Posted on 04/13/2002 10:36:17 PM PDT by JohnnyReb1983
RALEIGH, N.C. (2001-01-25) Vicky Poston is a Reb with a cause.
When Alcoa Inc. banned Confederate symbols from workers' cars at its North Carolina plant last year, Ms. Poston did something rare for a propriety-conscious Southerner: She took to the streets in protest.
As big rigs honked in support and a protester waved the battle flag from a Ford Mustang convertible, Poston and 150 activists pushed the big aluminum firm to scale back its ban on Confederate license plates, bumper stickers, and other regalia.
After years of enduring similar prohibitions on things Confederate, emboldened Southerners are increasingly donning their Dixie duds and unfurling traditional state flags in defense of embattled Southern heroes and symbols.
From the palm-fronded streets of Charleston, S.C., to the historic storefronts of Selma, Ala., the movement reflects a reawakening of traditional Southern pride and a strong sense of regionalism.
Indeed, the growing backlash against efforts to take down the flag - including the recent legislative battles in South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi - may signal a deeper shift in Southern culture. The rise of a new political class of Confederate sympathizers indicates that many are ready to reawaken Confederate ideals such as states' rights and sovereignty.
To be sure, Southern partisanship evokes images of Jim Crow and slavery to much of the country. And ominous motives may well lie behind some of the activists. Yet experts say many of those embracing the new movement are driven more by regional pride, resistance to the Federal government, and a desire to reconnect with a lost heritage. They'd like to recast the South as the last bastion of civility, independence, and constitutional ideals.
Critics, though, see darker tones in the surge in Southern pride - and a collision with the values of the New South.
"These guys are very much building the intellectual capital which they hope to make the foundation for a ... reborn Confederacy," says Mark Potok, editor of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report in Montgomery, Ala. And the size scares him. "You have 9,000 and 15,000-person membership rolls, huge groups littered with PhDs, doctors, and lawyers, which are vastly more politically dangerous than any Klan or neo-Nazi group could ever be."
Southern partisans are certainly rallying the troops:
*Last Saturday, more than 2,000 people showed up in Atlanta to celebrate the birthday of Confederate General Robert E. Lee - most years, the celebration draws about 300 people.
*Southerners are increasingly putting up new Confederate monuments along the South's tobacco roads. A statue of a controversial Civil War general went up near a black neighborhood in Selma, Ala., late last year.
*This weekend, League of the South will open its North Carolina State University chapter in Raleigh - one in a string of recent gambits to bring Southern youths back to Confederate ideals. The director says the league's South Carolina chapter saw a 300 percent increase in membership last year.
*After a five-year planning period, the Southern Party was formed last year in Asheville, N.C. It advocates regional independence and the end of the South's role as "the nation's whipping boy."
In perhaps the greatest show of Confederate unity yet, thousands of battle flags went up on memorials and front lawns across South Carolina the day they removed the flag from the statehouse last June. "It was like Christmas in Cuba," says Mike Tuggle, the leader of a Southern independence group in Charlotte, N.C.
Some say the pro-Southern activities are in part a reaction to anti-Southern efforts. "People are having to stand up for what they believe in," says Chris Sullivan, editor of the conservative Southern Partisan magazine in Columbia, S.C.
Despite an explosion in their numbers, these new Confederate sympathizers, like their forefathers, are still outnumbered.
Southern partisans are losing the big battles. A travel boycott by the 500,000-strong NAACP finally pushed the South Carolina legislature to move the Southern cross state flag from the top of the State House to a nearby soldier's memorial. On Wednesday, facing a similar boycott threat, Georgia's House of Representatives voted to redesign the state flag to minimize the Southern cross.
And in what promises to be a bellwether gauge of the feelings of the New South, Mississippi residents will go to the polls for an April referendum to decide what to do about the Confederate insignia on their state flag.
While many Southerners claim the St. Andrew's cross is a proud symbol of a heritage and principles their forefathers fought to save, others call it an "ugly memory." They recall the 1950s, when many state capitols unfurled it as a show of Southern defiance against federal desegregation measures.
