tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/confederacy-15774/articlesConfederacy – The Conversation2024-02-01T13:31:37Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2214602024-02-01T13:31:37Z2024-02-01T13:31:37ZWhy treason is a key topic in Trump’s 14th Amendment appeal to the Supreme Court<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572501/original/file-20240131-21-j0wp43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C14%2C3164%2C2107&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump's actions on Jan. 6, 2021, are key to questions about his eligibility to hold office.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SocialMediaConservativeVoices/33b4d0015eee462d9656a3c4146731d5/photo">AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As oral arguments approach in former President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court appeal of a Colorado Supreme Court decision, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/23-719.html">many friend-of-the-court briefs</a> <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-719/297012/20240118111500480_23-719%20-%20Amicus%20Curiae%20Brief.pdf">in the case</a> bring up a subject not much found in public discussion of the case: <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-719/298014/20240118120731316_23-719%20Amicus%20Brief%20of%20U.S.%20Senator%20Ted%20Cruz.pdf">treason</a>.</p>
<p>Trump is appealing a Colorado ruling that the 14th Amendment bars him from holding office because he engaged in insurrection before, during and after Jan. 6, 2021. That decision – and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/20/politics/donald-trump-ballot-removal-efforts-dg/index.html">several others in states around the nation</a>, some agreeing and some disagreeing with Colorado’s conclusion – have roots in the Constitution’s definition of treason, and Congress’ intent to block traitors from serving in the government. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.law.umaryland.edu/faculty--research/directory/profile/index.php?id=055">scholar of constitutional law</a>, I have submitted legal briefs in several of those cases, explaining the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-14th-amendment-bars-trump-from-office-a-constitutional-law-scholar-explains-principle-behind-colorado-supreme-court-ruling-219763">history of the 14th Amendment’s drafting and passage</a>, and <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-719/299332/20240131112542122_GRABER%20Amicus%20BRIEF%20filed.pdf">discussing what Republicans immediately after the Civil War hoped to attain from constitutional reform</a>.</p>
<h2>What did Congress intend?</h2>
<p><a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14/#amendment-14-section-3">Section 3 of the 14th Amendment</a> reads:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When Congress was drafting Section 3 of the 14th Amendment the year after the Civil War ended, the purpose of that provision was clear: to prevent people <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-14th-amendment-bars-trump-from-office-a-constitutional-law-scholar-explains-principle-behind-colorado-supreme-court-ruling-219763">from serving in the government</a> if they had used force to resist or overthrow the United States. To Congress, those actions constituted treason.</p>
<p>In drafting the language, Congress drew inspiration from the framers of the Constitution that was ratified from 1787 to 1789. Article III of the Constitution declares that there are two ways to commit treason against the United States: “<a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-3/#article-3-section-3-clause-1">levying War against</a> (the U.S.), or in adhering to (its) Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”</p>
<p>Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/senate-and-constitution/14th-amendment.htm">passed by Congress and ratified by the states in the late 1860s</a>, makes the same division when describing the actions of people who should be barred from public office. There is one change: Republicans in Congress substituted the phrase “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” for “levying war.” </p>
<h2>A significant offense</h2>
<p>Treason has long been a serious crime, different from other crimes because the target was the government. </p>
<p>Since at least the 1760s, and almost certainly for centuries before that, English common law made clear that treason was not a regular crime like, say, murder: Someone who gave a weapon to a person knowing they intended to kill another person is an accessory to murder. But someone who gave a weapon to a person knowing they intended to commit treason is <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk4ch3.asp">a traitor, not an accessory to treason</a>.</p>
<p>In short, treason is treason, and a person either engages in treason or does not. There are no degrees of treason.</p>
<p>This rule applied in the U.S. too: <a href="https://www.oyez.org/justices/samuel_chase">Samuel Chase</a>, who signed the Declaration of Independence and was appointed to the Supreme Court by George Washington, said so <a href="https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F.Cas/0009.f.cas/0009.f.cas.0924.pdf#page=16">in 1800</a>. His view was echoed <a href="https://famous-trials.com/burr/169-judgement">in 1807 by Chief Justice John Marshall</a> and in <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Monthly_Law_Reporter/ti8ZAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%E2%80%9D+the+law+knows+no+accessories+in+treason%3B+but+that+every+one+who,+if+it+were+a+felony,+would+be+an+accessory,+is,+in+the+law+of+treason,+a+principal+traitor.%E2%80%9D&pg=PA417&printsec=frontcover">1851 by Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Curtis</a>.</p>
<p>The rule was also reiterated in an 1863 case, <a href="https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F.Cas/0026.f.cas/0026.f.cas.0018.2.pdf">U.S. v. Greathouse</a>, in which people were charged with treason for buying a ship and outfitting the vessel to break the U.S. blockade of Confederate ports. </p>
<p>Supreme Court Justice Stephen Field served on the bench of a lower federal court for that trial, as justices often did then. In directions to the jury, he declared, “all who aid … whether by open hostilities … or any part in the furtherance of the common object, <a href="https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F.Cas/0026.f.cas/0026.f.cas.0018.2.pdf">however minute or however remote from the scene of action</a>, are equally guilty of treason.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572503/original/file-20240131-27-fdc5sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A crowd of people climb the walls and stairs of the U.S. Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572503/original/file-20240131-27-fdc5sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572503/original/file-20240131-27-fdc5sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572503/original/file-20240131-27-fdc5sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572503/original/file-20240131-27-fdc5sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572503/original/file-20240131-27-fdc5sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572503/original/file-20240131-27-fdc5sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572503/original/file-20240131-27-fdc5sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Violent protesters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SocialMediaConservativeVoices/1714e596e04b4367956e142598025532/photo">AP Photo/John Minchillo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Two forms of treason</h2>
<p>In the Constitution’s Article III, and in the 14th Amendment, there are two ways a person can commit treason: by “<a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-3/#article-3-section-3-clause-1">levying war</a>” – which in the 14th Amendment is replaced with “<a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-14/section-3/">engaged in insurrection or rebellion</a>” – or by giving “aid and comfort” to people determined to be “enemies” of the United States.</p>
<p>The distinctions were important enough for the Framers to make, and for Congress to repeat <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/senate-and-constitution/14th-amendment.htm">in the late 1860s</a>, when the 14th Amendment was passed and ratified by the states.</p>
<p>But ever since the nation’s founding, the difference between those two has been clear, and it’s not whether a person took one treasonous action or another. Field made very clear the distinction is in the person’s nationality: By constitutional definition, <a href="https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F.Cas/0026.f.cas/0026.f.cas.0018.2.pdf">U.S. citizens cannot be considered</a> “enemies of the United States.” They can only be viewed as rebels or insurrectionists. </p>
<p>In the Greathouse case, another federal judge, Ogden Hoffmann, served alongside Field. When Hoffmann spoke to the jury, he agreed with Field that the distinction between the two categories was whether the fighters were U.S. citizens or not. And he was clear that any treasonous action a person took was covered by either category:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“<a href="https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F.Cas/0026.f.cas/0026.f.cas.0018.2.pdf">Every act which</a>, if performed with regard to a public and foreign enemy, would amount to ‘an adhering to him, giving him aid and comfort,’ will, with regard to a domestic rebellion, constitute a levying of war. And, conversely, every act which, with regard to domestic rebellion, will constitute ‘a levying of war,’ will, with regard to a foreign enemy, constitute ‘an adhering to him, giving him aid and comfort.’”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Trump’s defenders</h2>
<p>Many of those who support Trump have <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-719/298133/20240118180130038_23-719_Amicus%20Brief.pdf">argued his actions don’t amount to engaging in insurrection</a>. They say that, therefore, he can’t be disqualified from office for that reason. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-719/297012/20240118111500480_23-719%20-%20Amicus%20Curiae%20Brief.pdf">Several of his allies</a> have even <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-719/298014/20240118120731316_23-719%20Amicus%20Brief%20of%20U.S.%20Senator%20Ted%20Cruz.pdf">pointed out</a> that <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-719/298119/20240118165017246_Amicus%20Brief%20Final.pdf">nobody has accused him of giving “aid and comfort”</a> to the insurrectionists. </p>
<p>At least one of those supporters has gone so far as to claim that the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-719/298119/20240118165017246_Amicus%20Brief%20Final.pdf">failure to accuse him of “aid and comfort” is a reason to overturn</a> the Colorado ruling and declare Trump eligible to hold office.</p>
<p>Trump did not personally attack a police officer on Jan. 6, 2021, or aid and abet a foreign nation. In legal terms, then, Trump did not offer “aid and comfort” to “enemies” of the United States: The people he <a href="https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-florida-donald-trump-conspiracy-congress-040a763522081e592af10fae682fda70">urged to march on the Capitol</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/politics/trump-history-comments-trnd/index.html">said kind words to</a> may have been enemies of democracy. But like Trump himself, they were American citizens, and therefore, constitutionally speaking, could not be enemies of the United States. </p>
<p>Rather, they were insurrectionists. And as Hoffman’s 1863 statement makes clear, the constitutional law of treason does not differentiate between supporting them and being among them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221460/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark A. Graber filed an amicus brief in the Colorado case, and another in the U.S. Supreme Court, that was technically in support of the voters seeking to block Trump from the ballot, but focused specifically on the history of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.</span></em></p>US law has long held that those who support rebels and insurrectionists are just as guilty of treason as those who support foreign enemies.Mark A. Graber, University System of Maryland Regents Professor of Law, University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2082752023-08-08T12:28:52Z2023-08-08T12:28:52ZWhen Confederate-glorifying monuments went up in the South, voting in Black areas went down<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541540/original/file-20230807-32816-6usu56.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C0%2C4556%2C3136&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators hold Confederate flags near the monument for Confederacy President Jefferson Davis on June 25, 2015, in Richmond, Va., after it was spray-painted with the phrase 'Black Lives Matter.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/DavisStatueVandalized/ebf030ed819f4497a47fa322218756f4/photo?Query=Confederate%20monuments&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1935&currentItemNo=139">AP Photo/Steve Helber</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Confederate monuments <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/09/421531368/south-carolina-gov-nikki-haley-to-sign-confederate-flag-bill-into-law">burst into public consciousness in 2015</a> when a shooting at a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, instigated the first broad calls for their removal. The shooter intended to start a race war and had posed with Confederate imagery in photos posted online.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/16/us/confederate-monuments-removed.html">Monument removal efforts grew in 2017</a> after a counterprotester was killed at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white supremacist groups defended the preservation of Confederate monuments. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/02/23/970610428/nearly-100-confederate-monuments-removed-in-2020-report-says-more-than-700-remai">Removal movements saw widespread success in 2020</a> following George Floyd’s death at the hands of the police.</p>
<p>These events <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/16/us/racist-statues-controversial-monuments-in-america-robert-lee-columbus/index.html">linked Confederate monuments to modern racist beliefs</a> and acts. But whether monuments carry inherent racism or are merely misinterpreted requires further exploration.</p>
<p><a href="http://doi.org/10.1257/pandp.20211067">Research by economist Jhacova A. Williams has shown</a> that Black Americans who live in areas that have a relatively higher number of streets named after prominent Confederate generals “are less likely to be employed, are more likely to be employed in low-status occupations, and have lower wages compared to Whites.” </p>
<p><a href="https://alexntaylor.github.io">I study economic and political history</a> and have researched the effects of <a href="http://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4451402">Confederate monuments in the post-Civil War South</a>. I found that these symbols helped solidify the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Jim-Crow-law">Jim Crow era</a>, which established segregation across the South and lasted from the 1880s until the 1960s. These symbols were accompanied by increases in the vote share of the <a href="https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/jimcrow">Democratic Party – the racist party</a> that had supported slavery and, after the Civil War, supported segregation for another century. The building of these monuments was also accompanied by reductions in voter turnout. Further research I conducted shows that these political effects disproportionately occurred in areas with a larger share of Black residents. </p>
<p>In other words, as these monuments were erected, the vote increased for members of the then-racist Democratic Party, and people turned out to vote in lower numbers in predominantly Black areas.</p>
<p>These findings demonstrate that a connection existed between racism and these monuments from their inception – and provide context for modern monument debates.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541554/original/file-20230807-25-tgnnsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People hold a large tarpaulin beneath a statue of a man riding a horse." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541554/original/file-20230807-25-tgnnsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541554/original/file-20230807-25-tgnnsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541554/original/file-20230807-25-tgnnsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541554/original/file-20230807-25-tgnnsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541554/original/file-20230807-25-tgnnsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541554/original/file-20230807-25-tgnnsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541554/original/file-20230807-25-tgnnsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richmond, Va., city workers prepare to drape a tarp over a statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ConfederateMonumentsProtest/31b060bdbdd84f349a5bc96319bcccc3/photo">AP Photo/Steve Helber</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Monumental history</h2>
