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Actually, Governor, Human Bondage Is 'Significant'
Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has stirred a controversy of historic proportions with his unsettlingly unapologetic and intellectually dishonest celebration of the Confederacy.
In declaring April to be "Confederate History Month" in the Old Dominion state, McDonnell urged his fellow Virginians to "understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War, and to recognize how our history has led to our present."
But, somehow, he forgot to mention the issue that the Civil War started: The determination of those "Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens" to defend slavery -- a determination so intense that they were willing to take up arms against the elected government of the United States.
Why no mention of human bondage?
Asked about the omission, McDonnell replied that "there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia."
That's a crude calculus on the governor's part.
Surely, slavery is an aspect of "that conflict between the states" that many of the defenders of the Confederacy would prefer to forgot. They'd like to imagine that the Civil War was some sort of struggle about how to interpret the 10th amendment to the Constitution or "state's rights."
But not everyone in Virginia chooses, as McDonnell apparently does, to recall the state's dead-ender defenses of slavery and segregation as a positive thing. As the conservative Richmond Times-Dispatch, which has endorsed McDonnell's many candidacies over the years, said Wednesday with regard to the governor's proclamation: "a hole lies in the statement's heart."
"McDonnell speaks of shared history, yet does not cite slaves. Southern heritage includes not only those who supported the Confederacy but those who welcomed the Union armies as liberators," read the newspaper's editorial. "McDonnell recognizes that the past must be interpreted within the context not only of its times but of ours. The inexcusable omission reduces the slaves and their descendants to invisibility once again."
This is no small matter for a state where slavery was so widespread, and where the sons and grandsons of slaveowners maintained segregation -- with their policy of "massive resistance" to federal law -- deep into the 1960s.
One hundred and fifty years ago, on the eve of the Civil War, Virginia plantation masters and their kind owned almost half a million slaves as "human chattel." Virginia slaveholders separated families, sold off children, whipped, beat, raped and murdered their "property."
We know the details of what Virginia's Confederate soldiers fought to defend from the remarkable work of writers and journalists who, under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration, traveled the south in the 1930s to interview aging former slaves about what Virginia-born Emma Crockett referred to as the "bad times."
The story of slavery was never insignificant to those who survived what can and should be understood as a crime against humanity.
It will not soon be insignificant to the great mass of their descendents.
Nor is the memory of the struggle against slavery -- and the Confederate revolt that defended it -- insignificant to the millions of Americans who proudly trace their bloodlines to the Union soldiers who shared Abraham Lincoln's view that slavery was "a moral, social and political evil." Just this past weekend, my daughter and I were in Galena, Illinois, visiting the home of Ulysses S. Grant and recalling how he led our Wisconsin ancestors in the Grand Army of the Republic ‘s great fight to abolish what in our family is referred to as "the sin of human bondage."
It is sometimes suggested now that the Civil War was not really about slavery. That's a convenient historical construct for those who might choose to avoid the roots of the conflict. But the construct is not grounded in historical reality. Even Lincoln, who began the war arguing that his primary goal was to preserve the Union, ultimately issued an "Emancipation Proclamation" that sought both to free the slaves and to highlight the cause for which Union soldiers believed themselves to be fighting.
In his second inaugural address, Lincoln would acknowledge that: "One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. (The ownership of) these slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war."
The Civil War was about slavery.
To be sure, there were other economic, social, regional and political issues in play.
But to suggest that slavery was not a significant enough aspect of Civil War to mention in Governor McDonnell's proclamation is historical revisionism of the ugliest sort.
People For the American Way President Michael B. Keegan got it right when he said Wednesday: "Governor McDonnell's choice to celebrate Confederate History while omitting any mention of slavery is an egregious rewriting of history. Declaring that slavery wasn't ‘significant' enough to merit inclusion in his statement is an insult to the Virginians whose past was shaped by the most abhorrent policies of the Confederacy. Issuing a declaration honoring the confederacy is disturbing enough; failing to acknowledge slavery while doing it is inexcusable."
68 Comments so far
Show AllThe US Civil War was about more than just freeing the African descended slaves.
It was a demonstration that the North's coal powered industrialization could break the slave labor dependent economy of the South.
Ending slavery was the rationalization used to force modern economics on the bucolic lifestyle of the Southern States, and to reduce the powerful economic engine of cotton production to being a mere supplier for the Northern business interests.