And the idea that the country has decided to erase all things Southern is unfounded, says Potok. "The war occurred, and there's no point in pretending it didn't. Besides, removing all signs of the Civil War is a little akin to the Soviets airbrushing assassinated leaders out of photographs."
In the end, the reawakening of Confederate ideals is about much more than tugging on an old flag. Deeper historical, religious, and political forces are at work, says Walter Williams, chairman of the economics department at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "A lot of this might be the resurrection of some ... issues that led up to the War Between the States in 1861," he says. "Specifically, the heavyhandedness of the federal government. And that's why you're seeing a lot of renewed interest in the 10th Amendment and states' rights."
At least in the South, the old Confederate ideas have found fresh root in the red Dixie clay. "I think it comes down to the simple fact that [people] are alienated in modern life," says Mr. Tuggle. "There are a lot of changes going on.... The Confederate heritage gives you something very important to hold onto."
Secession Crisis
States' Rights "Powers Reserved To The States"
The first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, were adopted as a single unit two years after ratification of the Constitution. Dissatisfaction with guarantees of freedom listed in the Constitution led the founding fathers to enumerate personal rights as well as limitations on the federal government in these first 10 amendments. The Magna Carta, the English bill of rights, Virginia's 1776 Declaration of Rights, and the colonial struggle against tyranny provided inspiration and direction for the Bill of Rights.
The 10th Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." This amendment was the basis of the doctrine of states' rights that became the ante-bellum rallying cry of the Southern states, which sought to restrict the ever-growing powers of the federal government. The principle of states' rights and state sovereignty eventually led the Southern states to secede from the central government that they believed had failed to honor the covenant that had originally bound the states together.
The nullification crisis of the 1830s was a dispute over Northern-inspired tariffs that benefited Northern interests and were detrimental to Southern interests. The legal basis for the Southern call for nullification of the tariff laws was firmly rooted in states'-rights principles. Northern proposals to abolish or restrict slavery- an institution firmly protected by the Constitution- escalated the regional differences in the country and rallied the Southern states firmly behind the doctrine of states' rights and the sovereignty of the individual states. Southerners viewed the Constitution as a contractual agreement that was invalidated because its conditions had been breached. The Confederacy that was subsequently formed by the seceded states was patterned on the doctrine of states' rights. That doctrine, ironically, played a large role in the destruction of the country that it had caused to be created.
If you read it, you would see that while slavery was a small issue, it was the Northern federal powers that pissed off the South.
But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other -- though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution -- African slavery as it exists amongst us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew." ...Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition.
That's Alexander Stephens speaking. He was one of the leaders of secession and at the time he was confederate vice president. What did he know that you don't?
How can you tell from my posts what race I am? Or do you just label everyone who disagrees with you a 'Black Nationalist'?
Nobody is buying your washed up, murderous old ideology anymore unless you present it as something else.
I could say the same to you.
"Slavery is a form of communism, and as the-Abolitionists and Socialists have resolved to adopt a new social system, we recommend it to their consideration." -- George Fitzhugh, "Cannibals All! Or Slaves Without Masters"
"The dissociation of labor and disintegration of society, which liberty and free competition occasion, is especially injurious to the poorer class; for besides the labor necessary to support the family, the poor man is burdened with the care of finding a home, and procuring employment, and attending to all domestic wants and concerns. Slavery relieves our slaves of these cares altogether, and slavery is a form, and the very best form, of socialism." -- George Fitzhugh, "Sociology for the South; Or the Failure of Free Society."
More from this book:
"Our only quarrel with Socialism is, that it will not honestly admit that it owes its recent revival to the failure of universal liberty, and is seeking to bring about slavery again in some form. "
"We slaveholders say you must recur to domestic slavery, the oldest, the best and most common form of Socialism."
"We cannot believe that the Socialists do not see that domestic slavery is the only practicable form of socialism - they are afraid yet to pronounce the word."
