Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) recently declared April 2010 Confederate History Month, saying it was important for 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.” When asked why his proclamation made no mention of slavery McDonnell replied he only wished to highlight things that were significant to Virginians. I guess the whole raison-d'etre was lost on the Old Dominion:
Cornerstone Speech by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens in declaring Secession:
“Our new [Confederate] government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea [assumption of equality of the races]. Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man. Slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great and moral truth.”
In an essay entitled "The Negro in the Class Struggle" socialist leader Eugene Debs reflected on his experience in Yoakum, Texas when he came upon a group of white men at a railroad station spouting racist comments about African-Americans. "Here was a savory bouquet of white superiority. One glance was sufficient to satisfy me that they represented all there is of justification of the implacable hatred of the Negro race. They were ignorant, lazy, unclean, totally devoid of ambition, themselves the foul product of the capitalist system and held in the lowest contempt by the master class, yet esteeming themselves immeasurably above the cleanest, most intelligent and self-respecting Negro, having by reflex the "nigger" hatred of their masters.."
and as the gap between America's rich and poor more and more mimic a banana republic those masters could not be happier. That's not to say they've had an easy time, to quote George Bush, "catapulting the propaganda". But as the defamation of Shirley Sherrod so clumsily exposed the diversion of class warfare by the bugaboo of race is still the favorite weapon in their arsenal.
Tri-Color Army
The great myth that most revisionists seek to perpetuate is the notion that blacks and native-born Americans were, if not wholly indifferent to, merely tangentially involved in the Civil War. A UC historian has just shot a hole in that cherished script. Even before the heralded 54th regiment celebrated in the movie "Glory" a troop of Blacks, whites and Indians had all fought together, winning the key battle of the Civil War in Indian Territory by routing a Confederate force twice their size.
As Professor Lause significantly argues in his new book, “Race & Radicalism in the Union Army”: "the very existence of such an army points to an understanding of the Civil War as a truly revolutionary period, one in which the prevailing regimes of white supremacy, colonial expansion, and class oppression came under direct challenge. It wasn't just the Confederate military claim to the region that was under threat; -[but]- the entire set of social relations involving race, property, and nationhood."
Such an alliance between white, black and red would have been a powerful check to the land grabbing robbers barons who made huge fortunes thanks to the betrayal of the freedmen and the dissolution of native treaties made possible by Lincoln's assassination.
(It is interesting to note that before his death a delegation from the Creek nation had traveled to Washington to discuss their treaties with Lincoln personally. Instead, they were met by officials from his administration who "strove heroically to keep them from meeting the president. Indeed, OIA [Office of Indian Affairs] officials cynically introduced one of their number to the Indians as 'Lincoln,' apparently leaving the president ignorant that the delegation was even in Washington).
And so the great American Dream marches on.
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