Slavery, “Heritage” and Southern Fried “Free Speech”
Who knew that neo-Nazi, KKK white supremacists and Trump supporters were liars, cry-babies AND hypocrites?
The ideas entertained at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were that the enslavement of the African race was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. Our new government is founded on exactly opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and moral condition. This our Government is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. It is upon this our social fabric is firmly planted, and I cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of the full recognition of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world…. This stone which was rejected by the first builders ‘is become the chief stone of the corner’ in our new edifice.
The idea that slavery wasn’t the reason for the secession was an afterthought that was solidified into unquestionable dogma a half century after the end of the Civil War. Yes, we have documents in the career of Mildred Lewis Rutherford and the successful campaign to rewrite the history of the Civil War, as taught in the South. “Reject a book that says the South fought to hold her slaves.”
This should also put to rest any notion that “defenders of Southern heritage” are champions of “free speech.” The are liars, cry-babies, hypocrites and TOTALITARIANS bent on imposing their self-serving distortions of history on everyone else.
Miss Mildred L. Rutherford |
At their 1919 reunion the United Confederate Veterans “resolved to inaugurate a movement to disseminate the truths of Confederate history.” To carry out this aim, they comissioned Miss Rutherford, Historian for the United Daughters of the Confederacy to prepare “A Measuring Rod to Test Text Books and Reference Books in Schools, Colleges and Libraries” to be used by textbook committees of boards of education, private schools and libraries to ensure “absolute fairness” “truth in history” and “full justice to the South.”
These crackers were not just whistling Dixie. If you know anything about the textbook industry, whatever Texas wants, y’all get. “The Lost Cause triumphed in the curriculum,” quipped historian James McPherson, “if not on the battlefield.” Here are some excerpts from the pamphlet’s front matter:
A MEASURING ROD FOR TEXT-BOOKS
” ‘A Measuring Rod For Text-Books,’ prepared by Miss Mildred L. Rutherford, by which every text-book on history and literature in Southern schools should be tested by those desiring the truth, was submitted to the Committee. This outline was read and carefully considered.
“The Committee charged, as it is, with the dissemination of the truths of Confederate history, earnestly and fully and officially, approve all that is herein so truthfully written as to that eventful period.
“The Committee respectfully urges all authorities charged with the selection of text-books for colleges, schools and all scholastic institutions to measure all books offered for adoption by this “Measuring Rod” and adopt none which do not accord full justice to the South. And all library authorities in the Southern States are requested to mark all books in their collections which do not come up to the same measure, on the title page thereof, “Unjust to the South.”
“This Committee further asks all scholastic and library authorities, in all parts of the country, in justice and fairness to their fellow citizens of the South, to yield to the above request.
“C. IRVINE WALKER, Chairman.”
INDEX (see also “TRUTHS OF HISTORY”)
I. The Constitution of the United States, 1787, Was a Compact between Sovereign States and Was not Perpetual nor National 6
II. Secession Was not Rebellion 7
III. The North Was Responsible for the War between the States 8
IV. The War between the States Was not Fought to Hold the Slaves 9
V. The Slaves Were Not Ill-Treated in the South and the North Was largely Responsible for their Presence in the South 10
VI. Coercion Was not Constitutional 11
VII. The Federal Government Was Responsible for the Andersonville Horrors 12
VIII. The Republican Party that Elected Abraham Lincoln Was not Friendly to the South 13
IX. The South Desired Peace and Made every Effort to Obtain it 14, 15, 16
X. The Policy of the Northern Army Was to Destroy Property—the Southern Army to Protect it 18-21
XI. The South Has never Had its Rightful Place in Literature 22-23
WARNING!
Do not reject a text-book because it does not contain all that the South claims—a text-book cannot be a complete encyclopedia.
Do not reject a text book because it omits to mention your father, your grandfather, your personal friend, socially or politically— it would take volumes to contain all of the South ‘s great men and their deeds.
Do not reject a text-book because it may disagree with your estimate of the South ‘s great men, and the leaders of the South ‘s Army and Navy—the world can never agree with any one person’s estimate in all things.
But—reject a book that speaks of the Constitution other than a Compact between Sovereign States.
Reject a text-book that does not give the principles for which the South fought in 1861, and does not clearly outline the interferences with the rights guaranteed to the South by the Constitution, and which caused secession.
Reject a book that calls the Confederate soldier a traitor or rebel, and the war a rebellion.
Reject a book that says the South fought to hold her slaves.
Reject a book that speaks of the slaveholder of the South as cruel and unjust to his slaves.
Reject a text-book that glorifies Abraham Lincoln and villifies Jefferson Davis, unless a truthful cause can be found for such glorification and villification before 1865.
Reject a text-book that omits to tell of the South ‘s heroes and their deeds when the North’s heroes and their deeds are made prominent.
Refuse to adopt any text-book, or endorse any set of books, upon the promise of changes being made to omit the objectionable features.
A list of books, condemned or commended by the Veterans, Sons of Veterans, and U. D. C, is being prepared by Miss Rutherford as a guide for Text-Book Committees and Librarians. This list of course contains only the names of those books which have been submitted for examination. Others will be added and published monthly in “The Confederate Veteran” Nashville, Tennessee.
“Who knew that neo-Nazi, KKK white supremacists and Trump supporters were liars, cry-babies AND hypocrites?” Really??? Very true Sandwichman. Thanks for the post.
