Granted, you can always some crackpots who'll claim to believe anything, up to and including that mankind is really being controlled by a race of giant space lizards, but you should be able to prevent lost cause-ism from having any noticeable impact on the cultural mainstream.
Can we avoid the southern "lost cause" mythology?
- Thread starter NHBL
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Granted, you can always some crackpots who'll claim to believe anything, up to and including that mankind is really being controlled by a race of giant space lizards, but you should be able to prevent lost cause-ism from having any noticeable impact on the cultural mainstream.
Yes, somebody posted in another thread last year the official declaration of the Confederates that stated , that they wsnt to fight for fhe preservation of the "noble institution of slavery". Thats an argument the state's right argumentation.
I mean heck, if that's all that's required to satisfy the requirements, how about we entirely deemphasize learning history over the course of a couple centuries and highly emphasize the cultural consumption of computer games and superhero movies until only fringe nerds even know what "lost cause" means.
History Learner
Banned
Putting Jeff Davis in Prison was enough to make him a martyr, and even radical Republicans were offering to give him legal assistance. Hangings create martyrs, not end causes.
I love how you're continuing to parrot the Lost Cause nonsense itself. In a society like the South, guess who wields a disproportionate amount of power to influence ideas and public discourse - the elites.
It really doesn't matter if you're dying for Germany in 1945 or Hitler in 1945. You are doing the same thing. Same with the Confederacy - though there were various places, like Western North Carolina, Northern Georgia, and Eastern Tennessee where the "Ordinary Southern Joes" fought for the Union (Winston County, Alabama, is another famous one). Why? Simple - because they (correctly) saw the Confederacy as a vehicle of the planter elites/slave-owners, and they themselves came from areas where slavery plantations were uneconomic. Those places went on to vote Republican ever after, all through the years of the Democratic Solid South.
*points to Nuremburg*
More generally, you need to make an example out of them to avoid cognitive dissonance. If they en masse get off Scot free, then people assume they did nothing wrong.
History Learner
Banned
There's some big differences between hanging Jeff Davis and hanging Goering; I can think of about six million instantly.
I can think of about 3 million reasons why Jeff Davis should have been Hung. Sure the Nazis were worse, but slavery is still slavery. Nuremburg does point out what should have been done post civil war, but none of the leaders would have gone that far. The thing I would emphisie is utterly breaking the power of the planter class, which would include ways for industry to come to the south, and land redistribution, as well as obviously protecting the rights of free men.
History Learner
Banned
It would come as a hell of a shock to everyone in the United States in 1865 that slavery only existed because of Jeff Davis. Further still because no one at that time viewed it as reason enough to hang him; you had abolitionists offering to pay his legal fees in any trial. Thaddeus Stevens offered, IIRC, to directly represent him for free even.
Marc
Donor
The hardest part, and likely the impossible one, would for white southerners to ask black southerners for forgiveness.
To fully acknowledge the sins of slavery, and the blood debt owed.
A faint possibility would be to have a new Great Revival, based around the utter equality of all people under Christ.
The final best outcome of the War:
"As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free."
To fully acknowledge the sins of slavery, and the blood debt owed.
A faint possibility would be to have a new Great Revival, based around the utter equality of all people under Christ.
The final best outcome of the War:
"As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free."
Alternatively, just don't give Blacks the vote at all. That leaves Southern Whites free to divide against each other w/o worrying about Blacks gaining any political power. So it will be harder for Southern politicians to play the race card.
Not that it really matters. The attitude which those films display long antedates them
In A Fools Errand, Albion W Tourgee grumbles that before long, if romanticisation of the Southern cause continues to grow, even Northern men will be ashamed to say they fought for he Union. He was writing in 1879.
They were only the tip of an iceberg. I recall reading, in a book about the history of Science Fiction, a mention of Edgar Rice Burroughs' hero, John Carter, being "of course" a Confederate soldier, because "in a novel of that era, no one with any class would ever have been caught fighting for the North."
It maybe doesnt matter to you looking back from today. But it mattered alot to the people fighting and dyeing than and there. But would you say that the american soldiers who fought and died recently in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan did that for Bush, Obama or Trump? I dont think so. So why are you doing this to this people? Your statement is completly disregarding this people. You say it doesnt matter why they fought. They fought on the wrong side so it doesnt matter.
And as I stated in my first post in this thread Im not american - my knowledge of the civil war and what came after is very limited. I dont say that the confederacy wasnt created because of slavery and that it wasnt the main issue for the elit of the confederacy. I dont say that the confederacy was not evil. I think it was. And the elit that created was mostly evil - but for some reason they also had the support of a lot of non slavers. What I say is that for a lot of the people and the soldiers of the confederacy it was not only about slavery and their had other reasons to support it. Because they did support it. Why would someone without slaves fight in a war if he believed it was all about slavery? They had their reasons to fight and disregarding it and saying it doesnt matter is not something I would do because it leads to the idea of collective guilt. And thats something I absolutly refuse.
And again: the non-slavers fought because the slavers forced them (or paid them) to fight. How is that not hard to understand?
But if they would have been only in for the money or have been forced than the lost cause wouldnt have had any effect on them.
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You would need something during reconstruction like land reform and economic investment amongst poor whites and freedmen, alongside more strict ordinances about who could hold office in the former secessionist states. That way you might improve the lot of the underclasses, punish the planters, and hopefully avoid the rise of the KKK's Political machine
The "Lost Cause" myth was almost inevitable. In 1865 the people in the South looked around at their ruined country, ruined society, and ruined economy and had to ask themselves 'why'? Why had they done it? They could either admit the truth, that they had done it to preserve slavery and had been a pack of damn fools. Or they could create the myth that they had done it for some 'noble cause' of States Rights. It's no surprise which road they took. And the North was so tired of the whole thing that they made no attempt to stamp it out, probably thinking: 'well, if it makes them happy enough to not make any more trouble, let them.'