Can we avoid the southern "lost cause" mythology?

[Mikestone8]

There seems to be a two different conversations being had in tandem here. How to do away with the Lost Cause mode of historiography, which is being conflated with how to do away with the pernicious effects of racism in the South. You might be able to do away with the Lost Cause if you were to ruthlessly eliminate southern elites, people like Jefferson Davis or Jubal Early that left texts that became foundational to its tenets say, but you won't eliminate racism as a necessary consequence of doing so. It's a lot more likely, if not that likely, that you could eliminate this particular strain of romanticism than it is that in so doing it will completely rewire everyone's ideas about their societal and economic statuses and what those should rightly be.

Actually it's much easier to eradicate the romanticism if you don't waste effort trying to eradicate the racism - which you'd never succeed in dong anyway.

The key to avoiding the romanticism is to make the differences between ante-bellum and post-bellum as small as possible. After all, if everyone is living exactly the same life after the war as they did before it, then what is there to romanticise? But of course this is progressively harder to achieve the longer the war lasts. By 1865 the South is a heap of rubble, so that for a large section of the population it is impossible to just pick up where they left off in 1861. But had it ended in 1862 - - -

 

[EnglishCanuck]

The Confederate armies in genearel reflected the same percentage of slave owners as the general population: 1/3. I doubt they had that many generals.

And, the Army of Northern Virginia may actually have had a disproportionate numbers of slave owners serving.
They all knew that they were fighting to preserve a way of life that centered around slaves. It was more than economics, it was an integral part of their lives.

An economic system and a racial hierarchy. As has been said very often, even the poorest white is higher than the most respected slave. That was just as important as the economic factors to most, it's why you saw Kentucky turn thoroughly Democratic in the 1864 election and why it didn't ratify the 13th amendment for a good century.

 

[Johnrankins]

I think the psychological aspect is greatly underestimated. Not everything is about money, not by a long shot. Not only were they trying to preserve a racial hierarchy , it is very difficult for people to admit they are wrong not talking evil which is near impossible. The South was going to be romanticized almost no matter what because that generation did not want to admit they fought for evil. If they admitted they were wrong then there friends and family died in a cause for evil. They weren't about to admit that, particularly to themselves.

 

[Ninja Bear]

Southern nationalism was about as legitimate as any other kind, and if the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tells us anything, it's that nationalist thought can't generally be suppressed by having the police go shoot at its adherents until they go away. The Southern belief that they would be reduced to "second-class citizens in someone else's country" by the election of people like Lincoln would not be particularly alleviated by reducing them to second-class citizens in someone else's country.

The thing that fundamentally has to happen, to have the South believe that supporting the Confederacy and its institutions was not noble, is to detach Southern nationalism from the institutions of the Confederacy, in such a way that they believe that the reason they lost the war was because they were betrayed by the Confederate government rather than because "Grant the Northern butcher was willing to stoop to lows we could not bring ourselves to match." We'd essentially be looking at a Confederate Dolchstoßlegende, with people like Jefferson Davis (and quite possibly people specifically like Judah Benjamin, if we really want to extend the parallels) on the receiving end. And the best way to have this happen is based on what the Confederacy does during the war, not what the Union does after it.

Essentially, in a "no Lost Cause" world, we instead might have ex-Confederates saying things like:

"Pat Cleburne was the only one with a plan for winning the war, and his Negroes were the only reason we won at Rocky Face Ridge -- who cares if he raised them without authorization? And that bastard Davis went and hanged him, just to make sure he and his could keep ahold of all his property come hell or high water, and to hell with all the rest of us. At least the damnyankees would just shoot you in the front."

"Any Southern boy could've licked a dozen Yankees, and would've, if we didn't send half the army traipsing through every holler in Appalachia, shooting down every redneck who dared not to jump when certain people said 'jump' instead of fighting the damn Yanks! What kind of Southerner doesn't understand that some folks just got an independent streak? Well, let me tell you what kind..."

"Morgan was a damnable bandit and a thousand Negroes couldn't run that amok. I don't care about any of this 'guerilla' nonsense; only time I've ever been glad to see Yanks is when they finally pinned the bastard down and stuck his head up on a pike back in seventy-one."

 

[Arcavia]

Southern nationalism was about as legitimate as any other kind, and if the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tells us anything, it's that nationalist thought can't generally be suppressed by having the police go shoot at its adherents until they go away. The Southern belief that they would be reduced to "second-class citizens in someone else's country" by the election of people like Lincoln would not be particularly alleviated by reducing them to second-class citizens in someone else's country.

The Confederate rebellion was a rotten, last-ditch excuse to preserve among the worst institutions to ever befoul the face of the earth. Pretending it was anything other than a despicable alliance of treason and slavery is historical revisionism at the worst.

 

[SwampTiger]

The Confederate rebellion was a rotten, last-ditch excuse to preserve among the worst institutions to ever befoul the face of the earth. Pretending it was anything other than a despicable alliance of treason and slavery is historical revisionism at the worst.

