In Search Of The Lost Cause : The Southern Statues
Trump tried to make a big deal about the protest the neo Nazis and others made in Virginia , a protest against the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. Trump, probably the most ignorant of history president we have ever had, knows nothing about the meaning and purpose of these statues, so I will help him out.
Most of the memorial statues of Confederate figures that dot southern cities are part of the "Lost Cause" mythology that flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was developed to rehabilitate the self-esteem and morale of southern people after the devastation of the war and reconstruction. The statues were largely erected from 1890-1920.
Here is some info about the Lost Cause , which demonstrates just why the statues should be removed from the cities in the south . (Well, some of the reasons)
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The Lost Cause is the name commonly given to a literary and intellectual movement that sought to reconcile the traditional Southern white society to the defeat of the Confederate States of America in the Civil War. White Southerners sought consolation in attributing their loss to factors beyond their control and to betrayals of their heroes and cause. Those who contributed to the movement tended to portray the Confederacy's cause as noble and most of the Confederacy's leaders as exemplars of old-fashioned chivalry, defeated by the Union armies not through superior military skill, but by overwhelming force. They also tended to condemn Reconstruction.
The term Lost Cause first appeared in the title of an 1866 book by the historian Edward A. Pollard, The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates . However, it was the articles written for the Southern Historical Society by Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early in the 1870s that established the Lost Cause as a long-lasting literary and cultural phenomenon.
Early's original inspiration for his views may have come from General Robert E. Lee. In his farewell order to the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee spoke of the "overwhelming resources and numbers" that the Confederate army fought against.
The Lost Cause theme was taken up by memorial associations such as the United Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The Lost Cause helped Southerners to cope with the social, political, and economic changes after the Civil War especially in the oppressive Reconstruction era.
Some of the main tenets of the Lost Cause movement were that:
Confederate generals such as Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson represented the virtues of Southern nobility. This nobility was contrast most significantly in comparisons between U.S. Grant and Lee.
The Northern generals, were characterized as men with low moral standards who engaged in vicious campaigns against Southern civilians such as Sherman's March to the Sea and Philip Sheridan's burning of the Shenandoah Valley in the Valley Campaigns of 1864.
Losses on the battlefield were inevitable and were blamed on Northern superiority in resources and manpower.
Losses were also the result of betrayal and incompetence on the part of certain subordinates of General Lee, such as General James Longstreet. Longstreet was the object of blame because of his association with Grant, conversion to the Republican Party, and other actions during Reconstruction.
While states' rights was not emphasized in the declarations of secession, the Lost Cause focused on the defense of states' rights, rather than preservation of slavery as the primary cause that led eleven Southern states to secede.
Secession was seen as a justifiable constitutional response to Northern cultural and economic aggressions against the Southern way of life.
Slavery was fictionally presented as a benign institution, and the slaves were treated well and cared for and loyal and faithful to their benevolent masters.
http://civil-war-journeys.org/the_lost_cause.htm
"Known as the “Myth of the Lost Cause,” it is a collection of lies and half-truths that cloud our understanding of America History and help to perpetuate racial bigotry. Its banner is the Confederate battle flag, its heroes are southern generals, its cause is the rewriting of history for the glorification of the Confederacy, and it often comes with a large dose of religious fundamentalism and a coating of regional boosterism.
The myth was born in the ashes of the Civil War, as southerners sought to justify the horrendous loses associated with the war, while unrepentant rebels fought to reestablish white supremacy in the region. It was a time that saw the rise of terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, and the disenfranchisement of African Americans through violence and intimidation.
As time passed, the tenets of the myth were codified by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), a group that seeks to preserve “a truthful history of the War Between the States.” In 1904 the group published a catechism designed to teach southern children their version of history. It offered an image of the antebellum South as a nearly perfect world, where slaves were treated as members of the family and white men lived under a code of honor akin to medieval chivalry. It saw the leaders of southern secession not as rebels, but as patriots and denied that upholding slavery was a primary cause of the war. The UDC claimed it was simply a war in which the South defended itself against the onslaught of northern aggression. These ideas provided the dogma that shaped the beliefs by others groups in the South, including the Sons of the Confederacy.
