Originally published at Reckonin.com.
Before the War for Southern Independence the main theme of American government was republican virtue and honour. The defeat of the Confederacy established a new main theme – making money. That was the most important result of the War. Compare Lee and Grant. Or the real characters of Jeff Davis and the corporate lawyer and tricky politician Lincoln.
That is why Richard Weaver called the South “the last nonmaterialist society.” Lee refused lucrative gifts to be head of a small college to help his people. Grant enjoyed four homes, socializing with the wealthy, and ignored the corruption of his friends and relatives.
Many Southerners accepted their defeat as a working of God’s will in history. That did not mean that they apologized for their heroic efforts for independence but that they believed in a universe where human desires were not the final authority.
The Agrarians of I’ll Take My Stand said that what they called the industrial regime was destroying humane society and living. Almost a century later, how can anyone doubt that they were correct? American culture, both folk and high, barely exists and only in fragments. Americans by and large have lost all sense of Place and history and have no roots, are cultureless beings. Real Christian faith barely survives. An adult American from the 1950s would not even recognize his country today, and would not like what he saw.
The South, changed and atrophied as it is, is the last bastion of the Western soul in a totally materialist society ruled from the top by corrupt elites – the reign of money.
The areas of the North and West that are today the most conservative received large settlements of Southerners. The formerly soulless highly Republican areas are now far left. They are still robbing the people but now the call it globalisation rather than tariffs and banking.
Tearing down our statues and memorials is not the result of an interpretation of history. Even if the South-haters were right about history – and they are not – it would make no difference. They act because they want to erase all real history and because they hate us. Their massive vanity seeks to eliminate us from a country they think is theirs and they bask in their power over us. Although their country is only some future thing that exists only in their imagination. Defending the South and its monuments defends the remnants of Western civilization in North America.
Historians and politicians continue to repeat the lie that the Founding Fathers nobly wanted to end slavery but did not because fear of losing the Southern States. This is ignorant, childish, and superficial almost beyond belief. The Founding Fathers, including the Southern ones, knew slavery was a problem but also knew that had absolutely no power to act on it and no idea of how to end it. Many Northern Founders held slaves and others were engaged profitably in the African slave trade. To say that the Founders agreed not to end slavery only to please the Southern States is to make the stupid assumption that the Union was founded by Northerners and Southerners were only a redheaded stepchild in the process of creating the United State, merely allowed along by the real Northern Founders.
The views expressed at AbbevilleInstitute.org are not necessarily those of the Abbeville Institute.
BT Washington proclaimed the most fortunate group of blacks on the planet were those who went through the US slave system. There is no need to apologize for slavery. The Slave Narratives tell a different story. Thousands of first-hand accounts of the blessings of slavery upon a people who had not one chance of transportation to the New World do not fit the “narrative”, which is why most of the unwashed masses don’t even know the Narratives exist.
Fred Douglass made his living proclaiming the horrors of slavery…but if you ever read his autobiography, you would discover a different world than the one that paid his bills. Douglass famously whipped his master in a fistfight…probably not so “famously”…for if every disenchanted black read of this account, even those most fanatic about the mistreatment of their ancestors (those whose ancestors were not owners of other blacks) would start to wonder how Douglass could have survived “giving ole Massa a thrashing” without incurring a gruesome death penalty only found in some deranged abolitionist’s imagination.
Thank you for your efforts to promote truth.
Dr. Wilson, someone commenting on a previous post that your saying that history is not a mathmatical calculation or a science experiment is vague. Care to respond?
The money quote is:
“To say the Founders agreed not to end slavery to please the Southern states is to make the stupid assumption that the Union was founded by Northerners and Southerners were only a redheaded stepchild in the process of creating the United States, merely allowed along by the Northern Founders.”
One sentence, five clauses, explains animosities from 1787 to 1861 – and, obviously, here and now, is the framework of the State for laying the burden of proof on Southerners. I have learned, already, to use it against the insinuation.
Southerners defeated King George…at Kings Mountain, Cowpens and Yorktown. The last two years of the war were what broke the King’s resolve…and it was broken in the South. The north wasn’t even in the war at the end.
Yes. Like I say, Patriots and Tories enjoyed a comfortable stalemate in the North while Patriots of the South were winning independence.
Gordon & Wm., adding to your points, Southerners like Francis Marion, Wm. R. Davie, the Over-the-Mtn. Boys, & Daniel Morgan came forth heroically when the chips were down…the British having conquered Charleston (surrendering a substantial Continental army), Cornwallis fielding a well-funded army throughout SC (rallying many Tories), and the terrible disaster at Camden. Before King’s Mountain and Cowpens, it looked pretty bleak. Southerners can be proud of what they did.
“Historians and politicians continue to repeat the lie that the Founding Fathers nobly wanted to end slavery but did not because fear of losing the Southern States. ”
The evil bargain that was made at the Constitutional Convention (truly a conspiracy behind locked doors and windows) was that SC and GA would vote against George Mason’s 2/3 majority needed to regulate commerce in exchange for the Northern states voting for 20 more years of slave importation. (All the other states, including NC, had already effectively outlawed importation.)
A 2/3 majority vote requirement for Congress to regulate commerce would have prevented the Tariff of Abominations, etc. and therefore prevented Lincoln’s War. It would have prevented Obamacare. This evil bargain weakened the Constitution more than any other one thing, though Supreme Ct judges APPOINTED for LIFE is a close second.
The northern States needed no enticement to vote for 20 more years of slave importation. All of the slave ship fleets were built in New England.