<p>The South saw almost no monument dedications during the Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865. <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/com_whose_heritage_timeline_print.pdf">Monuments first appeared during the Reconstruction era</a> – 1865 to 1877 – when Southern states were occupied by the North and integrated back into the Union. </p>
<p>Reconstruction-era monuments in general <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/ghosts-of-the-confederacy-9780195054200?cc=be&lang=en&#">did not glorify the Confederacy</a>. These monuments largely honored the dead and were placed in cemeteries and spaces distant from daily life. They compartmentalized the trauma of the war, commemorating lives but not placing the Confederacy at the center of Southern identity.</p>
<p>As Reconstruction neared its end in 1875, a <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2015651796/">Stonewall Jackson monument erected in Richmond, Virginia</a>, foreshadowed the different monuments to come. </p>
<p>The monument’s dedication drew 50,000 spectators and included a military-style parade. The potential presence of a local all-Black militia <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674008199">proved to be controversial</a>. To avoid accusations of race mixing, organizers planned to place the militia and any other Black participants in the back of the parade. </p>
<p>The militia did not attend, likely in anticipation of the controversy, and the only Black Southerners present in the parade were formerly enslaved people who had served in the <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/stonewall-brigade/">Confederacy’s Stonewall Brigade</a>. This stark picture of Southern race relations served as a preview of political developments to come.</p>
<p>This trend continued after Reconstruction, which ended with the <a href="https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/jimcrow/struggle_president.html">Compromise of 1877</a>. This compromise settled the disputed 1876 presidential election, giving Republicans the presidency and <a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813108131/the-life-and-death-of-the-solid-south/">Democrats, then a pro-segregation party</a>, full political control of the South. Democrats subsequently established what would become known as <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312302412/americannightmare">Jim Crow laws</a> across the South, an array of restrictive and discriminatory laws that disenfranchised Black Southerners and made them second-class citizens.</p>
<p>Monuments played a cultural role in establishing the Jim Crow South. Unlike Reconstruction monuments, post-Reconstruction monuments were erected in prominent public spaces, and their focus shifted toward the portrayal and glorification of famous Confederates. Monument dedication ceremonies were particularly popular around the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/whose-heritage">peaking in 1911</a>.</p>
<p>Additional Confederate monuments have been dedicated since that period, but those numbers pale in comparison to the monument-building spree of 1878 to 1912.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541556/original/file-20230807-32733-ogjdti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two flags fly near a monument to a soldier." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541556/original/file-20230807-32733-ogjdti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541556/original/file-20230807-32733-ogjdti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541556/original/file-20230807-32733-ogjdti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541556/original/file-20230807-32733-ogjdti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541556/original/file-20230807-32733-ogjdti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541556/original/file-20230807-32733-ogjdti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541556/original/file-20230807-32733-ogjdti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Mississippi state and U.S. flags fly near the Rankin County Confederate Monument in the downtown square of Brandon, Miss., on March 3, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ConfederateMemorialDay/337ff60bdb974c22ab9798576adc1d15/photo">AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Monumental effects</h2>
<p><a href="http://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4451402">My research</a> investigates the political effects of Confederate monuments in the Reconstruction and early post-Reconstruction – 1877-1912 – eras, namely their effects on Democratic Party vote share and voter turnout.</p>
<p>I expected monuments’ potential effects to be directly related to their centrality to everyday life and glorification of the Confederacy. This is the primary difference between soldier-memorializing Reconstruction and Confederate-glorifying post-Reconstruction monuments. </p>
<p>I expected to find little political effect from soldier-memorializing Reconstruction monuments, but some pro-Jim Crow effects from Confederate-glorifying post-Reconstruction monuments. As monuments moved from cemeteries into central public spaces such as parks and squares, I expected them to affect voters’ decisions.</p>
<p>That is precisely what I found. </p>
<p>During Reconstruction, counties that dedicated Confederate monuments saw no change in voter turnout or Democratic Party vote share in biennial congressional elections. These symbols were soldier-memorializing and physically separate from public life and did not influence voter decision-making.</p>
<p>However, when monuments began to glorify the Confederacy and shifted into public life, political effects emerged. </p>
<p>Counties that dedicated monuments in the early post-Reconstruction period saw, on average, a 5.5 percentage point increase in Democratic Party vote share and a 2.2 percentage point decrease in voter turnout compared with other counties.</p>
<p>As monuments changed, so did their effect on the public. Glorifying public monuments communicated to the public that the Confederacy was worth preserving, thus strengthening Democratic majorities and lowering participation in the political process.</p>
<p>Larger Democratic majorities alongside lower voter turnout already suggests Black Southerners, who almost exclusively voted for Republicans at that time, were voting less in areas with monuments. I conducted further exploration and found that these political effects disproportionately occurred in counties with larger Black populations. This suggests that Black voters were more responsive to Confederate monuments, which suppressed their political activity by signaling they were not accepted by the local community.</p>
<p>The effects of post-Reconstruction monuments suggest that they played a role in continued racism throughout the South into the early 20th century. </p>
<p>Their controversy today demonstrates the values still conveyed by their presence in society. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad014">Recent research</a> has demonstrated the long-run effects of the spread of Southern white culture and prejudices across the United States post-Civil War, connecting it to higher levels of modern-day Republican Party voting and conservative values. </p>
<p>It is thus no wonder Confederate monuments, as prominent symbols of pro-Confederate, Southern white culture, continue to be – and are likely to remain – cultural flashpoints.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208275/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander N. Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The drive to remove Confederate monuments links those monuments to modern racism. An economic historian shows that the intent and effect of those monuments from inception was to perpetuate racism.Alexander N. Taylor, PhD Candidate in Economics, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2052812023-05-29T12:29:09Z2023-05-29T12:29:09ZWhat really started the American Civil War?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527606/original/file-20230522-23-ijaoe1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C5770%2C4022&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More than 600,000 soldiers died during the American Civil War.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/battle-of-kennesaw-mountain-royalty-free-illustration/1152759368?adppopup=true">Keith Lance/Digital Vision Vectors via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
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<blockquote>
<p><strong>What really started the Civil War? – Abbey, age 7, Stone Ridge, New York</strong></p>
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<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.boundless.com/immigration-resources/citizenship-test-questions-and-answers/#american-history-">The U.S. citizenship test</a> – which immigrants must pass before becoming citizens of the United States – has this question: “Name one problem that led to the Civil War.” It lists three possible correct answers: “slavery,” “economic reasons” and “states’ rights.” </p>
<p>But as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=SsoLG_0AAAAJ&hl=en">a historian and professor</a> who studies slavery, Southern history and the American Civil War, I know there’s really only one correct answer: slavery. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527601/original/file-20230522-4578-n3onvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="1862 photo of enslaved people and soldiers on a plantation, standing for the camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527601/original/file-20230522-4578-n3onvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527601/original/file-20230522-4578-n3onvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527601/original/file-20230522-4578-n3onvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527601/original/file-20230522-4578-n3onvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527601/original/file-20230522-4578-n3onvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527601/original/file-20230522-4578-n3onvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527601/original/file-20230522-4578-n3onvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Enslaved people and soldiers on a South Carolina plantation in 1862.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-enslaved-people-and-soldiers-on-the-plantation-of-news-photo/1402910706">Henry P. Moore/LOC/Archive Photos via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>White Southerners left the Union to establish a slave-holding republic; they were <a href="https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/slavery-cause-civil-war.htm">dedicated to the preservation of slavery</a>. </p>
<p>What’s more, unlike slavery in the ancient world, slavery in the United States <a href="https://chssp.sf.ucdavis.edu/resources/curriculum/lessons/was-slavery-always-racial">was based on race</a>. By the time of the Civil War, Black people were the ones enslaved; white people were not. </p>
<p>Every American citizen, whether born in this country or naturalized, should understand that the conflict over slavery is what caused the Civil War. </p>
<h2>The history</h2>
<p>Slavery in the U.S. began at least as early as 1619, when a Portuguese ship brought about <a href="https://www.nps.gov/fomr/planyourvisit/first-african-landing.htm">20 enslaved African people to present-day Virginia</a>. It grew so quickly that by the time Colonists fought for their independence from England in 1775, slavery was <a href="https://law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/2012/12/before-there-were-red-and-blue-states-there-were-free-states-and-slave-states/#:%7E">legal in all 13 Colonies</a>.</p>
<p>As the 19th century progressed, Northern states <a href="https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/slavery/experience/freedom/history.html#:%7E">slowly abolished slavery</a>; but Southern states made it central to their economy. By 1860, nearly 4 million enslaved people lived in the South. </p>
<p>Increasingly, the North and South were at odds over the future of slavery. White Southerners believed slavery had to expand into new territories or it would die. In 1845, they pressured the federal government <a href="https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/annexation">to annex Texas, where slavery was legal</a>. They also supported an effort to <a href="https://loveman.sdsu.edu/docs/1854OstendManifesto.pdf">purchase Cuba and add it as a slave state</a>. </p>
<p>In the North, people generally opposed the expansion of slavery into new territories, and many favored the gradual emancipation of enslaved people. A smaller group, known as abolitionists, <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/abolitionist-movement">wanted slavery to end immediately</a>. </p>
<p>But even though many Northerners opposed the expansion of slavery, they <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2957.html">did not favor equal rights for Black people</a>. In most Northern states, segregation was rampant, Blacks were barred from voting and violence against them was common.</p>
<p>By the 1850s, it became more difficult for the federal government to satisfy either side. <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/compromise-of-1850#:%7E">The Compromise of 1850</a>, a series of bills that tried to solve the problem, pleased almost no one.</p>
<p>The publication of the 1852 novel “<a href="https://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/harriet-beecher-stowe/uncle-toms-cabin/">Uncle Tom’s Cabin</a>” – about the pain and injustice inflicted on an enslaved man – turned Northerners against slavery even more. In the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/dred-scott-v-sandford">1857 Dred Scott decision</a>, the Supreme Court ruled that enslaved people were not U.S. citizens, nor could Congress ban slavery in a federal territory. Two years later, the abolitionist John Brown <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/topics/john-browns-harpers-ferry-raid">attacked a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia</a>, in an unsuccessful attempt to supply weapons to enslaved people.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528041/original/file-20230524-21-b3wwpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Dressed in a three-piece suit, Abraham Lincoln sits for a photograph." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528041/original/file-20230524-21-b3wwpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528041/original/file-20230524-21-b3wwpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528041/original/file-20230524-21-b3wwpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528041/original/file-20230524-21-b3wwpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528041/original/file-20230524-21-b3wwpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528041/original/file-20230524-21-b3wwpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528041/original/file-20230524-21-b3wwpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A digitally restored photograph of President Abraham Lincoln, taken during the American Civil War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/portrait-of-president-abraham-lincoln-royalty-free-image/640971707">National Archives/Stocktrek Images via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Lincoln becomes president, secession follows</h2>
<p>Amid this swirl of troubles, the presidential election of 1860 took place. A new political party, the Republican Party, was opposed to the spread of slavery throughout the western territories. With four major candidates running for president, <a href="https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/abraham-lincoln">Abraham Lincoln</a> won the electoral vote – but only 40% of the popular vote. </p>
<p>The election of a president from a party that opposed slavery jolted white Southerners to action. Less than two months after Lincoln won, South Carolina delegates, meeting in Charleston, decided to secede from the Union – that is, to <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp">formally withdraw membership in the United States</a>. </p>
<p>Other Southern states followed and said slavery was the primary reason for secession. Texas delegates wrote the abolition of slavery “would bring <a href="https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html">inevitable calamities upon both races and desolation</a>” in the slave states. The <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp">Mississippi secession document</a> said “our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery – the greatest material interest in the world.” </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZKWrxZN5jmM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The hundreds of brutal, bloody battles of the Civil War took a terrible toll on the country.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Confederate supporters made their position clear</h2>