Really! And here I thought he was just out to sell more of the sh**t he normally is selling….
Welcome to AB. 1st comments go to moderation.
The reason for succession were well known and published at the time, but not as you claim “the crackers” were a divided bunch. Where as South Carolina seceded because they wanted to ensure the instituition of slavery and felt the north wasn’t respecting their property rights. Tennessee, my home state only seceded after Lincoln’s call for “volunteers” from every state of the union to subjugate the south.
Historian Daniel Crofts thus reports:
Unionists of all descriptions, both those who became Confederates and those who did not, considered the proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand troops “disastrous.” Having consulted personally with Lincoln in March, Congressman Horace Maynard, the unconditional Unionist and future Republican from East Tennessee, felt assured that the administration would pursue a peaceful policy. Soon after April 15, a dismayed Maynard reported that “the President’s extraordinary proclamation” had unleashed “a tornado of excitement that seems likely to sweep us all away.” Men who had “heretofore been cool, firm and Union loving” had become “perfectly wild” and were “aroused to a frenzy of passion.” For what purpose, they asked, could such an army be wanted “but to invade, overrun and subjugate the Southern states.” The growing war spirit in the North further convinced southerners that they would have to “fight for our hearthstones and the security of home.”
Welcome to AB. 1st comments go to moderation.
The post was mainly about textbooks and how they are being skewed to meet revisionist history.
I recall a comment my mother (born in 1922) made about history books that the books she used and the books her father (born 1894)used on us history were very different. It would be an interesting study to find textbooks on US history both by age and location used to see how the Civil war was covered.
It does appear that what is taught in classes changes over time, in particular my sister recalls that our high school history (in Mi to boot) taught that the civil war was about states rights (perhaps because the textbook publisher wanted to sell books in all 50 states)
The more things change, the more…..
“Five million public school students in Texas will begin using new social studies textbooks this fall based on state academic standards that barely address racial segregation. The state’s guidelines for teaching American history also do not mention the Ku Klux Klan or Jim Crow laws.
And when it comes to the Civil War, children are supposed to learn that the conflict was caused by “sectionalism, states’ rights and slavery” — written deliberately in that order to telegraph slavery’s secondary role in driving the conflict, according to some members of the state board of education.
Slavery was a “side issue to the Civil War,” said Pat Hardy, a Republican board member, when the board adopted the standards in 2010. “There would be those who would say the reason for the Civil War was over slavery. No. It was over states’ rights.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/150-years-later-schools-are-still-a-battlefield-for-interpreting-civil-war/2015/07/05/e8fbd57e-2001-11e5-bf41-c23f5d3face1_story.html?utm_term=.60325fa7bf9f
“States rights” (in order to have a slave nation).
Clever use of language is nothing we will ever move on from as a species.
DB,
And the Birchers saw the effect of this strategy to defend the Confederacy and applied it to the Southern Strategy.
“In its simplest form, this multitiered message relied on code words. No one who used the phrase “states’ rights” in living memory of the massive resistance movement against forced desegregation could be unaware of the message of solidarity it sent to Southern whites about civil rights. (The phrase, of course, had been bound up with racism at least since John Calhoun championed it in his defense of slavery in the 1830s.) But because the term also connoted a general opposition to the growth of the federal government’s role in economic life, nonracist whites could comfort themselves that politicians like Nixon and Reagan were using it innocently—and thus shrug off any guilt they might feel for being complicit in racist campaigning. It was a dog whistle to segregationists. In the same vein, Reagan’s use of phrases linked to insidious racial stereotypes—his talk of Cadillac-driving welfare queens, or “young bucks” buying T-bone steaks with food stamps—pandered to bigots while making sure not to alienate voters whom starker language would have scared away.”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2007/11/dogwhistling_dixie.html
Only difference is the Birchers used Fox News instead of textbooks.
And thus lies the biggest problem with Reps attacking Trump’s racism. They need it to succeed. They justwant to put it back into the closet with their supply of dog whistles.
I read an interesting piece on why a lot of the statues etc were done by women’s groups at the time. The civil war veterans themselves were worried that they could loose their right to vote if the supported such changes as violating the oath they took to regain citizenship after the Civil War. So since women did not have a right to vote to loose at the time (pre 1920) they led the campaigns, as there was little the government could do to them, plus they never took the oaths at the end of the civil war, since most women did not participate directly as soldiers in the war. (taking up arms was why the ex soldiers had to re swear alligence to vote after the war.
This week’s outrage seems mostly over Trump’s initial remarks against the violence from “many sides”. This seems to me an example of reverse dog whistling heard more clearly by critics than the rest of the audience. Consider the Merck CEO for a moment. Did he resign explaining his decision as based on things Trump actually said or did? Not according to his released statement. It was his right to resign for any reason he felt like, yet he had the perfect opportunity to detail his exact reasoning and limited his explanation to non-specific discussion of extremism and intolerance. Fine, but zero explanation of why he feels that Trump is extreme or intolerant. Seems a case of Trumpian “many say that” sort of thinking.
“This seems to me an example of reverse dog whistling…”
You know Eric, there is one kind of sleazeball more cowardly than a dog-whistler and that is a gas-lighter. David Duke heard Trump’s dog whistle loud and clear and thanked him for it. Did Trump then denounce Duke and his thanks? Nope. The cumulative evidence is overwhelming. If you want to emulate Bannon’s alleged contortionist feats do it somewhere else.