Which is exactly the purpose of Lost Cause mythology-historical revisionism.

 

[Ninja Bear]

The Confederate rebellion was a rotten, last-ditch excuse to preserve among the worst institutions to ever befoul the face of the earth. Pretending it was anything other than a despicable alliance of treason and slavery is historical revisionism at the worst.

Who cares? "But those guys are, like, totally mean and I don't like them" is not and has never been a factor worthy of any sort of consideration whatsoever when determining whether a people have legitimate claim to a national identity. A culture, or a nation, exists regardless of whether it encourages ritual self-mutilation or human sacrifice or chattel slavery or cannibalism or whatever else.

The people pretending that no distinct Southern culture ever existed are no different from the people pretending that "there has never been any such thing as Ukraine, only little Russia." This "observation" is not rooted in anything like reality and is motivated by a particularly distasteful sort of ultranationalism that quite frankly is afforded too much legitimacy by discussing it at all.

 

[StephenColbert27]

Who cares? "But those guys are, like, totally mean and I don't like them" is not and has never been a factor worthy of any sort of consideration whatsoever when determining whether a people have legitimate claim to a national identity. A culture, or a nation, exists regardless of whether it encourages ritual self-mutilation or human sacrifice or chattel slavery or cannibalism or whatever else.

The people pretending that no distinct Southern culture ever existed are no different from the people pretending that "there has never been any such thing as Ukraine, only little Russia." This "observation" is not rooted in anything like reality and is motivated by a particularly distasteful sort of ultranationalism that quite frankly is afforded too much legitimacy by discussing it at all.

And what was the political, economic, and social backbone of Southern culture I wonder?
Oh, that's right, slavery, and with it white supremacy.

 

[Gaius Julius Magnus]

Maybe more Confederate leaders and military officials escape the country following the end of the war (Davis, Early) and don't return. Thus many proponents of the Lost Cause as we know it aren't around to shape it.

 

[Ninja Bear]

And what was the political, economic, and social backbone of Southern culture I wonder?
Oh, that's right, slavery, and with it white supremacy.

Sure. So what? The same is essentially true for, say, modern Mauritania, and the United Nations hasn't sent in the repo men yet to say "sorry, you don't exist, this goes back to France." Again, whether a national identity and culture exists is entirely distinct from whether you like that national identity or culture. In this case, the former is true -- the culture exists, its adherents know that it exists, and they're going to act like any other nineteenth-century nationalist movement that gets suppressed if it gets suppressed, which is the point I keep reiterating. The latter is not really a relevant inquiry.

 

[Deleted member 114175]

Who cares? "But those guys are, like, totally mean and I don't like them" is not and has never been a factor worthy of any sort of consideration whatsoever when determining whether a people have legitimate claim to a national identity. A culture, or a nation, exists regardless of whether it encourages ritual self-mutilation or human sacrifice or chattel slavery or cannibalism or whatever else.

The people pretending that no distinct Southern culture ever existed are no different from the people pretending that "there has never been any such thing as Ukraine, only little Russia." This "observation" is not rooted in anything like reality and is motivated by a particularly distasteful sort of ultranationalism that quite frankly is afforded too much legitimacy by discussing it at all.

However, the Civil War was never actually about the cultural distinction between north and south. For the actual leaders of the Confederacy it was only really about slavery.

 

[Mikestone8]

However, the Civil War was never actually about the cultural distinction between north and south. For the actual leaders of the Confederacy it was only really about slavery.

But not for the North. For most people there it was first and foremost about the Union, and (as Lincoln himself put it) whatever got done or not done about slavery would be determined by how it helped preserve the Union.

Hence Northerners never troubled much about the undoing of Radical Reconstruction, nor about the romanticisation of the Southron cause, so long as these things posed no danger to the restored Union.

 

[Mikestone8]

I think people who say things like this disregard the fact that while fighting the civil war the Confederacy was also fighting another civil war within its own borders against everyone who didn't want to be a Confederate American, to imagine that a substantial portion of its population base would simply shut up and accept things after some literal gods given victory in the civil war is a fallacy at best. No, I am not insulting your or anyone else's intelligence either.

Yet that is pretty much what did happen after the ARW.

While quite a few Loyalist left the country, many more just made the best of it and settled down quietly in the US.

 

[A Most Sovereign Lady]

Yet that is pretty much what did happen after the ARW.

While quite a few Loyalist left the country, many more just made the best of it and settled down quietly in the US.

And?

 

[Mikestone8]

And?

And so might many Southern Unionist had the CSA won.

 

[piratedude]

And so might many Southern Unionist had the CSA won.

The point of this thread is to deal with lost causism after the north wins, so what could have happened in a confederate victory is irrelevant

 

[Arcavia]

Who cares? "But those guys are, like, totally mean and I don't like them" is not and has never been a factor worthy of any sort of consideration whatsoever when determining whether a people have legitimate claim to a national identity. A culture, or a nation, exists regardless of whether it encourages ritual self-mutilation or human sacrifice or chattel slavery or cannibalism or whatever else.