<p>The vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, also said slavery was the reason for secession, and that Thomas Jefferson’s words in the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript">Declaration of Independence</a> – that all men are created equal – were wrong. </p>
<p>“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea,” <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/cornerstone-speech">Stephens told a crowd</a>. “Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.” </p>
<p>Although the evidence shows slavery caused the Civil War, some Southerners created a myth – <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lost-Cause">the “Lost Cause</a>” – that transformed Confederate generals into heroes who were defending freedom. To some degree, that myth has, unfortunately, taken hold. Some schools are still <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/17/us/confederate-schools-trnd/index.html">named after Confederate generals</a>; <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/us-military-bases-honoring-confederate-figures-slated-to-get-new-names-/6641654.html">so are some military bases</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/symbols-of-the-confederacy-are-slowly-coming-down-from-us-military-bases-3-essential-reads-205729">although that is changing</a>. </p>
<p>It’s important to know the real reason for the Civil War so the country no longer celebrates historical figures who fought to establish a slave-holding republic.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to clarify that the colonies became states in the United States of America.</em></p>
<hr>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Gudmestad does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There was one central reason the Civil War happened.Robert Gudmestad, Professor and Chair of History Department, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2034932023-04-20T12:41:21Z2023-04-20T12:41:21ZWhite Tennessee lawmakers speak out for insurrection in honoring Confederate history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521362/original/file-20230417-1000-2uvs3y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C15%2C5084%2C3794&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Tennessee State Capitol. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/drone-view-of-tennessee-state-capitol-news-photo/1449200189?adppopup=true">Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The ghost of the Confederacy hangs heavily over the Tennessee Legislature. </p>
<p>Justin Jones, one of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/14/us/justin-pearson-justin-jones-tennessee.html">two Black members expelled</a> from the state’s House of Representatives in April 2023, had run afoul of House leadership before. In 2019, as a private citizen, he was arrested following his actions in <a href="https://apnews.com/article/aed77e8d3dcc4ae7ac7386a7df96b068">protesting a bust</a> in the state capitol <a href="https://www.newschannel5.com/news/the-history-of-the-nathan-bedford-forrest-busts-move-from-the-capitol-to-the-state-museum">honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest</a>, a Confederate general and later Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.</p>
<p>While the expulsion of Jones and his colleague, Justin J. Pearson, riveted the nation’s attention, a curious and related event in the Legislature’s other branch, the Tennessee Senate, passed nearly unnoticed.</p>
<p>On Feb. 3, 2023, two state senators issued a formal proclamation commemorating April 2023 as <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2643/Proclamation.pdf?1681739436">Confederate History Month</a> and encouraging “all Tennesseans to increase their knowledge of this momentous era in the history of this State.” </p>
<p>One of the signers is <a href="https://www.capitol.tn.gov/senate/speaker.html">Senate Speaker Randy McNally</a>, who is also the state’s lieutenant governor; the other is <a href="https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/legislatorinfo/member.aspx?district=S17">Sen. Mark Pody from Lebanon</a>. Though not considered in legislative session and not listed on the Legislature’s website, the proclamation holds an official stature: It was issued on Senate stationery and stamped with the Tennessee state seal.</p>
<p>The proclamation’s wording closely follows that of <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/07/virginia.confederate.history/index.html">a proclamation issued</a> by Virginia’s Gov. Robert McDonnell in April 2010, with one striking exception. McDonnell’s <a href="https://wamu.org/story/10/04/07/mcdonnell_apologizes_changes_language_of_confederate_history_month_proclamation/">proclamation in final form</a> included a paragraph, inserted after protests to an earlier version, stating “that it is important for all Virginians to understand that the institution of slavery led to this war.” </p>
<p>The Tennessee proclamation, which includes eight introductory clauses celebrating “the cause of Southern liberty,” says nothing of slavery at all. Rather, it declares that Confederates conducted “a four-year heroic struggle for states’ rights, individual freedom, local government control, and a determined struggle for deeply held beliefs.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521603/original/file-20230418-22-930gfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521603/original/file-20230418-22-930gfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521603/original/file-20230418-22-930gfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521603/original/file-20230418-22-930gfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521603/original/file-20230418-22-930gfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521603/original/file-20230418-22-930gfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521603/original/file-20230418-22-930gfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521603/original/file-20230418-22-930gfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A proclamation of the Tennessee Senate declares April 2023 Confederate History Month.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tennessee State Senate</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Safeguarding slavery</h2>
<p>As we <a href="https://history.utk.edu/people/daniel-feller/">historians of the Civil War</a> have tirelessly pointed out, the documentary record speaks clearly of the motive behind that “heroic struggle.” </p>
<p>Both official proceedings and private utterances prove abundantly that there was <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/reasons-secession">only one reason</a> to secede from the United States and create a new Confederacy. <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2011/04/12/135353655/slavery-not-states-rights-was-civil-wars-cause">That was to safeguard racial slavery</a> from the threat posed by the election of an antislavery Northerner, Abraham Lincoln, as president of the United States.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Confederate-States-of-America">Tennessee seceded later</a> than other states, after the Confederate firing on Fort Sumter. Lincoln’s responding call for troops made plain that there would be a war and that Tennessee, like other fence-sitting Upper South states, would have to choose sides. </p>
<p>The record of the state’s reasons is easy to find, and would have been available to the authors of the recent proclamation. In 2021, the University of Tennessee Press published “<a href="https://utpress.org/title/tennessee-secedes/">Tennessee Secedes: A Documentary History</a>.” It shows that in Tennessee, as elsewhere, the protection of slavery was the sole motive for secession.</p>
<p>In 1861, Gov. Isham Harris convened the state’s Legislature with <a href="https://civilwarcauses.org/harris.htm">a message denouncing the North’s</a> “systematic, wanton, and long continued agitation of the slavery question,” crowned by the insulting election of a president who “asserted the equality of the black with the white race.” </p>
<p>Harris went on:</p>
<p>“To evade the issue thus forced upon us at this time, without the fullest security for our rights, is, in my opinion, fatal to the institution of slavery forever. The time has arrived when the people of the South must prepare either to abandon or to fortify and maintain it. Abandon it, we cannot, interwoven as it is with our wealth, prosperity and domestic happiness.”</p>
<p>In all the deliberations that followed, no cause or grievance but slavery was mentioned.</p>
<p>Yet these basic facts go unacknowledged in a proclamation that boldly declares that knowledge of Confederate history is “vital to understanding who we are and what we are.”</p>
<p>Other omissions in the proclamation are equally curious. </p>
<p>Tennessee’s role in the Confederacy was uniquely conflicted. Thousands of citizens, especially in mountainous East Tennessee, <a href="https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/civil-war/">opposed secession</a>. Ignoring “local government control,” the state suppressed their dissent by force. </p>
<p>Some 50,000 Tennesseans, white and Black, spurned the Confederacy and <a href="https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/2017/08/26/east-tennessee-civil-war-pro-union-divided/599123001/">fought for the United States</a> – more than from any other Confederate state. The proclamation silently erases not only their struggle and sacrifice but their very existence.</p>
<h2>‘Be not deceived by names’</h2>
<p>Whether the Confederacy should be celebrated or condemned depends inescapably on point of view. </p>
<p>The proclamation casts the Confederacy in the mode of the American Revolution. The picture it paints is of a noble, if unsuccessful, attempt to erect a new self-governing independent nation – ignoring the fact that the institution of human slavery was at its center, as the <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp">Confederate constitution</a> made clear. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521371/original/file-20230417-16-gi4qzo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A poster announcing the sale of an enslaved man named Dick and an enslaved girl named Lydia in Cross Plains, Tenn., dated June 18, 1857." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521371/original/file-20230417-16-gi4qzo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521371/original/file-20230417-16-gi4qzo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521371/original/file-20230417-16-gi4qzo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521371/original/file-20230417-16-gi4qzo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521371/original/file-20230417-16-gi4qzo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521371/original/file-20230417-16-gi4qzo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521371/original/file-20230417-16-gi4qzo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Broadside announcing the sale of an enslaved man named Dick and an enslaved girl named Lydia in Cross Plains, Tenn., dated June 18, 1857.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/broadside-announcing-the-sale-of-an-enslaved-man-named-dick-news-photo/1326279488?adppopup=true">Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet from another perspective, the Confederacy was nothing more than an armed mass rebellion against a legitimately elected government. </p>
<p>It was, ironically, a famous Tennessean, President Andrew Jackson, who had <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jack01.asp">warned would-be seceders</a> in an official proclamation in 1832: “Be not deceived by names. Disunion by armed force is treason. Are you really ready to incur its guilt?” </p>
<p><a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/july-4-1861-july-4th-message-congress">Lincoln labeled the Confederacy an “insurrection”</a> within the United States itself, which the government and loyal citizens had not only a right but a duty to put down. </p>
<p>In words that echo today, Lincoln also observed that if the United States won its battle against forcible dismemberment, “it will then have been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/letter-james-c-conkling">and pay the cost</a>.”</p>
<h2>Celebrating insurrection</h2>
<p>The old adage that the victors write history is true at least to this extent. Generally the American Revolutionaries are deemed patriot heroes rather than rebels and traitors because they won their war, and because the course of subsequent history appears to have vindicated their cause. </p>
<p>Yet many Confederate acolytes, the proclamation’s sponsors among them, seem to have difficulty confronting what the Confederacy actually stood for. Hence, citizens serving in government – who upon entering their offices take a solemn oath to <a href="https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/Apps/GeneralAssembly/About.aspx">uphold and defend the United States Constitution</a> and begin their daily sessions by pledging allegiance to “<a href="https://www.legion.org/flag/pledge">one Nation indivisible</a>” – chose to officially exalt a failed attempt to overthrow that Constitution and dismember the nation that it bound together. </p>
<p>Under a statute enacted in 2021, Tennessee public school teachers are <a href="https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/education/legal/Prohibited%20Concepts%20in%20Instruction%20Rule%207.29.21%20FINAL.pdf">barred from using</a> instructional materials “promoting or advocating the violent overthrow of the United States government.” </p>
<p>No such prohibition applies to state legislators.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203493/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Feller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An official proclamation issued by two Tennessee lawmakers commemorates Confederate History Month, fails to mention slavery and instead honors what it calls a “heroic struggle for states’ rights.”Daniel Feller, Emeritus Professor of History, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1967082022-12-19T20:27:08Z2022-12-19T20:27:08ZIn Danielle Smith’s fantasy Alberta, Indigenous struggle is twisted to suit settlers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501624/original/file-20221216-19457-lyg55v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4385%2C2691&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Alberta Premier Danielle Smith appears at a news conference in Edmonton in October 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/in-danielle-smith-s-fantasy-alberta--indigenous-struggle-is-twisted-to-suit-settlers" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>What do a notorious Ku Klux Klan writer, right-wing libertarianism, the Cherokee <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Trail-of-Tears">Trail of Tears</a> and the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/the-lost-causes-long-legacy/613288/">“lost cause”</a> of the American Confederacy have to do with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s recent controversial statements on Indigenous matters? </p>
<p>More than we might imagine. </p>
<p>Smith was <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/danielle-smith-treaty-6-sovereignty-act-legislation-1.6685406">recently forced to backpedal</a> on comments conflating the ugly history of the Indian Act with Alberta’s treatment by Ottawa. </p>
<p>Just a month earlier, her office had to publicly address her <a href="https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/alberta-premier-danielle-smith-says-she-has-cherokee-roots-but-the-records-dont-back-that-up/">solidly debunked claims of distant Cherokee heritage</a>. She also compared the deadly ethnic cleansing of the Cherokee Trail of Tears with Alberta’s anti-Ottawa conflict as though they shared a similar moral significance. </p>
<p>These incidents are more than exasperating examples of studied ignorance or false equivalency. Smith’s grasp on Indigenous issues is untethered from actual history. It seems rooted not in genuine allyship and justice but in the appropriation of Indigenous experiences to advance white grievance politics in Alberta and beyond.</p>
<h2>Justifying false fantasies</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.hcn.org/issues/51.16/tribal-affairs-far-right-extremists-appropriate-indigenous-struggles-for-violent-ends">Right-wing white extremists have long tried to hijack Indigenous rights struggles</a> to justify their own fantasies of being oppressed by overreaching globalist governments and displaced by people of colour. </p>
<p>These attempts graft cleanly onto more popular frontier mythology about the “conquest” of North America, the “savages” who vanish into the sunset and the heroic white settlers, voyageurs, and pioneers who wrested modern Canada from the unspoiled wilderness. </p>
