Lost in the 21st Century

The secession of South Carolina on December 20, 1860 began the path to the Civil War.  We are approaching an important anniversary here in the US and people need to be prepared to talk about it.

It seems this was covered much more in the British Press than in the American Press.  That, alone, says something.

It just blows my mind that some white people in the South still insist Slavery was not the cause of the Civil War.  Admittedly, this is a complex, layered issue which is why so many people want to avoid talking about it or thinking about it too deeply…It makes them uncomfortable.

But white people in the South need to finally, once and for all, 150 years after the start of the Civil War, accept the fact that Slavery was the primary cause of the War and not “States Rights”.

We can’t begin to have an honest dialogue about Race in the South until this fundamental fact is accepted by all people.

The first step is to stop all the “Moonlight and Magnolias” foolishness, like the Secession Ball in Charleston and the Confederate History Month glorification in Virginia.

Even Scarlett O’Hara finally put all that stuff  behind her and moved on….

It’s time we did, too.

Good points from Eric Foner in The Guardian (UK).

What does it mean to say that slavery caused secession and the war? Not that the South was evil and the North moral. In his second inaugural, Lincoln spoke of “American”, not southern, slavery – his point being the complicity of the entire nation in the sin of slavery. Few northerners demanded immediate abolition. Abolitionists were a small and beleaguered minority. Sectional differences certainly existed over economic policy, political power and other matters. But in the absence of slavery, it is inconceivable that these differences would have led to war.

Rather, it means that by 1860, two distinct societies had emerged within the United States, one resting on slave labour, the other on free. This development led inexorably to divergent conceptions of the role of slavery in the nation’s future. Northern Republicans did not call for direct action against slavery where it already existed – the constitution, in any event, made such action impossible. But Lincoln spoke of putting slavery on the road to “ultimate extinction”, and he and other Republicans saw his election and a halt to the institution’s expansion as a first step in this direction. Secessionists saw it this way as well.

A century and a half after the civil war, many white Americans, especially in the South, seem to take the idea that slavery caused the war as a personal accusation. The point, however, is not to condemn individuals or an entire region of the country, but to face candidly the central role of slavery in our national history. Only in this way can Americans arrive at a deeper, more nuanced understanding of our past.

via The American civil war still being fought | Eric Foner | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.