As I look back on my attitude growing up poor in the rural south, I realized we were continuing to prosecute the Civil War by romanticizing the gallant struggle of the outnumbered confederate army against the North. Of necessity the aura of a gallant struggle of the Confederate states against oppression, coupled with the innate fear of black slaves, were the means by which the landed southern aristocracy were able to induce poor whites into dying by the thousands for their privileged way of life. Although they were terribly misled I continue to feel that the rank and file fought for what they believed was an honorable cause.
Over the years I have come to recognize the great wealth that is most visible in the antebellum mansions that remain standing, and the large land holdings, were built on the backs of slaves and the white underclass. I have grown very resentful of this ostentatious display of wealth.
I attempt to look at these statues by standing in the shoes of a descendant of slaves and say at long last take them down. It is time to put the Civil War and its politics in the distant rear view mirror.
The majority of southern voters (the vast majority of whom did not own slaves and did not come from slave-owning families) felt that their safety (not the safety of the institution of slavery, but they
personal safety) relied on leaving the Union. So they democratically voted to leave the Union.
As for the politics of the 1860s, there are two positions.
1. Slavery is gone and good riddance to it.
The flip side of the 1860 coin, however, is that:
1. The people of the states who delegated political powers to an agency (the federal government) had a dispute with the agency itself over the extent of the delegated powers. The agency killed 260,000 people for daring to dispute the extent of the agency's powers. If you gave me a special power of attorney, would you ever argue with me over the extent of the delegated powers? If I threatened to employ violence against you in such a dispute, would you not simply fire me as your attorney? What sane person argues with their attorney of the powers delegated in a power of attorney? If there is any dispute, you fire the attorney, and draft a new agreement that clarifies the question. This is what the people of the southern states attempted to do in 1860. And the agency murdered 260,000 of them for daring to question the agency's authority.
2. The people exist to be exploited through taxes for the benefit of politically-connected elites. Lincoln made this abundantly clear that southerners escaping from northern rapacity was unacceptable. When the people ("the eel that is being flayed" in John Randolph's words) objected to this arrangement, the federal government killed 260,000 of them. That is a morally repugnant position, but a position staked out by Republicans in 1861.
3. Many people of the North treated black people badly (for example, it was illegal to
be black in Illinois in 1860), but, they said, some of you southerners treat black people
worse, so we assert the right to kill 260,000 people, the vast majority of whom did not even own slaves, to right that wrong. The lack of discrimination in applying that violence brings into question the moral superiority of the North. Do I have the right to kill people who live in a society that tolerates abortion on demand as a means of birth control? I think not, but the Republican logic of the 1860s suggests that if I hold a moral position superior to pro-abortionists, I have the right to kill people, not just pro-abortionists, but those who merely
live in proximity to those who defend abortion. I think that position is morally obtuse, but that is the very position staked out by Republicans in 1860.
I wish that the politics of the 1860s was dead and gone, but the North won the war so we are stuck with these positions from the 1860s.