Revising History
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you are probably aware of the war that is currently being waged over a another war that was fought a long time ago, and the statues and monuments that glorify the losing side of that war. Although the issue has always been around, it is getting new attention after white supremacists and Nazis terrorized Charlottesville, including one such supremacist who killed Heather Heyer and injured many others when he drove into a crowd.
I won’t go into the whole event here, though. No, today I want to discuss the Civil War and those who see the Confederacy as brave veterans who fought for “state’s rights”. Because, when you get down to it, this is the mindset that fuels white supremacists and Nazis today. Especially since that “Unite the Right” rally was supposedly organized to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, a Confederate military leader who didn’t even want a statue — or any reminder of the war, in fact — in the first place.
No one alive today was around during the Civil War, so the only way to truly understand the catalyst of it is to go back and look at the actual words of those who were. One by one, I want to address a few opinions here. We can do so by looking at the Declarations of Secession from South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas.
Like our Declaration of Independence, which was drafted after we freed ourselves from the Monarchy, these Declarations of Secession were crafted in order to explain the reasons for the Southern states’ desire to be free from the Union. The recurring theme for these was the violation of the Fugitive Slave Law by the Northern states, as well as the stipulation that newly formed states would not be slave states.
The following quotes are paraphrased. You can find the Declarations in their entirety at the link above.
South Carolina:

“The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: ‘No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.’…
“In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia…
“Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection…
“This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety...”
Georgia:

“The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic…
“The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state…
“In 1820 the North demanded that the State of Missouri should not be admitted into the Union unless she first prohibited slavery within her limits by her constitution. After a bitter and protracted struggle the North was defeated in her special object, but her policy and position led to the adoption of a section in the law for the admission of Missouri, prohibiting slavery in all that portion of the territory acquired from France lying North of 36 [degrees] 30 [minutes] north latitude and outside of Missouri…
“The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other parts of the public domain then and in all future time. It was the announcement of her purpose to appropriate to herself all the public domain then owned and thereafter to be acquired by the United States. The claim itself was less arrogant and insulting than the reason with which she supported it. That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists. The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity. This particular question, in connection with a series of questions affecting the same subject, was finally disposed of by the defeat of prohibitory legislation…
“The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers...”
Mississippi:

“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization…
“It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion…
“It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.
“It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst…”
Texas:

“The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate the amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holding States in their domestic institutions — a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation…
“In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color — a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States…
“They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition.
“They have, through the mails and hired emissaries, sent seditious pamphlets and papers among us to stir up servile insurrection and bring blood and carnage to our firesides…
“We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
“That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.
There is no ambiguity here; each state plainly and astutely tells us why they decided to leave the Union; the Northern states were not only refusing to return fugitive slaves to their owners, but were also at times assisting in freeing slaves, as well as demanding that the new territories would be non-slave states. So, you could say that they left because of “State’s Rights”, but you have to also admit that the rights being “violated” were the rights to own slaves and to create new slave states. Again, no ambiguity.
Origin of Confederate Statues
The majority of these statues were not put up right after the war. Although there were a few erected, there were two spikes in the construction of these statues and monuments. The first spike was between the late 1800s when Blacks were being beaten, lynched and disenfranchised, through the 1920s, during Jim Crow laws and the resurgence of groups like the KKK.
The second spike was during the mid-1900s when the civil rights movement began and states started desegregating. They were placed strategically in an attempt to intimidate Blacks into cowering down and keeping the status quo. They were nonverbal warnings that if Blacks tried to fight for their rights they would be squashed by the government. They were nonverbal statements that America was a place for Whites, not a place for Blacks.
Some will say that these monuments and statues haven’t caused any problems for anyone before now, but that’s incorrect. People have been talking about this for decades; it’s only now that people are starting to listen. As the older generations die off and the newer ones find their voices, they are speaking. The youngest generations have grown up with minorities and people of color as their friends and they have seen that we are equal. They see the pain and suffering that people of color have undergone at the hands of Whites in America. The internet has been a wonderful invention for many people and many things, and now that we are more connected than ever, people feel more comfortable speaking out about things like this because they don’t feel like they are alone.
Others still will use that good ol’ “whataboutism” and ask, “Well, what about statues of George Washington? Are we going to get rid of statues of him next?” The answer to that is no. There is a difference between the founders of America and those who fought for the Confederacy, and there is a difference between the meaning and reasoning behind monuments and statues to Washington and monuments and statues to Lee or other Confederate leaders. George Washington helped create America, whereas Lee killed Americans to protect the institution of slavery, whether reluctantly or not. Statues and monuments to Washington were placed to celebrate his contributions to our country, whereas statues and monuments to Lee were placed to intimidate Blacks and to honor the history of fighting for slavery.
The bottom line is this: the Civil War was fought by the Confederacy because they wanted to continue using slaves, were angry that the Union wasn’t returning fugitive slaves and that the Union did not want new territories to be slave-states. We know this because those who ran the Southern states put it in writing.
Like most countries, we have a dark history and we should always remember it so that we don’t repeat it, but we can do that by telling the true story of the Civil War and admitting that we messed up and that the South was wrong.
Germany teaches their children about the Holocaust and they teach them the truth; they don’t teach them that the Nazis were just misunderstood or that they were fighting for a noble cause and they certainly don’t have statues and monuments to Hitler and other prominent Nazis. They teach their kids that the Nazis were supremacists who killed fellow citizens because they thought they were superior. We need to teach American children that the Confederates killed other Americans because they felt so strongly that they were superior to Black people, because that is the truth, written by hand by the leaders of the South before the war.
Ignorance leads to fear and fear leads to hate and hate leads to violence. There is no quick fix for this issue, but if we start now by educating our citizens and eliminating their ignorance, slowly but surely we can eliminate the fear, hate and violence that follows.