Please, don't back away from your original assertions about nationalism and sectional pride being the root of trouble for society. That sounds so very natural coming from you, since that is exactly what the marxist academics have been saying for decades. You're one of them, aren't you?
Go sing a few verses of John Lennon's puky "Imagine" with your egghead pals.
Did I actually say that about you? After you called me and those who agree with me "comunists" [sic] and accused me of promoting a disguised form of communism, I showed you that at least one and possibly more of those who supported secession and the confederacy were well disposed to aspects of socialism and communism. The connection between secessionist fire-eaters and anti-capitalist, anti-democratic, anti-libertarian thought is worth persuing, and is ignored by those who like to portray Lincoln as a communist or socialist. You make no response to this. That doesn't surprise me.
I use the word "anti-democratic" advisedly. To be sure we are not a pure democracy, but a republic. If you gut all the democratic elements from our system, though, you won't have much of a republic left.
The larger point is, if you are proud of the South, if you support the "Southern cause", you ought to accept that there are some things in that legacy that you might have to reject or be ashamed of. This should temper some of the claims that you make on behalf of that legacy or cause. Apparently it does not. Certainly not in your case. You simply ignore things that run counter to your own opinions.
If you don't apply the same degree of scrutiny and skepticism to the history of the cause you support as you do to the history of those who opposed that cause, what can you possibly contribute to the conversation? If you obsess about what someone has written about Lincoln or Sherman and just ignore facts about your own "side," why would anyone bother talking to you about such things?
Please, don't back away from your original assertions about nationalism and sectional pride being the root of trouble for society.
Here is what I wrote in my first post: "Healthy pride certainly has its place, but regional, sectional, ethnic, racial, and even national pride are poor teachers of history. Once we decide to be proud of our ancestors, it's easy to forget any things they may have done that we might be ashamed of." That is something very different from what you claim I said. And I stand by it.
A healthy pride has its place. It helps nations and peoples to survive. But pride -- like guilt or shame or defensiveness -- is not a good teacher of history in the end. It distorts, conceals and denies too much.
If you want to know the facts of history you have to at least face some things that pride doesn't want to know about. Pride can take us a long way to understanding history, but if our interest is in looking behind the myths and understanding what actually happened we can't submit wholly on the demands or dictates of pride.
That sounds so very natural coming from you, since that is exactly what the marxist academics have been saying for decades. You're one of them, aren't you?
Go sing a few verses of John Lennon's puky "Imagine" with your egghead pals.
Actually no, but I do try to find out about topics before opining on them. It looks like you just want to believe what you want to believe and then fall back on abuse when people disagree with you. How is argument possible or profitable if one doesn't look at documents and evidence, but just employs ad hominem attacks at those who do?
The great advantage of our Union is that it brings people of very different views together and allows them to live together. Sealed off in small "sovereign" states or hostile federations, people would probably regard whatever was different from themselves or anyone who disagreed with them in the terms that you use to describe those you argue with. Whatever the disadvantages of the way we live now, the fact that this sort of behavior is less common has to be counted as a large plus.
I see no point in pursuing this useless conversation further. So I won't.
At least you admit that the North didn't give a crap about ending slavery. The north simply wanted to preserve easy access to southern raw materials and markets. It's not really that much different today with oil.
I admit it freely. Now, will you admit that by far the single, most important reason for the south's action was the defense of the institution of slavery?
Stop trying to transfer the guilt of the US onto the South. America is not founded on principles of humanism. It's about preserving life, liberty and property for people who fought for and earned their independence. Slaves had their liberty handed to them on a silver platter. The biggest thing wrong with the Constituition was the Fugitive slave act. It's against the bible. Escaped slaves had earned their freedom. Northerers signed up to it. Slave ships dropped anchor in Boston Harbor.
Different states seceded for different reasons.
That is hard to grasp, for a reconstructed goosestepper.
Thank goodness the Southern states ratified the 13th Amendment, and freed the slaves in the North - applied the Emancipation Proclamation legally.
This country would be nowhere without the South. I'll give the Northerners credit for knowing that much. They were afraid the CSA was going to show them up, so they had to destroy it.
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