Hmm ... The Civil War Was Never Really About Slavery?

A very interesting piece at NYT, "Celebrating Secession Without the Slaves."



Immediately upon seeing this I figured I'd clicked over to Little Green Footballs, and what do you know?



"For Civil War 150th, Neo-Confederates Consign Slavery to the Memory Hole."



I don't really see a passage worth quoting at the Times, although one paragraph comes awfully close to merging the Sons of Confederate Veterans with the tea parties. And then of course there's the obligatory quotation from Mark Potok, who's cited as "the director of intelligence at the Southern Poverty Law Center." I used to trust the SPLC, mainly because I don't discount the lingering existence Jim Crow racism, however residual. But whatever amount of that there is in fact, it's been superceded by the more problematic race-baiting industry that's killing free speech in America. William Jacobson's written on this quite a bit recently. See, "Southern Poverty Law Center Completes Its Descent Into Madness," and "SPLC Demonizes Supporters of Traditional Marriage." Moreover, my knowledge of the South is based on textbook learning, which is fairly deep as far as 20th century civil rights goes. Less so on the Civil War however. But Robert Stacy McCain and Stogie at Saberpoint are very good friends of mine, and both had ancesters who fought for the Confedracy. You learn a lot from people with direct experience, and these interactions blow away the rank stereotypes that are used to brand and destroy people. This is Charles Johnson's stock-in-trade nowadays, and look how that's turned out.



In any case, I skimmed over Jefferson Davis' Wikipedia entry as I was looking around for a picture to go with this post. He doesn't seem that impressive of a guy, but his reputation after the war was rehabilitated, and today he represents some of the more noble sentiments of the Old South. I know lots of folks on the left will reject the possibility of anything noble about that Anti-Bellum society, but I'd suggest that people keep an open mind on these things, lest they be poisoned by the likes of SPLC and their race-baiting brethren.