The catechism was just the beginning. The myth began to gain greater popularity through the writings of Thomas Dixon Jr., a Baptist minister from Shelby, North Carolina, remembered for novels about Reconstruction in the South – The Leopard’s Spots and The Clansman , published in 1905 . Ironically, Shelby is the city where the Charleston shooter was captured.
Dixon’s work was used by filmmaker D.W. Griffith to create the nation’s first blockbuster motion picture, “Birth of a Nation,” a 1915 movie that glorified the Ku Klux Klan and villianized African Americans. “Birth of a Nation” was immensely popular. It was the first movie shown in the White House. Woodrow Wilson, an historian by training, said it was like seeing history written in lightening. The movie led to a revitalization of the Klan, not just as a southern terrorist group but as a national organization of native-born Americans fearful of the enormous waves of immigrants coming to the United States. This new Klan railed against blacks, Jews, Catholics and anyone else who did not fit their image of a “true American.” While the national Klan was destroyed by its own internal conflicts in the 1920’s, it continues to linger in small splinter groups throughout the South.
The myth was revitalized in the 1930’s with the publication of Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone With the Wind , a book that was later made into another blockbuster motion picture.
During the civil rights movement that emerged following World War II, the myth helped fuel the anger and violence of white southerners, particularly those at the lowest economic and educational levels. It can be found in the rhetoric of Strom Thurmond, the 1948 Dixiecrat candidate for president, as well as the later presidential campaigns of Alabama Gov. George Wallace.
Despite the distorted history, the inaccurate images and the barefaced lies, the Myth of the Lost Cause is still potent propaganda for those who refuse to accept change. It pollutes our history and our culture, it poisons the minds of our citizens, it promotes terrorist acts and it prevents us from effectively confronting racism. "
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/159810
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These statues are directly connected to the myth of the Lost Cause. In fact, the myth is why the statues exist.
Now they are coming down, and justifiably so.
The removal of the statues seems to me to beg the question: "Where will it stop?" Will the next thing be book-burnings, destruction of historic buildings, historical documents destroyed, etc. Will it go so far as the destrucition of the Buddhas of Bamiyan? Will that make people forget what actually took place?
America has been called a "Melting Pot". Is that where all this is headed - to a dystopian Orwellian/Huxley society?
Buzz , there is no comparison. These statues are not books or religious or cultural artifacts of the civil war. They were erected to supplement the pseudo historical Lost Cause myth of the Confederacy. Tearing them down won't hurt a thing.
So Buzz, when will you be showing us pictures of all the government sponsored status and memorials dedicated to the losing side of China's civil war?
Got a lot of statues of Chiang Kai-shek, or other figures, who fought against the Communist government in a lot of your local town squares there in China, do ya?
The confederates left the Union so they could maintain a slave economy. The traitors then attacked the US and the war was on. They lost. The Confederacy ceased to exist.
The markers of that time, the statues and other memorials, belong in private museums and cemeteries, not in government maintained, common spaces.
One southern boys opinion only, of course.
You are quite right, AH, that most reminders of Chiang Kai-Shek may have been obliterated by Mao ZeDong and his Red Army, but I doubt that many, if any, were even built or existed. In the Cultural Revolution the Red Army was also destructive of many historical properties. However, I really don't think it's a fair comparison - the democratic USA with Communist China. The former home and headquarters of Chiang in Chongqing was to be renovated and become a museum...
...but was demolished in 2012 (quite a long time after WW2).
What does exist is the museum dedicated to the war efforts of the USA (Flying Tigers) in China, which of course has evidence, photos and artifacts of Chiang.
I have visited that Museum, and seen items and photos there of American Generalsl Stilwell and Chennault, along with Chiang. While there I had the privilege to meet and speak with an original Chinese Flying Tiger Pilot who was one of the ones who flew the dangerous route "over the hump" to Burma (and is lucky to have survived). Here is a photo of us - behind us is a poster of him back in the war days with his family.
Cool!!! Ultra-cool!
Should Germany have kept all its statues of Hitler? Russia all its statues of Stalin?
We applauded the fall of Saddam's giant Baghdad statue...
If such "memorials" are to be kept, they must be put in context.
