The Lie that will not Die

We mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War in 246 days.

While April 12, 1861 saw the initiation of a shooting war accruing from hostility that had simmered for decades. Tension between North and South reached the boiling point almost 30 years before the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter. Andrew Jackson's smackdown of nullification and almost three decades of ensuing compromises and appeasements couldn't prevent the inevitable cataclysm for one and only one reason.

Slavery caused the war.

Governor McDonnell's proclamation of Virginia's "Confederate History Month" four months ago set off a firestorm and a well-earned Presidential rebuke. McDonnell forgot to mention why the war was fought as he eagerly pandered to the Sons of Confederate Veterans and other denialists. Realizing that Virginia's black voters outnumber her white idiots, a chastened McDonnell issued an apology. Analysis of his law school thesis reveals that McDonnell is a Christian extremist, a misogynist and likely a bigot. His apology is therefore a fraud.

Which brings up a question regarding big states of denial. Could any denialism top McDonnell's unpardonable proclamation? Only if proclaimed by the Texas State Legislature.

Texas elected officials saw fit to enshrine the lie that will not die by proclaiming "April is the month in which the Confederate States of  America began and ended a four-year struggle for states' rights, individual freedom, and local government control...".

Did they really say "individual freedom"?

Texas brushed off slavery with liberal use of legislated ignorance: "the morally abhorrent practice of slavery has in the minds of many Texans become the prime motivation of Southern soldiers, despite the fact that 98 percent of Texas Confederate soldiers never owned a slave and never fought to defend slavery; and WHEREAS, Politically correct revisionists would have Texas children believe that their Confederate ancestors fought for slavery when in fact most Texans joined the Confederate armed forces to defend their homes, their families, and their proud heritage as Texans..."

Really?

Because only 2% of fighting Texans - over 2,100 men - were slave owners, Texas can disavow slavery as the cause of the war? The founding documents of the Confederacy explicitly cite the preservation of slavery as raison d'être. Texas was an acknowledged, belligerent member of the Confederacy. Therefore, Texas has ownership of slavery as the cause of the war. Notions of "proud heritage" in context of the Civil War are simply execrable.

Andy Hall, guest blogger at theAtlantic and purveyor of the insightful Dead Confederates, provides expert analysis of a deeper lie. The two-percent figure is an exercise in profound ignorance. Andy is a Civil War scholar with a Texan's intolerance for bullshit. His guest post on theAtlantic explains why slavery is the only root-cause of 600,000 Americans killed in a titanic struggle that redefined war itself.

Hop on over, give it a read and introduce yourself. You can mention TheRaven, they know me there.

Heritage of the Old Servant

Of all the cheap labels, linguistic shortcuts and tired slogans that pervade American culture, none are more execrable than Heritage Not Hate. This three-word defense of the Confederate flag recodes a Jim Crow taunt. Southern heritage is defined first and foremost by slavery. The south went to war to defend slavery and lost. The Confederate flag is nothing more than our enduring symbol of oppression, enslavement, racism and ignorance.

And, as with so many other modern observations, it's been said before, more elequently, by those who knew best.

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Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P. H. Anderson,
Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter and was glad to find you had not forgotten Jourdan, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Col. Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville hospital, but one of the neighbors told me Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here; I get $25 a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy (the folks here call her Mrs. Anderson), and the children, Milly, Jane and Grundy, go to school and are learning well; the teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday-School, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated; sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel
hurt when they hear such remarks, but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Col. Anderson. Many darkies would have been proud, as I used to was, to call you master. Now,if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free-papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department at Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you are sincerely disposed to treat us justly and kindly and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years and Mandy twenty years. At $25 a month for me, and $2 a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. Add to this the interest for the time our wages has been kept back and deduct what you paid for our clothing and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams Express, in care of V. Winters, esq, Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in Tennessee there was never any pay day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve and die if it comes to that than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood, the great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

P.S. Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,
Jourdan Anderson

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"Letter from Jourdan Anderson to His Former Master," was originally published in The Freedmen's Book (L. Maria Child, Ticknor & Fields, 1866), which can be viewed in entirety at Google books. It was also published in Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery (Leon F. Litwack, Knopf, 1979).