On The Lost Cause And Whitewashing History
Since even before the end of the American Civil War, Confederate partisans and sympathizers have endeavored to shape our collective memory of that war, its nature and principal causes. This effort continues today and is visible across the country, in the form of ~2,000 Confederate statues, monuments, and memorials (which I address more here), the incorporation of the Confederate battle flag into US state flags (kudos to Mississippi for recently changing its flag), and the pervasive display of that flag in businesses and homes, on vehicles and online. This myth of "The Lost Cause" of the South/Confederacy has assumed a firm place in the collective consciousness of Americans - growing up in New Orleans in the 70s and 80s, I was exposed to it in and outside of school: on the streets of the city, in parks, in museums, and on houses and their front lawns.
In a nutshell, the Lost Cause mythology casts the Civil War as: a war of aggression by the Northern States (as in the common term in The South, "The War of Northern Aggression"); a conflict of federal power vs "States' Rights" (as in the even more widespread term, "The War Between The States," which is what I most often heard it called growing up); and, ultimately, as a noble endeavor in which gallant figures from The South rallied together virtuously to "protect their way of life." The reality is that, while the war admittedly involved numerous ancillary issues and specific proximate causes, it almost entirely boiled down to preserving "the right" of wealthy southerners to enslave African Americans, to keep them as chattel, as property - to perpetuating the dominance of White people over Black people. The "States' Rights" so often spoken of largely involved the "rights" of states to maintain the institution of slavery (and, of course, Southern states were huge fans of federal power when it suited their interests, as with the Fugitive Slave Acts).
Among the greatest disappointments of my NOLA public school education is the extent to which I was taught much of the Lost Cause mythology. Growing up, I heard the Civil War typically called "The War Between The States," and, less often, "The War of Northern Aggression." I still remember my high school American History teacher explaining that the Civil War was mostly about the tension between state and federal authority, and knew (thanks largely to my father's passion for Civil War history) then that this was horse hockey, bull cookies, mule fritters. I was taught about how great a military commander Robert E. Lee was (when, in fact, he was a capable tactician, and a lousy strategist), and that he was a reluctant, gentle slave owner (also a subject of considerable debate). Contrary to what I was taught throughout elementary and secondary school, the evidence is overwhelming that the single most critical issue underpinning the Civil War was preservation of slavery (indeed, the Confederacy's intent was not only to preserve it in the Southern States, but to expand it across the continent). Many of the key figures in the Confederacy themselves boldly stated as much, in speeches (Alexander Stephens), in writing (Col. John S. Mosby), and in the very declarations of secession issued by Confederate states. Let us take them all at their word.
The Lost Cause myth persists and is rearing its odious head today in numerous state legislatures, including here in Louisiana, where State Rep. Ray Garofalo (R - Chalmette) declared that schools should "talk about everything with slavery, the good, bad, the ugly." Garofalo introduced a bill that would prohibit schools from teaching that either Louisiana or the United States is “systematically racist or sexist." Fortunately, after the backlash his comments incurred and a promise from Gov. John Bel Edwards to veto any such legislation, Garofalo has withdrawn the bill. Unfortunately, his is not the only such effort to legislate whitewashing history in America. Congressional and state Republican lawmakers have been whipping up a reactionary fervor against a mischaracterization of critical race theory (much more on this in a future post), and bristling at the very suggestion that systemic racism (or sexism or classism) exists in the United States, and that if ever it did, the miracle of American Exceptionalism has entirely and eternally eradicated it. The irony of the Republican effort to prohibit teaching "divisive" subjects in schools, while simultaneously and continually complaining about so-called "cancel culture," and, indeed, cancelling one of their own (the former House Republican Conference Chair, Liz Cheney) is palpable. From the very same people who rail against supposed attempts to censor them comes a broad effort to literally censor certain subjects in American schools. Let us allow our elementary and secondary school teachers to address America's shortcomings frankly and accurately, teaching children to discern truth from spin, enabling them to be critical thinkers and good citizens. Shame on Republican lawmakers and other officials for attempting to stamp out dissent, for attempting to perpetrate the very censorship and cancellation they so frequently decry.
Sources and Useful Resources:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/06/confederate-lost-cause-myth/618711/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy
https://www.splcenter.org/data-projects/whose-heritage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_Slave_Act_of_1850
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fugitive-slave-acts
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/fugitive-slave-act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Lee
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/
https://acwm.org/blog/myths-misunderstandings-what-caused-civil-war/
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/cornerstone-speech
https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/mosby-john-singleton-1833-1916/
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states