Why do you think the image of the Northern 'Carpetbagger', a huckster out to make a fast buck, is still despised in the US South?
"Ending slavery was the rationalization used to force modern economics on the bucolic lifestyle of the Southern States, and to reduce the powerful economic engine of cotton production to being a mere supplier for the Northern business interests."
Things have sho'ly progressed since then. Now, we're all slaves.
Amen Ted but we're not the only ones! If you had been to the Far East, you would have been devastated at all the near-slave labor going on. All those jobs that were thrown overseas could be ours and for descent pay. What's more, even the locals of those nations especially in China and India are trying to set up their businesses and get local businesses starting only to have their governments raiding them while turning a blind eye on the traitorous MNCs exploiting those foreign workers of their brains and not expecting much pay. Slaves to Corporate America and the MIC here and abroad.
Are you channeling John C. Calhoun and his excuses?
"Bucolic" is not exactly the right term for a vicious system of slavery, although it's nothing new as many post-war southern writers tried to fashion the antebellum south into a innocent rustic paradise.
The slave-owning aristocracy weren't just hanging out on the verandas sipping mint juleps and listening to their happy slaves singing work songs. They were trying to expand the slave system in territory and protect it in federal laws.
This is only "OK" if slavery is OK.
Arry wrote: "The slave-owning aristocracy weren't just hanging out on the verandas sipping mint juleps and listening to their happy slaves singing work songs. They were trying to expand the slave system in territory and protect it in federal laws."
Amen, Arry. As even we amateur Civil War buffs know, THIS was the catalyst to the Civil War. If the South had not attempted to expand slavery, even old honest Abe was happy enough to let it be in Dixie.
Isn't funny how nations (the U.S. is not alone in this) only identify something as "evil" in hindsight? Lincoln was a great man but he wasn't William Lloyd Garrison - he just wasn't that worked up about the "peculiar institution".
Yes, Lincoln emerged from the Whig, Free Soil coalition which opposed any further expansion of slavery. That view was considered radical enough by the South to begin disunion on the election of Lincoln.
The contortions people like Calhoun and, later, other southern leaders went through in order to justify slavery are really incredible. The abolitionists, in their moral strength and adamant focus on the *truth* of slavery, drove apologists of slavery absolutely nuts as they were unable to be anything other than blatant and pathetic hypocrites. What is sad is that there are some good arguments for much of the states rights viewpoint, but there is no way to justify slavery. So, slavery, beyond being a crime of immense proportions, skewed what would have been a legitimate debate into a kind of diseased hysteria.
We are still paying for it and still living it.
[Minor point of frustration: In my post, there is one typo and a word that is in the wrong position in a sentence. No big deal, I say. I'll edit. Can't do it.
Sometimes the "edit" link is there for hours. Other times it's gone very quickly...or am I imagining this?]
Arry, I finally figured out that the "edit" feature is deleted once someone directly replies to a comment using the "reply" option.
If no one "replies", or if someone replies by posting a fresh comment instead of piggybacking onto the original comment by using the "reply" feature, the edit option stays there indefinitely, AFAIK.
I recently tried to edit a stupid error almost immediately, and the "edit" option was still accessible. However, the "edited" message was locked out, and I got one of those maddening cryptic messages stating that there's a "problem" with the page and to "contact the webmaster". Yeah, right! Talk about salt in the wound!
Anyway, when I returned to the threads I could see that someone had posted a reply in the short time the comment was displayed!
I don't dare begin venting on comments limitations, but I really wish there was a way for users to opt to keep the comments "door" open, instead of being subjected to the cumbersome process of continually being taken out of the comments and having to come in again!
I always wonder if this is some techie control-freak equivalent of "speed bumps" specifically intended to inhibit quick responses.
OS -- Thanks for the explanation. It does make some sense not to be able to change the original post after comments have been made. I should have thought of that.
I just don't like my sloppy posts being uneditable now and for all time! Guess I'll have to take more care with the original (but I probably won't.)
"I really wish there was a way for users to opt to keep the comments "door" open, instead of being subjected to the cumbersome process of continually being taken out of the comments and having to come in again!"
Me, too. Especially as I'm working on a dialup.
Galenwainwright said: "Why do you think the image of the Northern 'Carpetbagger', a huckster out to make a fast buck, is still despised in the US South?"