<p>In this self-justifying settler fantasy, Indigenous people become historical symbols of a false past of inevitable disappearance, not the vibrant cultural and political Nations still here today. When reduced entirely to the symbolic — and thus disconnected from actual Indigenous lives and realities — these stereotypes can be put to dangerous ideological uses.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman in an Indigenous headdress speaks into a microphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501376/original/file-20221215-24-s1d2ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501376/original/file-20221215-24-s1d2ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501376/original/file-20221215-24-s1d2ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501376/original/file-20221215-24-s1d2ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501376/original/file-20221215-24-s1d2ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501376/original/file-20221215-24-s1d2ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501376/original/file-20221215-24-s1d2ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Assembly of First Nations National Chief RoseAnne Archibald says she supports treaty chiefs who are opposing Danielle Smith’s proposed Alberta Sovereignty Act.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Rewriting Cherokee history</h2>
<p>By way of illustration, look to a once bestselling book, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2001/12/20/carter_6/"><em>The Education of Little Tree</em> by Forrest Carter.</a> </p>
<p>First published in 1976, the book was initially presented as the charming autobiographical reflection of a mixed-race orphan raised by his wise Cherokee grandparents in the Tennessee mountains during the 1920s. </p>
<p>Yet Little Tree, his grandparents and family friend Willow John are seemingly the only Indigenous people in the whole of the southeastern United States. There’s no mention of the Eastern Band of Cherokees in North Carolina or other Nations in the east, and the Cherokees forced west on the Trail of Tears are referenced only as a pitiful remnant of a nobler past.</p>
<p>The main antagonists in the book aren’t the local whites and their descendants who profited the most from the policy of Indian Removal, but rather the faraway but intrusive “guv’mint” and its hated northern politicians. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cherokee-nation-wants-to-send-a-delegate-to-the-house-its-an-idea-older-than-congress-itself-191738">Cherokee Nation wants to send a delegate to the House – it's an idea older than Congress itself</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Carter misrepresents history to highlight the violent overreach of the government and arrogant city folk whose economic and social interests it represents. He repeatedly frames white Confederates and their descendants as being equally sympathetic and unfairly oppressed as Little Tree’s Cherokee family and ancestors. </p>
<p>In <em>Little Tree</em>, both white Confederates and Cherokees seek to protect their mutual mountain home from intruders, government agents and cynical politicians. The anger of white Confederate sympathizers and the anguish of dispossessed Cherokees become one, and their identities are wholly united by a single common enemy: guv'mint.</p>
<p>In so doing, Carter ignores the fact that the Cherokee Nation itself was <a href="https://www.history.com/news/civil-war-native-american-indian-territory-cherokee-home-guard">violently divided by the Civil War</a> and that many Cherokees supported the Union or neutrality over alliance with the Confederacy. </p>
<p>He also erases the inconvenient reality that it was the South’s white citizens, not the federal government, who most enthusiastically supported the Indian Removal Act and who benefited the most when Cherokees and other Indigenous nations were driven from the region.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Cars travel along a highway. A sign in the foreground reads Trail of Tears Auto Tour Route." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501623/original/file-20221216-27-nug7s8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501623/original/file-20221216-27-nug7s8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501623/original/file-20221216-27-nug7s8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501623/original/file-20221216-27-nug7s8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501623/original/file-20221216-27-nug7s8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501623/original/file-20221216-27-nug7s8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501623/original/file-20221216-27-nug7s8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cars travel along an Illinois highway on the Trail of Tears Auto Tour Route. Cherokee were forced westward to Oklahoma along the infamous trail, where many died and are buried.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/James A. Finley)</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Insidious rhetoric</h2>
<p>As might already be expected, Forrest Carter was neither Little Tree nor Cherokee. His real name was Asa Earl Carter, a violent segregationist, white supremacist and Ku Klux Klan leader who wrote the notorious 1963 <a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/01/14/169080969/segregation-forever-a-fiery-pledge-forgiven-but-not-forgotten">“segregation now, segregation forever” speech for Alabama Gov. George Wallace</a>.</p>
<p>In the 1970s, he <a href="http://reconstructionofasacarter.com">refashioned himself</a> as “Forrest,” a genial, half-Cherokee fiction writer with a big moustache and folksy southern charm. Although he was more subtly libertarian in his fiction, <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/the-real-education-of-little-tree/">his commitment to anti-Blackness and pro-Confederacy propaganda never wavered</a>. </p>
<p>There’s nothing remotely Cherokee about the novel, but Carter was a masterful storyteller who exploited entrenched white stereotypes to lasting effect. Even though his true identity became widely known in 1991, <em>The Education of Little Tree</em> remains in print today. </p>
<p>It’s no great imaginative leap to see how Carter and Smith draw on similar ideas that, for all their differences, lead them in similar directions. </p>
<p>Smith, too, has cited <a href="https://timeline.com/part-cherokee-elizabeth-warren-cf6be035967e">mythical Cherokee heritage</a> as a reason for her distrust of government. She too has misrepresented Cherokee history to conflate the Trail of Tears and its thousands of deaths with Alberta outrage against an increasingly intrusive federal government. She too has tried to link the horrors of Indigenous genocide with entitled grievance narratives long tied to far-right white nationalism. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501610/original/file-20221216-27-65hba4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=168%2C51%2C4714%2C3272&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dark-haired woman in profile." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501610/original/file-20221216-27-65hba4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=168%2C51%2C4714%2C3272&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501610/original/file-20221216-27-65hba4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501610/original/file-20221216-27-65hba4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501610/original/file-20221216-27-65hba4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501610/original/file-20221216-27-65hba4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501610/original/file-20221216-27-65hba4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501610/original/file-20221216-27-65hba4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in November.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This doesn’t mean that Smith has read Carter’s book, knows his story or supports the Confederacy or white nationalism. She may be sincerely invested in her unsubstantiated family story and her belief that Alberta and Indigenous Nations share the same struggles and the same singular oppressor in Ottawa. </p>
<p>The appropriation of Indigenous struggles has a long history in libertarian circles on both the left and right. </p>
<p>The rhetoric that informed Carter’s work and energizes white resentment in the United States and Canada is an unmistakable undercurrent in Smith’s own political vision. Regardless of stated intent, both distort and weaponize Cherokee history to ugly ends. </p>
<p>Smith’s heritage claims are core to this problem. She’s invoked her supposed Cherokee ancestor and the Trail of Tears on multiple occasions to link Indigenous oppression with her Alberta-first libertarianism.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1592875777997012997"}"></div></p>
<p>She draws on this dodgy connection to assert insight and shared struggle while pushing a provincial sovereignty bill that’s on a <a href="https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/national-news/alberta-chief-critical-of-premier-danielle-smiths-claim-of-indigenous-roots-6126686">direct collision course</a> with First Nations’ treaty rights. </p>
<h2>Dangerous by design</h2>
<p>The disconnect is inevitable. And as <a href="https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2022/02/18/Convoy-Appropriations-Attack-Indigenous-People/">this year’s so-called freedom convoy protests</a> demonstrated, language around Indigenous rights is increasingly being appropriated by the same people who are quick to condemn Indigenous land and water protectors. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-every-canadian-should-remember-about-the-freedom-convoy-crisis-178296">What every Canadian should remember about the 'freedom convoy' crisis</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>It’s happening elsewhere in Canada, too. Some of the more controversial “eastern Métis” groups in Canada were founded by <a href="https://maisonneuve.org/article/2018/11/1/self-made-metis/">explicitly anti-Indigenous white people</a> who now <a href="https://theconversation.com/becoming-indigenous-the-rise-of-eastern-metis-in-canada-80794">use bogus Indigenous heritage claims</a> to access the treaty rights they long railed against. </p>
<p>In Carter’s fantasy Appalachia — as in Smith’s fantasy Alberta — centuries of righteous Indigenous struggle are twisted into self-serving settler stereotypes that ignore actual Indigenous history, kinship and basic reality. </p>
<p>Reactionary white populism is hostile to Indigenous rights by design, as it’s ultimately about unilateral settler control of land and resources. But this remains unspoken in these circles. To speak of it would be to firmly dispel the false but convenient illusion of common struggle.</p>
<p>Whether intentional or not, Smith’s rhetoric is fundamentally anti-Indigenous. She’s distorting Indigenous histories and issues to dangerous ends and Canadians would do well to pay attention.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196708/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Heath Justice has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>Danielle Smith’s grasp of Indigenous issues seems rooted not in genuine allyship and justice but in the appropriation of Indigenous experiences to advance white grievance politics.Daniel Heath Justice, Cherokee Nation citizen, Professor of Critical Indigenous Studies and English, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1948962022-12-05T13:26:27Z2022-12-05T13:26:27ZGen. Ulysses S. Grant’s pending promotion sheds new light on his overlooked fight for equal rights after the Civil War<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498586/original/file-20221201-16851-brd9vw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=81%2C661%2C2939%2C3112&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">General Grant stands in front of his campaign tent at his headquarters in Virginia in 1865.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/general-grant-stands-in-front-of-his-campaign-tent-at-his-news-photo/515359842?phrase=ulysses%20s%20grant&adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tucked away in an amendment to the <a href="https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fy23_ndaa_bill_text.pdf">FY2023 U.S. defense authorization bill</a> is a rare instance of congressional bipartisanship and a tribute to U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant. </p>
<p>If approved, the measure would posthumously promote Grant to the rank of General of the Armies of the U.S., making him only the third person – along with <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/macarthur-general-john-j-pershing/">John J. Pershing</a> and <a href="https://armyhistory.org/general-of-the-armies-of-the-united-states-george-washington/">George Washington</a> – to be awarded the nation’s highest military honor.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.history.msstate.edu/directory/aem231">Executive Director</a> of the <a href="https://www.usgrantlibrary.org/">Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library</a>, I believe that the promotion would be much more than a symbolic nod to a great military general. Rather, it would highlight the overlooked legacy of a man who fought to end the last vestiges of slavery. </p>
<h2>Outbreak of Civil War</h2>
<p>During the Civil War, Grant rose to fame as a decisive leader who was willing to doggedly pursue Confederate armies and avoid retreat at all costs. He first gained his reputation for tenacity with Union victories at <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/shiloh#:%7E:text=Hardin%20County%2C%20TN%20%7C%20Apr%206,continent%20up%20to%20that%20date.">Shiloh</a>, <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/chattanooga">the Battles for Chattanooga</a> and <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/vicksburg">the Siege of Vicksburg</a>. </p>
<p>Like most white northerners, Grant signed up to <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/ulysses-s-grant">fight for the Union</a> – not for emancipation. </p>
<p>But by 1862, the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/slavery-cause-civil-war.htm">freedom of enslaved African Americans</a> had become vital to the Union war strategy, if not yet its cause.</p>
<p>A year before President Abraham Lincoln signed in 1863 <a href="https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation">the Emancipation Proclamation</a> that freed enslaved people in the Confederate states, Grant oversaw the establishment of refugee, or <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/grants-contraband-conundrum/?searchResultPosition=1">contraband camps</a>, throughout the <a href="https://repository.upenn.edu/hist_digital/1/">Mississippi Valley</a>. Those camps provided basic housing, food and work for Black men and women who had fled from slavery.</p>
<p>Grant also administered the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/blacks-civil-war/article.html">enlistment of African American men</a> into United States Colored Troops units during <a href="https://www.nps.gov/vick/learn/historyculture/african-americans-and-the-campaign.htm">the Vicksburg campaign</a>. </p>
<p>In March 1864, <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/lincoln/lincolns-generals">Lincoln appointed Grant</a> to the rank of lieutenant general and ordered him to take on the Confederate Army in Virginia, a task at which numerous other Union leaders had failed.</p>
<p>At this point during the war, Grant assumed the role of chief strategist for the entire Union war effort. It took the next 13 months of fighting <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/overland-campaign-1864">during the Overland campaign</a> before <a href="https://loc.gov/exhibits/civil-war-in-america/biographies/robert-e-lee.html">Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered</a> to Grant at <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Appomattox-Court-House">Appomattox</a> on April 9, 1865. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A white man dressed in a dark military uniform stands at a table with another white man dressed in a military uniform." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498570/original/file-20221201-6286-e8f6w0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498570/original/file-20221201-6286-e8f6w0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498570/original/file-20221201-6286-e8f6w0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498570/original/file-20221201-6286-e8f6w0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498570/original/file-20221201-6286-e8f6w0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498570/original/file-20221201-6286-e8f6w0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498570/original/file-20221201-6286-e8f6w0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this illustration, Gen. Ulysses S, Grant, left, accepts the surrender of Gen. Robert E. Lee.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/robert-e-lee-surrenders-to-general-u-s-grant-royalty-free-illustration/112873439?phrase=ulysses%20s%20grant%20robert%20lee&adppopup=true">Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the Federal victory, many <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-grant-was-the-great-hero-of-the-civil-war-but-lost-favor-with-historians/2014/04/24/62f5439e-bf53-11e3-b574-f8748871856a_story.html">Americans hailed Grant</a> as the man who saved the Union. </p>
