As a Yankee living in Alabama, I have taken in interest in Civil War history as
you may guess. I just finished this book by Nabors which altered my
understanding of our political and social history since are founding. I will
try to make a long story short, but it will lack the nuance of an actual read
of Nabors book.
As a beginning, just reflect on what happened in Iraq after the tyrannical rule
of Saddam Huessin. The warring between religious and ethnic factions is not
dissimilar to what happened in South during reconstruction and why it was 100
years to transform our nation's civil rights. What I know about the 1619
project I instinctually reject, but then again, our history is sort of
complicated.
A good case can be made for our founding fathers, including Southerners like
Jefferson, Washington and Madison sincerely believing that slavery would just
fade away. Even the French author DeToucville said that slaves were only 30%
as productive as wage workers. However, the technology of the cotton gin
opened up a whole new capitalist opportunity that enriched the planters, slave
traders, industrialists, and financiers, North and South to create a different
outcome with new opportunities. The cotton and weaving industry created a lot
of wealth. Early on, when the colonies wanted to tax imported slaves, Queen
Anne prohibited the tax. (Remember that the War of Spanish Succession awarded
England a 30 year license to trade slaves to the Americas.) The financial
rewards of slave trading was rewarding to the British.
While in the North, the colonies naturally developed political Republicanism,
in the South an oligarchy developed. More power went to the wealthy land
owners, not just because of wealth but the slaves were counted in apportioning
political representation in the South. This left not only he slaves
unrepresented, but the yeoman farmer weakly represented. Indeed, even the
merchant could not sell much to the large estates, as they would just have
their slaves make what was needed. The free white citizen frequently would be
a renter of land, and was afraid to vote differently from his landlord.
Likewise when the succession was voted on, a disproportionate portion of the
political power was in control of the slaveowners. The locus of this sprang
from South Carolina and Georgia, but spread to the rest of the South over the
decades. In Alabama, Madison County where I live, 1/2 the young men fought for
the North and Winston County voted to secede from Alabama, the only slaveholder
being their doctor.
At the close of the Civil War, the political order in the South was completely
disrupted. Even before the war, many of the poor whites had already left for
the NW territories or the West to get out from under the oligarchy of the
South. For example, the government funded colleges for the elite, but not
public schools. The elite could hire their own tutors, and cared not to fund
education for poor whites or slaves. Now remember Bagdad after the fall of the
government.
With illiterate slaves and now poor whites now in the ascendancy everything in
the South was upside down and inside out. The poor whites started to terrorize
the blacks and to stop it Gen Forest agreed to lead the KKK. He thought that
he could stop the terrorism, but learned that the poor whites no longer
listened to or cared to be lead by the elites. At the end of reconstruction in
1870s and Rutherford Hayes the South was left alone and stumbled into Jim Crow.
It is not surprising that it took a century for the South to go through the
civil rights transformation.
In summary, our country has struggled through much to develop a society that
deserves our pride. It does not mean that we have not struggled with making
meaning of our history. Like every society we have developed our unique
tribalisms during our history, but have as well developed a unique and
welcoming society where immigrants from every land have been able to thrive,
contribute, and join our great project. It is all complicated, but not
malicious, just human. Our diversity is unique among countries and it is a
wonder, really, that we are not falling apart like Bagdad.
May we continue to grow together and stop pitting powerful vs victim. That is
not the story of our unique legacy as a nation. We are one nation under God,
where life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness endures.
PS Tomorrow our Civil War Round Table has a session on the Black soldiers who
fought for the South and their stories as related to the Civil War veteran
reunions. The South had no segregated units like the North. They fought side
by side with the whites and attended the reunions with the whites as equals
something that all true warriors understand well. Our history is full of
inspiring stories.
Doug Everett