For an answer, I'd recommend a good book on Reconstruction, such as "America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War" by Eric Foner. Here are two quotes: "In the South, a politically mobilized black community joined with white allies to bring the Republican party to power, while excluding those accustomed to ruling the region."...[These white allies were the ones that were referred to as carpetbaggers.]
"The essential reason for the growing opposition to Reconstruction, however, was the fact that most Southern whites could not accept the idea of African Americans voting and holding office, or the egalitarian policies adopted by the new governments."
Hitler started WWII to get the trains to run on time and show the world some 'nicer' uniforms.
And IBM kept the machines running that scheduled the trains.
"But, somehow, he forgot to mention the issue that the Civil War started: The determination of those "Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens" to defend slavery -- a determination so intense that they were willing to take up arms against the elected government of the United States.
Why no mention of human bondage?"
Just a thought, but might it be because the South is still pissed that the North took their slaves from them?
It seems that Virginia has decided to compete with Texas in the rush to rewrite history. Or should I say, compete in the race to the bottom?
Just a reminder; some northerners held slaves going into the War of Secession, including Illinoisans.
Galena is named after a metal similar to lead which was found in far northwestern Illinois and far southwestern Wisconsin. They are proud to mention that Lincoln ate there, slept there, peed by those trees. Lincoln was also in the militia there when Little Black Sparrow Hawk and the Sauks/Foxes, women and children included, were screwed out of their land and hunted like animals through IL and WI until, near annihilation, they finally surrendered. Later, the combined tribe was shipped to Oklahoma; the Indian Territory.
The recorded history of the u.s. is full of malevolence and omission.
Virginia slaveholders separated families, sold off children, whipped, beat, raped and murdered their "property."
Mr.Nichols you forgot the worst of all, to grow,
(Pamela Bridgewater. Breeding a Nation.)
When tobacco failed in the early 1800s the cash crop in Va. and Md. was in human beings selling them down the river to the larger plantations in the deep south.
Raising people for money, indeed peculiar.
"Look away, look away, look away, Dixie land."
I believe this re-writing of history by the governor of Virginia is exactly in line with the current (and most of the past) policies which are promoted by the majority of citizens and almost the total government of the United States of Global Domination.
Most people in this nation (and perhaps the world) are so desperate for economic gain and are so terribly proud of their separate nationalistic (false) identities that they regularly ignore the hardships and even murderous actions that they cause elsewhere. The U.S. is possibly the worst "offender" because of the scale of our gross militarism.
The pride people take in their global religious, economic, and militaristic greed is the same as slaves fighting to keep themselves in bondage.
Until we see that we are all of one family, that every death by the pentagon is the death of our family member, that every death from corporate insurers greed is the death of our family member, and that every toxic dump is our front yard, we are no better than this dimwit "governor".
Oh dear. And I thought state bashing was limited to Texas and now this all of a sudden? Here we go again. So just for talking about a simply stupid remark the governor made, all this discussion. Let's be honest here. Slavery is going on today overseas and even here at home once you count in the illegal labor but that doesn't get much of a peep except for the immigrants not coming here legally but that's it. Racism exists among several races here in the US but it's even worse in other countries but nary a peep about that. Not to defend this disgraceful governor of mine but let's be honest. Slavery and racism is happening right beneath us and without realizing it, this nation accepts it as great for the economy even as the nation, or shall I say empire, crumbles before us. Maybe what the governor doesn't want to tell us is that the Civil War taught the pro-slavery gdmfers an invaluable lesson about slavery and racism. Making it subtle and/or unnoticeable is what they do to keep it sustaining. I'm a proud southerner and although my wife is an American of Northern Indian descent, she too believes that racism and slavery isn't limited to the south. If the Democrats would act and govern like progressive populists and quit doing their race vote getting just to win, we wouldn't be having disgraceful politicians like Bob Mcdonnell who won because DLC wannabe Creigh Deeds totally gagged !
Yes there is racism everywhere, North and South, but the Governors statement WAS racist, dummy.
Maxpayne didn't claim the statement was NOT racist. He just said it's a distraction and that focusing on one stupid comment in a stupid "historical" acknowledgment is not productive.
Thanks NWCrow for helping to clear the misunderstanding. The symptom, in this case what the governor said, is often easier to get outraged at more than the systematic problem itself. Most elites know that silence is the best weapon to successfully carry out bad actions.