<p>But Grant was magnanimous in victory. </p>
<p>Multiple times during the war <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/gentlemans-agreement-ended-civil-war-180954810/">he honored the dignity</a> of his defeated adversaries, most famously at Appomattox, where he did not require Lee to hand over his sword, as usually required. Grant also allowed Confederate officers to keep their sidearms and horses. </p>
<p>Lee appreciated <a href="https://npg.si.edu/blog/lee-surrendering-grant-appomattox">Grant’s actions</a>, remarking: “This will have the best possible effect upon the men … it will be very gratifying, and will do much toward conciliating our people.” </p>
<h2>Impact of the ‘Lost Cause’</h2>
<p>But after the war, the conciliatory feelings vanished. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/the-lost-causes-long-legacy/613288/">Southern partisans constructed</a> the narrative of the “Lost Cause.” It held that the root of the Civil War was not slavery, but <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/states-rights">the rights of states to control</a> their own destinies. It further held that the Union victory had nothing to do with Confederate character or leadership, but rather the Union’s sheer numbers and superior resources.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.salon.com/2011/05/01/joan_waugh_grant/">this Lost Cause narrative</a>, Grant was seen as a bumbling butcher devoid of any meaningful strategic vision, who succeeded only by mercilessly throwing more soldiers at his enemy. It also revived <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-04-25/legacy-of-ulysses-s-grant-complicated-200-years-after-birth">the old rumors</a> of his excessive drinking. </p>
<p>In this story line, Grant’s foil was always the courtly gentleman, Robert E. Lee. The hagiography of Lee demanded <a href="https://www.salon.com/2011/05/01/joan_waugh_grant/">Grant’s inferiority</a>. </p>
<p>By the early 20th century, the Lost Cause was no longer isolated in the South and had spread across America. Crowds flocked to see <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/02/08/383279630/100-years-later-whats-the-legacy-of-birth-of-a-nation">the racist anti-Reconstruction “Birth of a Nation”</a> in movie theaters, and during the World War I rush to build military bases, the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/the-lost-causes-long-legacy/613288/">Army named ten of them after Confederate generals</a>. </p>
<h2>President Grant’s fight for equality</h2>
<p>Grant served as <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/ulysses-s-grant/">U.S. president from 1869 to 1877</a> during a time when white southerners proved hostile toward <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/reconstruction-civil-rights-during-reconstruction/">federal Reconstruction measures</a> that sought equal rights for recently freed enslaved people. </p>
<p>Grant saw his role of enforcing these policies as an extension of his wartime duty and necessary to <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/a-short-overview-of-the-reconstruction-era-and-ulysses-s-grant-s-presidency.htm">protect the gains of the Union victory</a>, especially the newly established rights for African Americans. </p>
<p>He used the resources of the federal government to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/grant-kkk/">crush the Ku Klux Klan</a>, established the Department of Justice to <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/created-150-years-ago-justice-departments-first-mission-was-protect-black-rights-180975232/">investigate civil rights abuses</a> and signed <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/CivilRightsAct1875.htm#:%7E:text=The%20bill%20guaranteed%20all%20citizens,schools%2C%20churches%2C%20and%20cemeteries.">the Civil Rights Act of 1875</a>. </p>
<h2>Grant’s latest cause</h2>
<p>In recent years, the American public has questioned the Lost Cause and taken steps to mitigate its pervasiveness throughout the U.S. </p>
<p>Southerners themselves have chosen to remove <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/02/23/970610428/nearly-100-confederate-monuments-removed-in-2020-report-says-more-than-700-remai">Confederate leaders</a> from town squares and imagery from <a href="https://mississippitoday.org/2021/01/11/its-a-great-day-mississippi-raises-new-state-flag-after-126-years/">state flags</a>. The U.S. Army has established a <a href="https://www.thenamingcommission.gov/names">Naming Commission</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-moves-to-rename-army-bases-honoring-confederate-generals-who-fought-to-defend-slavery-183862">rebrand Confederate-named bases</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Construction workers use heavy-duty chains to remove a statue." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445492/original/file-20220209-15-6ngyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445492/original/file-20220209-15-6ngyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445492/original/file-20220209-15-6ngyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445492/original/file-20220209-15-6ngyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445492/original/file-20220209-15-6ngyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445492/original/file-20220209-15-6ngyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445492/original/file-20220209-15-6ngyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee is lifted off its pedestal in Charlottesville, Virginia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/statue-of-confederate-general-robert-e-lee-located-in-news-photo/1233936650?adppopup=true">Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>It is telling, too, that Grant’s Presidential Library is now located in Mississippi, a Deep South state he once conquered.</p>
<p>It remains to be seen whether the request made to elevate Grant’s rank by U.S. Senators <a href="https://www.brown.senate.gov/">Sherrod Brown</a> of Ohio, a Democrat, and <a href="https://www.blunt.senate.gov/">Roy Blunt</a> of Missouri, a Republican – along with <a href="https://wagner.house.gov/about/meet-ann">GOP U.S Rep. Ann Wagner</a> – will be finally approved by Congress as part of <a href="https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fy23_ndaa_bill_text.pdf">the FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act</a>. </p>
<p>Either way, in my view, a thoughtful reconsideration of Grant’s wartime and post-war contributions is long overdue. </p>
<p><em>This article was updated to clarify Confederate imagery removed from state flags.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194896/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Marshall is affiliated with Ulysses S. Grant Association</span></em></p>Known as the military leader who saved America, Ulysses S. Grant left a legacy of fighting for the rights of enslaved people during and after the Civil War.Anne Marshall, Associate Professor of History, Mississippi State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1838622022-06-03T12:14:47Z2022-06-03T12:14:47ZUS moves to rename Army bases honoring Confederate generals who fought to defend slavery<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466425/original/file-20220531-26-bt5sl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=851%2C333%2C2021%2C1661&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Named after Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, Fort Bragg, outside Fayetteville, N.C., is one of the U.S. bases under consideration for a name change. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sign-shows-fort-bragg-information-may-13-2004-in-news-photo/50837592?adppopup=true">Logan Mock-Bunting/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For decades, nine U.S. Army bases have carried the names of men who fought against the U.S. Army – in a war waged to defend and perpetuate the slavery of people of African descent.</p>
<p>These military installations, all in Southern states, were named to honor such figures as Gen. <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lee-robert-e-1807-1870/">Robert E. Lee</a>, who commanded the Confederate Army; <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/john-b-hood">John Bell Hood</a>, an associate of Lee’s known for being both brave and impetuous; and <a href="https://www.nps.gov/people/leonidas-polk.htm">Leonidas Polk</a>, an Episcopal bishop who, thanks to his friendship with Jefferson Davis, began the war as a major general. All three enslaved Black people. </p>
<p>Created by Congress in 2021 to recommend names that exemplify modern day U.S. military and national values, <a href="https://www.thenamingcommission.gov/home">a federal panel</a> took a major step on May 24, 2022, toward removing this remnant of “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lost-Cause">lost cause” ideology</a>. </p>
<p>That ideology is the discredited notion that the Confederacy’s rebellion was an honorable struggle for the Southern way of life and that what Confederates viewed as the “war of northern aggression” was over states’ rights, not slavery.</p>
<p>What the government called the <a href="https://www.thenamingcommission.gov/names">Naming Commission proposed</a> rechristening nine of the Confederate-themed bases, mostly after men and women of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds – people who “would be inspirational to the soldiers and civilians who serve on our Army posts, and to the communities who support them.”</p>
<p>For example, Fort Lee in Virginia would become Fort Gregg-Adams in honor of <a href="https://www.moaa.org/content/publications-and-media/news-articles/2021-news-articles/logistics-officer-rose-through-the-ranks-during-36-year-career/">Lt. Gen. Arthur Gregg</a> and <a href="https://www.thenmusa.org/biographies/charity-adams-earley/">Lt. Col. Charity Adams</a>, African Americans who excelled at logistics and other military support functions during World War II.</p>
<p>Fort Hood in Texas would become Fort Cavazos, commemorating <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/fort-hood-renamed-fort-cavazos-first-hispanic-four-star-general-rcna30317">Richard Cavazos</a>, who received the Purple Heart and other awards for valor in Vietnam and <a href="https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/5075">became the first Latino</a> to reach the rank of general.</p>
<p>And Fort Polk in Louisiana would become Fort Johnson in recognition of <a href="https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/henry-johnson">Sgt. William Henry Johnson</a>, who was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart in 1996 and the <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/Story/Article/2201270/medal-of-honor-monday-army-sgt-henry-johnson/">Medal of Honor</a> in 2015 for heroism during World War I. As a Black man in the Jim Crow era, <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/remembering-henry-johnson-the-soldier-called-black-death-117386701/">Johnson was denied</a> those honors during his military service.</p>
<p>“We wanted names and values that underpin the core responsibility of the military, to defend the Constitution of the United States,” said Michelle Howard, a retired Navy admiral <a href="https://www.thenamingcommission.gov/names">who chairs the commission</a>. </p>
<h2>Unquestioned for too long</h2>
<p>Four of the bases had been named for Confederate leaders at the start of World War I, and the others at the start of World War II.</p>
<p>Until recently, the military installations honoring Confederate leaders received little scrutiny from the media. As a newspaper reporter four decades ago, <a href="https://robertson.vcu.edu/people/emeriti-and-affiliate-faculty/south.html">I gave the names</a> a free pass.</p>
<p>In 1981, I covered the <a href="https://oa-bsa.org/history/1981-national-jamboree">Boy Scouts Jamboree</a> at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia without mentioning that the base was named for a <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/p-hill">man who had turned against the United States</a> and fought to defend slavery. </p>
<h2>Movement to rename the bases</h2>
<p>In recent years, more Americans, including those living in the South, have reconsidered the use of Confederate iconography. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/after-dylann-roof-what-the-fate-the-confederate-flag/HaCtiPvplkXOdQbn6jAhAN/">Such concerns escalated</a> in 2015 after Dylann Roof, a self-avowed white supremacist, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/death-sentence-upheld-man-who-killed-9-south-carolina-church-n1277667">shot and killed</a> nine Black people during a Bible study at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. Investigators later <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/us/dylann-storm-roof-photos-website-charleston-church-shooting.html">found a website</a> registered in the name of Roof containing images of Roof posing with the Confederate battle flag.</p>
<p><iframe id="3nI9P" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/3nI9P/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The issue gained momentum in the U.S. Congress after the George Floyd protests in 2020, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/02/23/970610428/nearly-100-confederate-monuments-removed-in-2020-report-says-more-than-700-remai">when many communities</a> started taking down statues and renaming buildings that honored Confederate figures. </p>
<p>Congress included the creation of the Naming Commission in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act. Then-President Donald Trump <a href="https://fcw.com/2020/12/trump-vetoes-2021-defense-bill/258615/">vetoed the bill</a>, but Congress overrode the veto.</p>
<h2>Coming up with new names</h2>
<p>The Naming Commission received more than 34,000 suggestions from the public for new base names.</p>
<p>“Every name either originated from or resonated with the local communities,” said Ty Seidule, a retired Army general and the panel’s vice chair.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="An old black and white photograph depicts a white woman wearing a dark hat and dress in a formal pose next to a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466673/original/file-20220601-49512-it5y52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466673/original/file-20220601-49512-it5y52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466673/original/file-20220601-49512-it5y52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466673/original/file-20220601-49512-it5y52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466673/original/file-20220601-49512-it5y52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1072&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466673/original/file-20220601-49512-it5y52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1072&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466673/original/file-20220601-49512-it5y52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1072&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Full-length portrait of Mary Edwards Walker, 1832-1919, American physician and advocate of women’s rights.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/full-length-portrait-of-mary-edwards-walker-1832-1919-news-photo/515219782?adppopup=true">Mathew Brady/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In addition to the previously mentioned names, the commission proposed renaming bases for:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://www.army.mil/article/182389/vietnam_war_hero_hal_moore_dies_at_age_94">Lt. Gen. Hal Moore</a>, who served in Vietnam and other assignments, and his wife, <a href="https://www.fortmoore.com/summa">Julia Moore</a>, who has been an advocate for military families and reformed the military’s death notice procedures. </p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/dwight-d-eisenhower/">Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.army.mil/article/183800/meet_dr_mary_walker_the_only_female_medal_of_honor_recipient">Dr. Mary Walker</a>, the Army’s first female surgeon, who received the Medal of Honor for her service during the Civil War.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/van-t-barfoot-va-medal-of-honor-recipient-who-won-fight-to-fly-flag-in-front-yard-dies-at-92/2012/03/05/gIQARDTdtR_story.html">Sgt. Van Barfoot</a>, a <a href="https://www.army.mil/nativeamericans/barfoot.html">Choctaw Indian</a> who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://memory.loc.gov/diglib/vhp-stories/loc.natlib.afc2001001.89754/">Michael Novosel Sr.</a>, a pilot who volunteered in his 40s to fight in Vietnam and subsequently rescued his son, who had been shot down and was stranded near the enemy. <a href="https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/michael-j-novosel">Novosel’s selection</a> recognizes “generational service,” the panel said.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The commission also proposed renaming Fort Bragg, North Carolina, <a href="https://www.armytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2022/05/24/panel-to-push-for-fort-bragg-to-be-renamed-fort-liberty/">as Fort Liberty</a>. </p>
