rewrite the history of the American South, downplaying slavery and the economic system that it sustained". His review enraged local neo-Confederate activists.[49]
Notes
Bibliography
Further reading