I'm sorry this moron is your governor, dude :-)
Deeds or McDonnell, today's governor of VA would be a moron as far as I could tell. Deeds could have easily won had he not opposed health care for all Virginians, not sided with Obama on mountain top removal, not sided with the NRA, and in general not played the DLC game thinking that he would win just because it worked for Warner and Kaine in the past. Deeds turned off more voters in Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia and we punished him by not voting while more seniors and veterans were lined up at the polling booths like never before and they were very angry with Obamacare. I don't feel like laughing at the outcome because the election turned out very badly for the Democrats and with NJ and MA, this is a very bad omen for the Democratic Party this November and in 2012 the more they keep this up.
The wounds of war last and continue to torment the winners and losers.
Imagine the wounds that will last from our new Wars now.
Arguably they are going to be MUCH less than the wounds of the Civil War. These wars now effect only a small percentage of Americans directly. In the Civil War about 1.9% of the total population North and South were killed. Maybe 10% were in uniform in some way. In the current wars, even if you overestimate the number of US casualties in all wars ongoing, it represents 4/1000 of 1% of the population with maybe 1-2% in uniform.
In the Civil War, habaeus corpus was suspended, people were jailed without warrant or trial, some opposition leaders like Ohio congressman Vallandigham were even exiled from the US. All the battles were fought on US soil with an American enemy destroying American farms and cities and disrupting American business and trade.
Not to mention race relation for the next 150 years...
No doubt, the wars we are in will have effects, but frankly you overestimate them and VASTLY underestimate the Civil War's effects. As long as the wars we fight are not on US soil and effect only a volunteer army in far away lands, there is not gong to be nearly the effect on Americans as you suppose.
After the slaves were "freed" following the war, the southernslavemasters initiated a system of sharecropping coupled with Jim Crow laws that was scarcely better than slavery. The labor was extracted with little pay and the masters did not have to feed, clothe and house the workers. Sound familiar?
Clearly, the GOP remains sexist, racist, homophobic and
corporate --
Those are the tools to enslave us all --
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Have you forgotten Sarah Palin and Michelle Bauchman?
She didn't say "intelligent life"
Governor Bob McDonnell is shamelessly dusting off a a tried and true partisan tactic of the Grand Old Party. Up here in Michigan, it is known as "waving the bloody shirt." In the north, Republicans successfully attacked Democrats for three or four generations after the end of the Civil War by impugning the Dems' perfidy and attacking their patriotism as the party of the slave holder secessionists who plotted to destroy the union.
What McDonnell is doing today is nothing but Nixon's southern strategy turning full circle. In Thomas Jefferson's great misty eyed commonwealth ten years into the 21st Century, the bloody shirt is waved anew by the Repugs, apparently on an annual basis - this time to glorify the valor of the fallen gray coated troops, meanwhile spreading a Reaganesque revisionist history about how factors far more complex, nuanced, and ecumenical made up the real root causes of that most unfortunate and tragic misunderstanding known as the War Between the States.
Oh sure.
The American Civil War didn't have much to do with slavery and emancipation, just like we coulda-shoulda-woulda won in Vietnam.
Bill from Saginaw
Bill, I was reading recently that America still has racially segregated proms. This comes as a shock to me. Clearly the echos of slavery are not merely historic.
Free boat ride here, guaranteed job for life including housing, clothing and meals or run through the jungle to keep from being eaten by lions and drink water by sticking a stick in the ground compare the current Athlete today, a product of the selective breeding, to the the typical African native and tell me that the white man did a disservice to the blackman TSWRA
Yes, I'm sure they couldn't stop thinking about their good fortune while they were being shackled, branded, whipped, raped and forced to endure 16 hour days in the hot sun doing backbreaking menial labor. Then their fates improved even more by being "freed" to suffer through a century and a half of indignity, humiliation, bigotry, physical and psychological abuse, economic hardship, terrorism, and ghettoization throughout the country.
The African American community certainly owes white people thanks and gratitude for the fine "service" their ancestors received in being brought to this continent. After all, the fact that a few blacks have found success and fame in sports and entertainment proves that everything else was worth it, right?
And it's remarkably offensive comments like this that make me despair that America could ever be united again, for many right-wingers are simply horrible and vile human beings.
The civil war never ended as he keeps his distorted version of history alive. The slaves were part of that war but they have long been free. The governor wants to forget in his appeal to bigoted southerners.