<p>Congress and the U.S. secretary of defense <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/24/us/politics/army-bases-confederate-names.html">still must sign off</a> on the new names. But people like Troy Mosley, who for years has pushed to erase the Confederate names, is encouraged.</p>
<p>Mosley, who formed a group called <a href="https://www.citizensagainstintolerance.org/">Citizens Against Intolerance</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/troy.mosley/posts/pfbid0Y4UyZjcxA8JzbNCcCPUvdV3dFsTmE3HZstgpdxcARHAWt1V3Q7KUuuaEbKu8XUfjl">said</a> the commission “did a fantastic job selecting name replacements from the rich tapestry of diverse and distinguished military service.”</p>
<p>To people who have anguished over the prevalence of Confederate symbols in the U.S., the commission’s proposals are long overdue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183862/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeff South does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One of the last relics of ‘lost cause’ ideology is nearing its end as a federal panel has recommended renaming US military bases now honoring Confederate generals.Jeff South, Associate professor emeritus, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1654422021-10-05T12:25:36Z2021-10-05T12:25:36ZThe brutal trade in enslaved people within the US has been largely whitewashed out of history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424260/original/file-20211001-23-1qfgihp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=109%2C59%2C6389%2C4660&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A trade card with printed black type for the domestic slave traders Hill, Ware and Chrisp.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.si.edu/object/trade-card-great-negro-mart-memphis-tennessee:nmaahc_2014.63.17">Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For my <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/joshua-d-rothman/the-ledger-and-the-chain/9781541616615/">book, “The Ledger and the Chain</a>,” I visited more than 30 archives in over a dozen states, from Louisiana to Connecticut. Along the way, I uncovered mountains of material that exposed the depravity of the men who ran the largest domestic slave trading operation in American history and revealed the fortitude of the enslaved people they trafficked as merchandise. </p>
<p>But I also learned that many Americans do not realize that a domestic slave trade existed in the U.S. at all. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423887/original/file-20210929-28-apix4x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A domestic slave trader's newspaper ad from 1844 says 'CASH FOR NEGROES.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423887/original/file-20210929-28-apix4x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423887/original/file-20210929-28-apix4x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423887/original/file-20210929-28-apix4x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423887/original/file-20210929-28-apix4x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423887/original/file-20210929-28-apix4x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423887/original/file-20210929-28-apix4x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423887/original/file-20210929-28-apix4x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Slave trader Joseph Bruin placed this advertisement in the Alexandria Gazette on March 20, 1844.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/historic/info/archaeology/1315DukeStBuildingHistorySkolnik2021.pdf">City of Alexandria, Virginia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mentioning my research to others repeatedly provoked questions about Africa, not America. They obviously assumed that a scholar working on the slave trade must be working on the trade that brought millions of Africans to the Western Hemisphere via <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/slave-ships-and-the-middle-passage/">the terrifying Atlantic Ocean crossing known as the Middle Passage</a>. </p>
<p>They did not appear to know that by the time slavery ended in 1865, <a href="https://eji.org/news/history-racial-injustice-domestic-slave-trade/">more than 1 million enslaved people</a> had been forcibly moved across state lines in their own country, or that hundreds of thousands more had been bought and sold within individual states.</p>
<p>Americans continue to misunderstand how slavery worked and how vast was its reach – even as the histories of race and slavery are <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/08/17/how-should-we-address-the-uss-history-of-slavery-and-racism-heres-what-americans-think/">central to ongoing public conversations</a>.</p>
<h2>Indifference to suffering</h2>
<p>Enslaved people were bought and sold within the boundaries of what is now the United States dating back to the Colonial era. But the domestic slave trade accelerated dramatically in the decades after 1808. </p>
<p>That year, <a href="https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/act-prohibit-importation-slaves">Congress outlawed the importation of enslaved people from overseas</a>, and it did so at a moment when demand for enslaved laborers was booming in expanding cotton and sugar plantation regions of the lower South. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423690/original/file-20210928-19-71frqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two vintage posters from the 1840s advertising slave trader services in Kentucky." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423690/original/file-20210928-19-71frqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423690/original/file-20210928-19-71frqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423690/original/file-20210928-19-71frqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423690/original/file-20210928-19-71frqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423690/original/file-20210928-19-71frqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423690/original/file-20210928-19-71frqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423690/original/file-20210928-19-71frqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two posters advertising the services of slave traders L.C. Robards, top, and Silas Marshall and Bro, bottom, Lexington, Ky.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/two-posters-advertising-the-services-of-slave-traders-the-news-photo/532452166?adppopup=true">Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Growing numbers of professional slave traders stepped forward to satisfy that demand. They purchased enslaved people primarily in upper South states like Maryland and Virginia, where <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/tobacco-in-colonial-virginia/">a declining tobacco economy</a> left many slaveholders with a surplus of laborers. Traders then <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/slavery-trail-of-tears-180956968/">forced those enslaved people to migrate hundreds of miles</a> over land and by ship, selling them in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and other states where traders hoped to turn a profit.</p>
<p>The domestic slave trade was a brutal and violent business. Enslaved people lived in constant fear that they or their loved ones would be sold. </p>
<p><a href="https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/andersonw/andersonw.html">William Anderson, who was enslaved in Virginia</a>, remembered seeing “hundreds of slaves pass by for the Southern market, chained and handcuffed together.” Years after he fled the South, Anderson wrote of “wives taken from husbands and husbands from wives, never to see each other again – small and large children separated from their parents,” and he never forgot the sounds of their sorrow. “O, I have seen them and heard them howl like dogs or wolves,” he recalled, “when being under the painful obligation of parting to meet no more.” </p>
<p>Slave traders were largely indifferent to the suffering they caused. Asked in the 1830s whether he broke up slave families in the course of his operations, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Slavery_and_the_Internal_Slave_Trade_in/ou4xAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22his+business+is+to+purchase,+and+he+must+take+such+as+are+in+the+market.%22&pg=PA46&printsec=frontcover">one trader admitted that he did so “very often,”</a> because “his business is to purchase, and he must take such as are in the market.” </p>
<h2>‘So wicked’</h2>
<p>Domestic slave traders initially worked mostly out of taverns and hotels. Over time, an increasing number of them established offices, showrooms and prisons where they held enslaved people whom they intended to sell. </p>
<p>By the 1830s, the domestic slave trade was ubiquitous in the slave states. Newspaper advertisements blared “<a href="https://www.alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/historic/info/archaeology/1315DukeStBuildingHistorySkolnik2021.pdf">Cash for Negroes.</a>” Storefront signs announced that “dealers in slaves” were inside. At ports and along roads, travelers <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/slavery-trail-of-tears-180956968/">reported seeing scores of enslaved people in chains</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423691/original/file-20210928-32-1trp50t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A handwritten letter announcing the opening of a slave trading company at a hotel in Richmond, Virginia." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423691/original/file-20210928-32-1trp50t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423691/original/file-20210928-32-1trp50t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423691/original/file-20210928-32-1trp50t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423691/original/file-20210928-32-1trp50t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423691/original/file-20210928-32-1trp50t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423691/original/file-20210928-32-1trp50t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423691/original/file-20210928-32-1trp50t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 1852 letter from James B. Hargrove quotes the market prices for enslaved men, women and children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/12137hpr-ceedfabb1958e9a/">Library of Virginia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="http://commonplace.online/article/toxic-debt-liar-loans/">the money the trade generated</a> and the credit that financed it circulated throughout the country and across the Atlantic, as even European banks and merchants looked to share in the gains.</p>
<p>The more visible the trade became, the more antislavery activists made it a core of their appeals. When abolitionist editor Benjamin Lundy, for example, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44392735?seq=8#metadata_info_tab_contents">asked white Americans in the 1820s</a> how long they could look at the slave trade and “permit so disgraceful, so inhuman, and so wicked a practice to continue in our country, which has been emphatically termed THE HOME OF THE FREE,” he was one among a rising chorus. </p>
<p>But abolitionists made little headway. The domestic slave trade ended only when slavery ended in 1865.</p>
<h2>Propaganda obscures history</h2>
<p>Vital to the American economy, important to American politics and central to the experience of enslaved people, the domestic slave trade was an atrocity carried out on a massive scale. As British traveler Joseph Sturge noted, by the 1840s, the entire slaveholding portion of the United States could be characterized by division “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11454/11454-h/11454-h.htm">into the ‘slave-breeding’ and ‘slave-consuming’ States</a>.” </p>
<p>Yet popular historical knowledge of the domestic trade remains hazy, thanks largely to purposeful forgetting and to a propaganda campaign that began before the Civil War and continued long past its conclusion. </p>
<p>White Southerners made denial about the slave trade an important tenet in their defense of slavery. They claimed that slave sales were rare, that they detested the slave trade and that traders were outcasts disdained by respectable people.</p>
<p>Kentucky minister Nathan Lewis Rice’s assertion in 1845 that “<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000055471916&view=1up&seq=34&q1=disgust">the slave-trader is looked upon by decent men in the slave-holding States with disgust</a>” was such a common sentiment that even white Northerners sometimes parroted it. Nehemiah Adams, for example, a Massachusetts resident who visited the South in 1854, came away from his time in the region believing that “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/South_Side_View_of_Slavery/tuj9nuJGwM0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22negro+traders+are+the+abhorrence+of+all+flesh%22&pg=PA78&printsec=frontcover">Negro traders are the abhorrence of all flesh</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423684/original/file-20210928-20-4wasky.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four slave traders with guns guarding enslaved people they were transporting south from Virginia." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423684/original/file-20210928-20-4wasky.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423684/original/file-20210928-20-4wasky.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=670&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423684/original/file-20210928-20-4wasky.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=670&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423684/original/file-20210928-20-4wasky.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=670&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423684/original/file-20210928-20-4wasky.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423684/original/file-20210928-20-4wasky.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423684/original/file-20210928-20-4wasky.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Franklin and Armfield slave trading company partner John Armfield watching over enslaved men and women chained together who he and several employees were moving south from Virginia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.virginiamemory.com/online-exhibitions/exhibits/show/to-be-sold/item/387">John Murray/Library of Virginia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such claims were almost entirely lies. But downplaying the slave trade became a standard element of the racist mythology embedded in <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/lost-cause-definition-and-origins">the defense of the Confederacy known as the Lost Cause</a>, whose purveyors minimized slavery’s significance as they discounted its role in bringing about the Civil War.</p>
<p>And while the Confederacy may have lost on the battlefield, its supporters arguably triumphed in the cultural struggle to define the war and its meaning. Well into the 20th century, significant numbers of white Americans throughout the country accepted and embraced the notion that slavery had been relatively benign.</p>
<p>As they did so, the devastations of the domestic slave trade became buried beneath <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/12/gone-with-wind-is-also-confederate-monument-film-instead-stone/">comforting fantasies of moonlight and magnolias evoked by movies like “Gone With the Wind.</a>”</p>
<p>Recent years have seen <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-confederate-statue-debate-3-essential-reads-82729">monuments to the Confederacy coming down</a> in cities and towns across the country. But the struggle over how Americans remember and talk about slavery, now perhaps more heated and controversial than ever, arguably remains stuck in terms that are legacies of the Lost Cause. </p>
<p>Slavery still conjures images of Southern farms and plantations. But the institution was grounded in the sales of nearly 2 million human beings in the domestic slave trade, the profits from which nurtured the economy of the entire country.</p>
