April is Confederate Heritage Month, more aptly (though less commonly) known as “Treason in Defense of Slavery” heritage month. We like to nostalgize our history, and so we’ve constructed an image of the southern rebellion and reconstruction (“the lost cause”) that really gives them far too much credit. The south rebelled (committed treason against) the United States, and they did it because they wanted to preserve slavery and a system of White supremacy. Talk of the conflict being about “states rights” is inaccurate (southern politicians were quite happy to support pro-slavery national legislation–e.g., the Fugitive Slave Act) and irrelevant (at best, the states right in question here was….the right to preserve slavery). The atlantic slave trade alone ultimately resulted in a eight-figure death toll across its history. Millions more died in America. When we’re talking about the history that surrounds the Confederacy, we’re talking about one of the most inhumane crimes committed by the Western World in the past millenia.
The political problems of reconstruction effectively meant that the North sold out the newly freed Blacks, subjecting them to a vicious reign of terrorism that prevented democracy from truly establishing itself in the former confederacy for nearly a century. This is the type of oppression that, in countries not ours, we’d demand truth commissions be set up. Instead, we have Tennessee high schools named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, war criminal and founder of the Klan.
To help right the record on this historical blot, the good folks at Lawyers, Guns, and Money have been doing regular blog posts this month documenting some of the true history of the Civil War and Reconstruction era south. From the true history of an all-Black Confederate unit, to Forrest’s massacre at Fort Pillow, to the Colfax Massacre which established mob violence and terrorism as the preferred (and–after the Cruikshanks case–effectively legally sanctioned) method for restoring White supremacy, they are essential reading for gaining a true understanding of the “heritage” of the Confederacy and its movement. They also have a good round-up of material here.