(I would post one of my "lynching" photos here, because there should always be a lynching photo when the Confederacy is evoked... but NT Management gets upset... Symbols honoring the people who did the lynching are OK on NT... but photos of the victims are banned. Go figure...)
Absolutely.
The Southern statutes are tributes that were erected mostly in response to the rising Civil Rights Movement and are nothing more then tributes to people who were traitors to America. They rebelled against their country in order to keep what they considered their right to own other human beings and to demand that new states entering the Union come in as pro-slavery states. There is no honor in them whatsoever.
I think most of them were erected earlier than the Civil Rights era, but you may be right about some.
Looks like we both were right.
Most Confederate monuments were built in periods of racial conflict, such as when Jim Crow laws were introduced at the start of the 20th century or during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s
One of the tv shows last night had a guest who said 80% of them were constructed from 1898 to 1920.
I saw a commentator make a good point last night.
In what other country do you see the government erect monuments to the military leaders of failed rebellions ?
A (very) long time ago, I was a guide (official!) on the Gettysburg battlefield. That is an appropriate place for monuments honoring the dead. Their causes recede into the background, leaving us to admire their courage.
But off the battlefields... we are confronted with the reasons for their dying...
That is an appropriate place for monuments honoring the dead. Their causes recede into the background, leaving us to admire their courage.
Well that is the point isn't it? The statues don't honor the dead, they honor the lost cause myth.
In what other country do you see the government erect monuments to the military leaders of failed rebellions ?
Off the top of my head, France has statues of Napolean Bonaparte.
Ireland has a statue of Sean Russell, a leader of the IRA, Wolfe Tone and countless others.
Russia, I would guess, has statues honoring Soviet leaders.
Napoleon led the French nation. No Confederate general led the United States of America.
The Irishman was fighting for freedom, the confederates were fighting to maintain slavery.
Then you've changed the debate. Plenty of countries honor failed rebels.
To my knowledge, we stand alone in erecting statues to honor a fight FOR slavery. It's despicable.
It is a national disgrace to have statutes in public places honoring a rebellion whose purpose was to preserve slavery. Many of these statues were only put up in the first place as an open insult to the civil rights movement. All of those statutes should be dragged away to museums, cemeteries or junkyards where they belong.
While States' Rights Was Not Emphasized In The Declarations Of Secession, The Lost Cause Focused On The Defense Of States' Rights, Rather Than Preservation Of Slavery As The Primary Cause That Led Eleven Southern States To Secede.
This is a key point. At the time, everyone knew the war was being fought over the disposition of slavery. The declarations of secession and the efforts of the Secession Commissioners made that perfectly clear. The "Lost Cause" myth developed the false revisionism that "states rights" caused the war. To this day this falsehood is perpetrated.
I don't think the "states rights" issue and the preservation of slavery are mutually exclusive. The "states right" issue underlying succession was the right to preserve slavery.
As long as the statues are removed by elected officials, than that's fine. They put them up, they can decide to take them down.
But mob action to destroy public property is not acceptable.
I no longer care who takes them down as long as they come down.
If we're the world's greatest lover of freedom, then our statutes should be of slaves breaking chains rather than the old bastard who fought to keep them shackled.
With all this going on about Robert E. Lee, I went back and read several articles on his beginning and his end. Interestingly, in a letter to his wife in 1856, he wrote "slavery is a moral and political evil in our Country". He, also, fought in the Mexican-American War. All slaves were freed on his father-in-law's plantation in 1862. His wife and her mother raised money for transporting their slaves somewhere else and had a school for them. He couldn't vote after the War and it wasn't until 1970 that his citizenship was restored.
When asked by the Gov of VA to lead the battle he accepted. This was his vocation. At some point, he wrote that he wished he had never entered this field.
My feet are not planted in concrete, and I can be convinced that my attitude may be wrong. Having now read this article about Robert E. Lee's feelings about Confederate statues and other Confederate symbols, such as the flag. I am now convinced that the removal of such statues from public places is right and proper.
Thanks for the link, Buzz. Very good find. About as pertinent as anything could be!
“I think it wiser moreover not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered,”
Robert E. Lee.