#also the south will not rise again
I’m really glad this anti-Confederate backlash has picked up steam, because we’ve allowed Confederate apologists to completely seize control of Civil War history. The fact that we even think of it in terms of “North vs. South” or “Union vs. Confederacy” is a sign of that influence. It should be “America’s Slaveowner Revolt.” We ask questions like “what if the South won the war”, as if that was remotely possible given their numbers and logistical failures. The Confederacy was barely a government. Within a year of forming there were riots from food shortages. The whole notion that this was between two equally formidable and legitimate sides is a fallacy of the so-called Lost Cause.
This isn’t griping from a history buff by the way, the Lost Cause has been one of America’s chief guardians of white supremacy for 150 years. The Big Lie about states rights affects politics to this day, and always in the context of letting states curtail civil rights that the federal government has guaranteed. Prior to the Civil War, when Northern states tried to push back against fugitive slave laws and make themselves sanctuaries for runaway slaves, the government cracked down hard on them. There was not a peep about states rights on that. We see it happening today. The states rights scolds have not said a word about Jeff Sessions threatening to destroy cities that refuse to hunt undocumented immigrants. Yet somehow the rights of states become sacrosanct when they want to keep gay couples from adopting kids. All of this is relevant to our current situation, and hopefully taking down some statues of (frankly overrated) treasonous generals is just the beginning.
yooooo