Human bondage!!
Think about it.
Never forget.
More distractions, more divisions, to create ever more fog to prevent the many from understanding that they are being screwed by the few in the class war.
Agreed.
McDonnell is just taking his cue from the newly Right Wing-nut rewritten Texas K-12 US History books:
"Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate general, is to be listed as a role model for effective leadership, as is Jefferson Davis, who's central idea was to commit high treason against the United States and start a war that killed over 600,000 Americans – all in the defense of white supremacy and slavery."
Rewritten Texas-ized history books will also point out that the vast majority of slaves were very happy being owned, contrary to what those anti-Christian anti-Capitalist anti-American evil loony liberal progressive enemies of God have to say...
"Rewritten Texas-ized history books will also point out that the vast majority of slaves were very happy being owned"
At this point, rewriting the books does little to change the current situation as the corporate sellouts could easily point to near-slave labor overseas and lie "see, they're happy unlike Americans asking for more". The difference between yesterday's slaves and today's near-slaves are the former were not given anything to keep them happy while the latter are given a bone to keep their minds from going into resistance mode. But I do agree that rewriting the books to lie about slaves in the past being "happy" when the conditions against them could not possibly make them happy being owned is totally wrong as this will only compound the problem of the brainwashed masses.
Slavery was the most significant issue in the founding of the republic. Independence had been championed by Massachusetts radicals for about a hundred years, but no colony made any moves in that direction until after the Somerset decision of June 1772 that outlawed slavery in England with the determination that holding innocent individuals against their will violated English common law. Slave owners attempted to persuade Parliament to create a law mandating slavery, but without success.
Seeing the handwriting on the wall brought the slave states into the struggle for independence, after some dithering and protestations of loyalty to the king (i.e., not to Parliament). Slavery extended into the North in those days including New Jersey and New York where slaves were sold on Wall Street (which is why it is named Wall Street).
Not only that, but George III of England and his nasty parliamentarians were also insisting on the observance of certain treaties with North America's native "redskins." The silly fools were thus impeding the "progress" of westward land speculators, including George Washington who was already PO'd about not getting his much sought-after king's commission in the regular British army.
But we all know it was really about the high price of tea, not to mention being expected to pay a share of an imperial defence budget that was getting a bit steep.
You're kidding yourself if you think the british empire was concerned about the well-being of the indian nations. Just ask south americans, africans,indonesians, indians, chinese, indo-chinese, etc... about the "glories" of the british empire, french empire, dutch empire, spanish empire, portuguese empire, belgian empire, etc...plenty of blame to go around. And while you're at it, ask the algonquians what they thought of the iriquoisians,ask what the OTHER south americans thought of the aztecan/mayan/incan empires. Why could 500 conquistadores conquer the aztecs?...because they had 40'000 mad-as-hell native allies. Human sin & corruption is universal. THERE ARE NO INNOCENTS.
No. Wall Street is named Wall Street because it lies along the inner perimeter of the north wall of the original Dutch wall of the settlement built in 1640.
Sure enough... it's time to get ready for another era of slavery... those such as the Governor are getting bolder and speaking confidently in public; and soon our economic instability will make forced labor practices de rigeur.
This attitude has been constant in the actions of rulers for millenia. The only bright spot I see is that we are now more attuned to what is NOT permitted in civil rights relative to whatever decency people could expect in centuries past.
Most important: speak out for those less fortunate than yourself. If you are insulated by privilege or fortune and tempted to think of yourself as untouchable, think again: Once they clear out all that other 'inventory', they're coming for YOU next.
Wait a bit. Corporations will make slaves of you all--I'm too old. You're wage slaves now--so happy to have a job, you'll work for less and kiss the glutes of the boss just to have him keep you around.
Cheers Sr. Twaddle! Too true!
You must have been out of the modern American work force for awhile. My lip aren't puckered but ass is sure sore. That said, I can always point to the ownership of my house as...er uh maybe not.
Have you pay'd your tax? no it's not your's you just lease it. based on yearly payments. Nope Slaverys still around. Want freedom, go elsewhere. you need the mans mony to pay for a place, to pay for food. Step accross that line and your a non-entity.
Wasn't there something in there about the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons? And Buck Harkness, that half-a-man?
Huckleberry didn't get to Virginia, but Mark Twain did.