<p>Until that history makes its way more deeply into our popular memory, it will be impossible to come to terms with slavery and its significance for the American past and present.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165442/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I do not currently receive any external funding, but fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, Virginia Humanities, and numerous other institutions did help fund the research that produced the scholarship reflected in this piece.</span></em></p>By the time slavery ended, over 1 million enslaved people had been forcibly moved in the domestic slave trade across state lines. Hundreds of thousands more were bought and sold within states.Joshua D. Rothman, Professor of History, University of AlabamaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1623762021-06-08T16:30:50Z2021-06-08T16:30:50ZEdward Colston museum display: what happens next for the fallen statue<p>When Black Lives Matter protests broke out in the summer of 2020, attention quickly turned to perceived symbols of oppression. After years of calls to remove racist monuments, Confederate and colonial statues quickly came down all over the world. But despite this, art historian Erin Thompson <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/05/confederate-monuments-removed-temporarily/">has found that</a> many or most have gone up again in new locations.</p>
<p>Some statues have been moved into museums; others have been moved to private locales owned by people who are most enthusiastic about preserving them. Few have been destroyed, and in many places, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-legal-protection-for-england-s-heritage#:%7E:text=Historic%20England%20and%20the%20Secretary,in%20the%20most%20exceptional%20circumstances.&text=These%20new%20laws%20will%20protect,throughout%20England%20for%20future%20generations.">including the UK</a>, new laws block removal of statues, prescribing instead that they should be retained and explained. Thompson argues that since permanent removal is rare, the question is less whether statues should be removed, and more where they should be located, and how they should be contextualised.</p>
<p>One common proposal is to move such statues to a museum. Another is to keep them in place and add plaques, artwork or counter-memorials. A third option is to place new statues or artwork elsewhere, to create more balanced representation across an entire area. The idea behind each of these “recontextualising” methods is that changing the context of the statue can change its meaning.</p>
<p>People often think of such methods as a middle path that strikes a balance between removal and preservation. But it is rarely that simple. As I’ve <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/japp.12485">argued elsewhere</a>, a move that is dramatic enough to change the meaning of a statue is often just as controversial as removal, while subtler courses of action may not really alter the meaning of the statue at all. </p>
<p>Adding layers to the landscape by commissioning new works may seem like the most friction-free route. But in fact, as New York City’s commissioning process shows, commissioning new artworks to rebalance representation <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/vinnie-bagwell-park-commission-1673086">can be fraught</a> because artists and artworks invariably represent particular communities, values and tastes, and not others.</p>
<h2>Shaping Edward Colston’s new display</h2>
<p>This year, I had a chance to reflect on these questions in a new way when I helped advise on curatorial decisions for a temporary display of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol’s M Shed museum. The museum had to figure out how to display a dramatically damaged statue of a figure who had symbolised generosity, kindness and philanthropy to one part of the community, and injustice, suffering and oppression to another.</p>
<p>I rang colleagues in the US and Europe but none knew of recently vandalised statues on display in museums. We found valuable resources like the <a href="https://www.sitesofconscience.org/en/home/">International Coalition of Sites of Conscience</a> – a “global network of historic sites, museums and memory initiatives that connects past struggles to today’s movements for human rights” – but we still had to think through complex ethical issues, with limited examples to draw from. </p>
<p>What are the ethics of displaying a vandalised statue? The questions were myriad. Should the statue be standing up, lying down, or somewhere in between? Should the graffiti be preserved, or washed away? Should it be surrounded by placards and images of protesters, or should the space around the statue be neutral and open? </p>
<p>We chose to create a welcoming space that eschewed harsh imagery or language –except where necessary to honestly depict events. The museum has rightly presented the statue as it received it, fallen and painted. Though the statue is controversially lying down with the graffiti intact, the reason is straightforward: it was too damaged to stand upright, and the curators decided to preserve the spray paint from BLM protests - a material record of the statue’s most significant historical moment. </p>
<h2>The exhibition</h2>
<p>The thematic colour of the exhibition is a brilliant light blue, symbolising clarity. The space immediately above and around the statue is also neutral, open and reflective. This was achieved by keeping the wall blank and projecting a series of three-part dialogues and rhetorical questions over the statue. One dialogue says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I was euphoric when the statue came down.”</p>
<p>“Really? I was horrified!”</p>
<p>“I felt like a great weight was lifted.”</p>
<p>How did you feel when Colston’s statue was toppled?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This disappears, and then another dialogue says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Everybody knows slavery is wrong. But you can’t change history.”</p>
<p>“Statues don’t teach history. They honour people.”</p>
<p>“Colston’s statue <em>has</em> taught me history. When I see it, I reflect on the bad things and feel grateful for the good.”</p>
<p>What is the purpose of statues and memorials?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Different sides take turns, and the question is handed back to the visitor to form their own judgements, enabling us to represent diverse views in a way that allows for the possibility of evolving ideas.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1402164657914318848"}"></div></p>
<p>Once you move past the statue, there’s a wall with octagonal photographs of colourful Bristol street art framed around a mirror, so that visitors see their own reflection with Bristol in the background. Viewers are also prompted to ask how Bristolians can best come together. On the central side of this panel, a wall of responses to a survey about the future of the statue are projected, so that public voices appear in real time within the display.</p>
<p>The M Shed exhibition may well provide valuable lessons for other museums as they decide how to display contested statues. </p>
<p>Through conversation and consultation, it is now for us to work out what the next directions should be for the Colston statue. There’s no easy answer. But as policy-maker Ben Stephenson, consultant Dr Marie-Annick Gournet and I argue in our forthcoming Guidelines for Public Bodies Reviewing Contested Statues, it is key that all voices are welcome, and that the process is transparent, accountable, fair and inclusive, with democratic legitimacy and an emphasis on public dialogue and mutual respect. </p>
<p>It is equally key that we concentrate not only on statues, but also on taking this moment to inspire change towards a more equal society, while fostering ways for people to connect across political differences. That is the idea behind our next big project, <a href="https://www.bridginghistories.com">Bridging Histories</a>, a free public-learning programme launching June 10, which will exemplify how histories can bring us together to shape positive change for the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162376/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Burch-Brown is currently co-chairing the We Are Bristol History Commission. She is director for Bridging Histories, which is being funded by an ESRC Impact Accelerator award, a UKRI Citizen Science grant, and University of Bristol. </span></em></p>The question of what should happen to symbols of oppression has re-emerged a hot-button issue now that the graffiti-covered figure has moved to Bristol’s M Shed museumJoanna Burch-Brown, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1591172021-05-03T12:02:50Z2021-05-03T12:02:50ZWhat happened to Confederate money after the Civil War?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395369/original/file-20210415-14-1sgnlx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C40%2C4442%2C1862&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Confederate currency had images of enslaved people, historical figures and mythical deities.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/elycefeliz/6691305563">elycefeliz/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>What happened to Confederate money after the Civil War? – Ray G., 12, Arlington, Virginia</strong></p>
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<hr>
<p>At the time the Civil War began in 1861, the United States government did not print paper money; it only minted coins. As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=SsoLG_0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">historian of the American Civil War</a>, I study how the Confederate government used a radical idea: printing paper money.</p>
<p>In 1861, 11 states tried to leave the United States and form a new country, causing a four-year war. Wars cost a lot of money so the new country, called the Confederate States of America, printed money as a way to pay its bills. </p>
<p>But this money was more like a promise – in technical terms, a “promissory note” – because its certificates were really pledges to give the currency’s holder a specific amount of gold or silver, but only if the Confederacy won the war. </p>
<p>Bills issued earlier in the war said right on them, “Six months after the ratification of a treaty of peace between the Confederate States and the United States, the Confederate States of America will pay” the bill’s amount to the person holding it. Later currency delayed the promised payout until two years after a peace treaty.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395370/original/file-20210415-24-oeuf77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Confederate $1 bill" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395370/original/file-20210415-24-oeuf77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395370/original/file-20210415-24-oeuf77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395370/original/file-20210415-24-oeuf77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395370/original/file-20210415-24-oeuf77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395370/original/file-20210415-24-oeuf77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395370/original/file-20210415-24-oeuf77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395370/original/file-20210415-24-oeuf77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This Confederate $1 bill was issued in 1864 in Richmond, Va., the Confederacy’s capital.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CSA-T71-$1-1864.jpg">National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>The notes were commonly called “graybacks,” after Confederate soldiers, who wore gray uniforms. The bills were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CSA-T71-%241-1864.jpg">decorated with a variety of images</a>, including depictions of mythological gods or goddesses, like the goddess of liberty. Other graybacks bore images of important people in Southern history like George Washington, Andrew Jackson and Jefferson Davis. Some of the bills depicted enslaved Americans working in the fields, or featured pictures of cotton or trains.</p>
<p>But these images often weren’t very good quality, because the Confederacy didn’t have many engravers who could make the detailed plates to print the money.</p>
<p>When the South started losing the war, the value of Confederate money dropped. In addition, <a href="https://eh.net/encyclopedia/money-and-finance-in-the-confederate-states-of-america/">prices for food, clothing and other necessities rose</a> because many items were scarce during the war. Graybacks became almost worthless.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395372/original/file-20210415-23-iuhfnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in glasses looks at stacks of Confederate currency" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395372/original/file-20210415-23-iuhfnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395372/original/file-20210415-23-iuhfnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395372/original/file-20210415-23-iuhfnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395372/original/file-20210415-23-iuhfnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395372/original/file-20210415-23-iuhfnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395372/original/file-20210415-23-iuhfnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395372/original/file-20210415-23-iuhfnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This is what 1 million Confederate dollars looked like, in a photo from 1962.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/12170228">U.S. National Archives</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In late 1864, a few months before the war’s end, <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/confederate-dollar.asp">one Confederate dollar was worth just three cents</a> in U.S. currency.</p>
<p>When the Confederate army surrendered in April 1865, graybacks lost any remaining value they might have had. The Confederacy no longer existed, so there was nobody who would exchange its paper money for gold or silver.</p>
<p>Today, though, Confederate dollars have value as a collectible item. Just like people will pay money to own a Civil War hat or musket, they will pay money to own Confederate money. Some rare Confederate bills are now <a href="https://www.liveauctioneers.com/news/be-smart/confederate-currency-strong-dollar/">worth 10 times more than they were in 1861</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Gudmestad does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Confederate paper money was a promise to exchange the bill for gold or silver, but only after the Confederacy won the war.Robert Gudmestad, Professor and Chair of History Department, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1573042021-03-31T12:17:03Z2021-03-31T12:17:03ZGermany’s strange nostalgia for the antebellum American South<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392674/original/file-20210330-15-1hxrckf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C125%2C4311%2C2946&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Onkel Toms Hütte' – or Uncle Tom's Cabin – is the name of a subway station in Berlin.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/U-Bahnhof_Onkel_Toms_H%C3%BCtte_20130705_8.jpg">DXR via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Swastikas may be banned in Berlin, but Confederate flags still fly. </p>
<p>Alongside MAGA hats and Trump 2020 banners, <a href="https://www.fr.de/politik/coronavirus-corona-demo-proteste-berlin-hygienedemos-querdenker-fahnen-reichsflagge-reichskriegsfahne-90036343.html">Reich flags</a> and Brandenburg eagles, the American South’s battle flag has been <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/23/germanys-lateral-thinkers-unite/">raised high</a> during Germany’s anti-lockdown demonstrations – the most recent of which took place in Dresden in early March. </p>
<p>It’s appeared in the window of <a href="https://twitter.com/JCNB1/status/1302739145450811394">an apartment complex</a> and in advertisements for <a href="https://twitter.com/Confederate_DE/status/951183000355647488">an annual Christmas carnival</a>. The flag has also reportedly been seen <a href="https://twitter.com/nthnashma/status/1270784520489439233">in Berlin’s bars</a>.</p>
<p>Perhaps its presence in Germany simply represents how the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-confederate-battle-flag-which-rioters-flew-inside-the-us-capitol-has-long-been-a-symbol-of-white-insurrection-153071">Confederate battle flag</a> has become an international meme of the contemporary far right. The Stars and Bars could exist as just another image decontextualized and propagated through the internet’s airless corridors like, say, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvc777md">Che Guevara</a>. German Neo-Nazi websites do sell “Südstaaten” – or Southern – gear, along with <a href="https://www.zeit.de/2018/49/nazi-mode-rechtsextremismus-christoph-schulze-interview">Ansgar Aryan</a> and <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/neo-nazi-fashion-thor-steinar-and-the-changing-look-of-the-german-far-right-a-587746.html">Thor Steinar</a> merch.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/engl/student_display.cfm?Person_ID=1055827">as a cultural historian writing on transnational fascism</a>, I see the flag as part of a longer history of German nostalgia for the American antebellum South. Germans’ identification with the region stretches back, paradoxically, to <a href="https://www.google.de/books/edition/Mightier_than_the_Sword_Uncle_Tom_s_Cabi/MZTFk9A1HaEC?hl=de&gbpv=0">the very book that helped bring an end</a> to that era of slavery: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Harriet_Beecher_Stowe.html?id=p1VbAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">Uncle Tom’s Cabin</a>.”</p>