The people pretending that no distinct Southern culture ever existed are no different from the people pretending that "there has never been any such thing as Ukraine, only little Russia." This "observation" is not rooted in anything like reality and is motivated by a particularly distasteful sort of ultranationalism that quite frankly is afforded too much legitimacy by discussing it at all.

However, as is shown by the fact that there are many different cultures encouraging those practices in many different ways and with many different results, they are not the foundation of those nationalisms. The Southern independence movement, however, was founded on nothing more than the wretched desire to preserve slavery.

As someone who has studied both Russian and Ukrainian, I can affirm that they are distinct languages in a way that regional American Englishes are not. In Ukraine, we see a history of mass movements in favor of Ukraine's independence both culturally and politically, most famously Euromaidan in recent years. There is a much longer history of political and cultural distinctiveness in the region dating back at least to the Zaporizhian Host, if not earlier, and with it a series of popular movements for independence from Russia and/or Poland, even if unsuccessful.

This is not true in the American South. There were no popular demonstrations for independence from the North, and no attempts at 'pan-Southernism' before the Confederacy emerged. There was and is no distinct language in the American South, unlike in most nationalisms, and what cultural differences existed were--whilst present--relatively scant, as is shown by the fact that Northerners could move South and vice versa with very little culture shock--perhaps a misunderstanding here and there, of course, but nothing more. And, furthermore, during the 1860 election, there was no real political movement campaigning for Southern independence. As the Crittenden compromise shows, the South was more than willing to remain American if it could guarantee slavery. And, during the war, there were a plethora of people and groups who took up arms against the Southern rebellion. Comparing it to the Russian situation is completely improper.

 

[fyrdhammer]

This cultural tangent is kind of silly. Southern and Northern culture do not need to reach a benchmark of objective cultural distinctiveness for the perception that a lost cause exists to persist. There are nation states that contain disparate cultures in the modern world and there are closely related cultural groups that still maintain states sovereign from one another. There's a false pretense that illogical patterns will adhere to logical rules in this line of argumentation.

That said, an american south where the economy significantly improves very quickly and transitions away from agriculture as a basis could change a lot. It's essentially what shifted the dynamic in OTL, albeit a good eighty to a hundred years later.

 

[SwampTiger]

This cultural tangent is kind of silly. Southern and Northern culture do not need to reach a benchmark of objective cultural distinctiveness for the perception that a lost cause exists to persist. There are nation states that contain disparate cultures in the modern world and there are closely related cultural groups that still maintain states sovereign from one another. There's a false pretense that illogical patterns will adhere to logical rules in this line of argumentation.

That said, an american south where the economy significantly improves very quickly and transitions away from agriculture as a basis could change a lot. It's essentially what shifted the dynamic in OTL, albeit a good eighty to a hundred years later.

I agree. Also, it does not need to move completely away from agriculture. A shareholder/cooperative farm could replace a plantation, allowing greater investment in equipment, both for tilling the land and processing the crops. Improved crops could be added. New crop packages could increase profitability. The addition of new railroads, something in which the southern states failed to invest, improved roads and waterways, new and rebuilt ports all multiply the value of property along their routes. The Reconstruction programs could have gone further to aid these developments. The anti-Reconstruction forces often stymied such progress. The Lost Cause philosophy was preached throughout the South.

This is one of the few times I believe land redistribution could have resulted in higher living standards for the population as a whole. The Federal government should have seized a large proportion of the land of major Rebels for redistribution to both black and white poor farmers. Use the mantra of "They started the war! Let them pay for it!"

Note the South has multiple sub-cultures. You may or may not find common ties between them. The major common theme is they nearly all believe in America.

 

[1Big Rich]

I've been skimming through the net, and thinking about the Civil War in the USA. I was wondering what it would take to avoid the glorification of the confederacy, with a POD AFTER Lincoln's murder. (Booth escaping, or getting taken alive, are both after, so could be part of it.)

Forgive the thread necromancy, but just perusing this one. I think Mikestone8 is onto something; my own thought was have a larger exodus of the plantation owners and southern elite. Some did leave after the defeat of the Confederacy, the most famous example being to the Confederados to Brazil, where the red, white and blue star spangled Cross of St Andrew still waves. Just make that wave bigger so fewer of those that had the most to lose are left behind. Say they emigrate to Brazil, Mexico or the Caribbean, etc.

Another ingredient might be something that brings more 'rank-and-file' southerners into contact with more 'rank-and-file' northerners outside the south and the US Army. Say a Sutter's Mill-like gold strike in Montana, Wyoming or South Dakota in the 1870s that pulls population from around the country to the area.

I would also note that when Civil War veterans got together for things like the 50th anniversary of Gettysburg, the former Johnny Rebs and Billy Yanks treated each other like comrades.

My thoughts,