<h2>From Uncle Tom to … Nazism?</h2>
<p>On the U3 Line of Berlin’s mass transit system, there’s a stop called Onkel Toms Hütte, or Uncle Tom’s Cabin. </p>
<p>The stop bears the name of a neighborhood tavern and beer garden that stood for almost 100 years, from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/is-the-street-name-uncle-tom-racist/a-54416596">1884 until 1978</a>. German restaurants, inns and beer gardens bore the title of the anti-slavery polemic, which became a shorthand for a type of Southern comfort – evidence of the novel’s complex, counterintuitive and, at times, disturbing reception.</p>
<p>When the novel was translated into German and published in 1852 – the same year as its American release – <a href="https://www.google.de/books/edition/Uncle_Tom_s_Cabin_in_Germany/CYoluwEACAAJ?hl=de">it was immensely popular</a>. Though the melodrama about the cruelty of American slavery did much to stir German opinion against the practice, it also initiated a fascination with the seemingly simpler life of the slave depicted in Stowe’s domestic scenes. </p>
<p>A cottage industry sprouted up around it: plays, musical scores, <a href="https://www.google.de/books/edition/Europ%C3%A4ische_Sklavenleben/-3c9AQAAMAAJ?hl=de&gbpv=1&dq=europ%C3%A4ische+sklavenleben&pg=RA2-PA1&printsec=frontcover">even European-set reimaginings</a> in which slavery became an increasingly elastic concept. </p>
<p>The Berlin tavern, built in 1884, adopted the name Onkel Toms Hütte because its proprietor <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/is-the-street-name-uncle-tom-racist/a-54416596">liked the novel</a>. It was just one of many leisure establishments that drew on Stowe’s novel to promise a “good ol’ time.” <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110481327-016">Heike Paul</a>, a professor of American studies at FAU Erlängern-Nuremberg, characterizes this attitude as a “romanticization of slavery and a nostalgic, even remorseful view of its ‘pastness.’”</p>
<p>This hazy romanticization was undergirded by racial prejudice, which found in Stowe’s depiction of Tom as a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1595m04.8">happy slave</a>” a justification for racial hierarchy. Though “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was originally cultivating sympathy for Black slaves, by the early 20th century it was invoked by both German progressives and conservatives as proof of Black inferiority and <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/zaa-2005-0404/html">as a justification for colonization</a>. An introduction to a 1911 German edition of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” describes how “the Negroes are undeniably an inferior race, and, now that they have been freed, are widely perceived to be a plague in the United States.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A smiling girl sits on the lap of a laughing Black man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392834/original/file-20210331-19-1u0wfpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392834/original/file-20210331-19-1u0wfpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392834/original/file-20210331-19-1u0wfpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392834/original/file-20210331-19-1u0wfpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392834/original/file-20210331-19-1u0wfpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392834/original/file-20210331-19-1u0wfpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392834/original/file-20210331-19-1u0wfpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘The happy slave’ trope in ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ resonated in Germany.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://img.discogs.com/SdMh63czWYSmdL4DCKD8a_RHy3k=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2248014-1360515760-8251.jpeg.jpg">Discogs</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/zaa-2005-0404/html">Bettina Hofmann</a>, a professor of American studies at Bergische Universität Wuppertal, argues that “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” introduced racial terms to the German language that foreshadow the Nazi race categories. However, as she qualifies, “it would be an anachronism to accuse Stowe of having paved the way for Hitler’s thoughts on race.” </p>
<p>Still, it remains a dim possibility that “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” had at least some influence. Stowe’s novel was, after all, one of Hitler’s <a href="https://www.google.de/books/edition/Hitler_s_Private_Library/6KljrMYS3e4C?hl=de&gbpv=1&dq=timothy+ryback+hitler%27s+private+library&printsec=frontcover">self-proclaimed favorite books</a>. </p>
<h2>‘The Lost Cause’ in the Thousand-Year Reich</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Amerika_im_Dritten_Reich/rK4aAQAAIAAJ?hl=de&gbpv=0&bsq=philipp%20gassert">Despite a general ambivalence toward the U.S.</a>, Nazi Germany did sympathize with the antebellum South. The pubs inspired by “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” fed – and fed off of – the desire for a simpler life that slaves were supposed to have enjoyed, and which Nazism, in its idea of “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Volksgemeinschaft">volksgemeinschaft</a>,” a people’s community, also promised. </p>
<p>The South after the Civil War and Germany after World War I had suffered humiliating defeats, and each revised its identity and history in the face of those losses. As both had prided themselves on their military prowess, they sought to fashion narratives that would explain their losses without admitting their shortcomings. Recognizing the similarities, the German historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch brings them together in his 2000 book “<a href="https://www.google.de/books/edition/The_Culture_of_Defeat/TSkwAAAAQBAJ?hl=de&gbpv=1&dq=schivelbusch+culture+of+defeat&printsec=frontcover">The Culture of Defeat</a>.” </p>
<p>However, Schivelbusch emphasizes the differences in the stories they told. The South crafted the narrative of the “<a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lost-cause-the/">Lost Cause</a>,” in which the experience of defeat became a Christlike sacrifice. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Nazis trumpeted the “<a href="https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brills-digital-library-of-world-war-i/stab-in-the-back-legend-dolchstosslegende-beww1_en_0563">Dolchstoßlegend</a>,” the myth of the stab in the back. The German Army had been undefeated in the field, they claimed, but lost the war because of sabotage from within. This myth focused attention on internal enemies who needed to be eliminated.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392659/original/file-20210330-23-1qm5afo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman looks at a movie poster of 'Gone with the Wind.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392659/original/file-20210330-23-1qm5afo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392659/original/file-20210330-23-1qm5afo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392659/original/file-20210330-23-1qm5afo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392659/original/file-20210330-23-1qm5afo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392659/original/file-20210330-23-1qm5afo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1034&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392659/original/file-20210330-23-1qm5afo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1034&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392659/original/file-20210330-23-1qm5afo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1034&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Depictions of the South – found in films like ‘Gone with the Wind’ – found an eager audience in Germany.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/germany-movie-posters-and-movie-announcements-woman-looking-news-photo/542393517?adppopup=true">ullstein bild via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the “Lost Cause” nonetheless resonated in Nazi Germany. The success of Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gone-with-the-Wind-novel">Gone with the Wind</a>” and David O. Selznick’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031381/">subsequent 1939 film adaptation</a> points to a desire in Nazi Germany for the melodrama of sacrifice that Schivelbusch suggests the German narrative of defeat lacked. The sentimental novel went through 16 printings in Germany, selling <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40581977">nearly 300,000 copies</a>. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels watched the film repeatedly, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40581977">even as they eventually banned</a> it for general viewership. Praising the film in his diary, Goebbels declared, “<a href="https://www.google.de/books/edition/The_Goebbels_Diaries_1939_1941/LZ5SPwAACAAJ?hl=de">We will follow this example</a>.” </p>
<p>The onetime Nazi functionary <a href="https://books.google.de/books?id=htfLPlvxVzIC&lpg=PA5&redir_esc=y">Hermann Rauschning</a> writes that Hitler felt the Confederacy had been the real America. </p>
<p>“Since the Civil War, in which the Southern States were conquered, against all historical logic and sound sense, the Americans have been in a condition of political and popular decay,” he recalled Hitler telling him. Though perhaps apocryphal, <a href="https://books.google.de/books?id=htfLPlvxVzIC&lpg=PA5&redir_esc=y">Rauschning’s memory of the Führer’s words</a> squares with Hitler’s enthusiasm for “Gone with the Wind”: “In that war, it was not the Southern States, but the American people themselves who were conquered.” </p>
<h2>Danger of Stars and Bars sentimentality</h2>
<p>It is not only the self-declared far-right that flies the Confederate flag in Germany. Civil War reenactors do mock battle under <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/06/confederates-on-the-rhine/239724/">its banner</a>, an East Berlin country music scene gathers with it <a href="https://www.zeit.de/kultur/2020-05/country-musik-szene-konfoederiertenflagge-suedstaaten-usa-cowboys/komplettansicht">hung aloft</a>, and even some enthusiasts of German author Karl May, who set his novels in the American West, <a href="https://www.saechsische.de/suedstaatenflagge-flagge-beim-karl-may-fest-erlaubt-3835976.html">wave it proudly</a>. These groups insist their use of the flag “has no racist meaning.” When pressed, <a href="https://www.zeit.de/kultur/2020-05/country-musik-szene-konfoederiertenflagge-suedstaaten-usa-cowboys/komplettansicht">they appeal to tradition</a>. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>Distrust of nostalgia has been a vital part of Germany’s post-World War II national project of “<a href="https://www.google.de/books/edition/Learning_from_the_Germans/PrZuDwAAQBAJ?hl=de&gbpv=1&dq=susan+neiman+learning+from+the+germans&printsec=frontcover">working through the past</a>.” One would expect Germans, of all people, to be wary of such justifications. </p>
<p>For sale at an online German neo-Nazi merchandiser is an image of the Confederate flag bearing a “Totenkopf” – a skull and crossbones. It is an embellishment of the flag. And yet it reveals what has been there, hiding behind nostalgia, all along.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct the date of the release of the film “Gone with the Wind.” It was in 1939, not 1941.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157304/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sanders Isaac Bernstein is a fellow of the Studienstiftung des Abgeordnetenhauses von Berlin and a Manning Endowed Fellow at the University of Southern California.</span></em></p>Why did Confederate flags start appearing in the country’s anti-lockdown protests?Sanders Isaac Bernstein, Provost’s PhD Fellow in English Literature, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1522962021-03-11T13:30:40Z2021-03-11T13:30:40ZTexas distorts its past – and Sam Houston’s legacy – to defend Confederate monuments<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383118/original/file-20210208-19-1mwgr2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C288%2C3264%2C2154&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Huntsville reveres hometown hero Sam Houston. And he did not revere the Confederacy. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/wDKFUy">Jimmy Henderson/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/presscenter/splc-reports-over-160-confederate-symbols-removed-2020On%20February%2023,%202021,%20%20(SPLC)%20in%20Montgomery,%20Alabama,%20%5Bannounced%20that">At least 160 Confederate symbols were removed</a> from public spaces across the United States in 2020, according to the the Southern Poverty Law Center. Even Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy, has removed a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee from the Richmond Statehouse and is <a href="https://theconversation.com/latest-legal-hurdle-to-removing-confederate-statues-in-virginia-the-wishes-of-their-long-dead-white-donors-141156">trying to take down others</a> seen as offensive by an increasing numbers of Americans, including those whose ancestors were enslaved.</p>
<p>Texas has largely declined to participate in this nationwide reckoning with the symbols of the Old South. Instead, local officials are doubling down on their Confederate monuments.</p>
<p>Republican State Sen. Brandon Creighton, who represents the city of Conroe, near Houston, says he will <a href="https://thetexan.news/fight-over-historical-monument-removal-brewing-ahead-of-the-87th-legislative-session/">file a bill this legislative session</a> to protect historical monuments from efforts to remove them.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, officials in rural Walker County, Texas, <a href="https://www.itemonline.com/news/walker-county-commissioners-vote-to-keep-confederate-monument-at-courthouse/article_61850124-43c3-11eb-92e2-c3ec3ccaac42.html?fbclid=IwAR3sUR1s2JYRiv5r-oG0p6F_20OLdxyqR1ZZ8qJWLpBhodR8I0vN">voted unanimously</a> in December to keep a marker to “Confederate Patriots” on the county courthouse lawn in Huntsville. The vote followed an eight-month citizen campaign calling for the removal of the monument, which was erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1956. </p>
<p>Walker County Commissioners explained their Dec. 21 decision only by saying that the monument “does not belong to us,” suggesting it is a piece of local history. </p>
<p>Yet Walker County is hundreds of miles from any major Civil War battlefield. And the county’s most famous resident, Sam Houston, a Texas hero, ardently opposed the Confederacy. </p>
<p>So rejecting the Confederacy is Texas history, too. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376920/original/file-20210103-57963-1farc1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Crowd of young people stands by Walker County's Confederate monument with signs saying, 'The South lost the war, get over it!'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376920/original/file-20210103-57963-1farc1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376920/original/file-20210103-57963-1farc1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376920/original/file-20210103-57963-1farc1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376920/original/file-20210103-57963-1farc1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376920/original/file-20210103-57963-1farc1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376920/original/file-20210103-57963-1farc1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376920/original/file-20210103-57963-1farc1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A protest in Huntsville, Texas, calling to remove a Confederate marker at the Walker County Courthouse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Joseph Brown, The Huntsville Item</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A proud Southerner who opposed secession</h2>
<p>Sam Houston was the <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sam_Houston/1bcICAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=sam+houston&printsec=frontcover">most important political figure in Texas</a> before the Civil War. The modern city of Houston is named for him, as is the university in Huntsville, Texas, where we teach American history. </p>
<p>Born in Virginia, Houston moved to the Mexican state of Texas in 1832. A veteran of the War of 1812, Houston was soon appointed commander of the Texas Army and helped secure Texas’ independence at the 1836 <a href="https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/san-jacinto-battle-of">Battle of San Jacinto</a>. He went on to serve two nonconsecutive terms as president of the independent Republic of Texas. </p>
<p>Later, Houston was the state’s Democratic governor when secession became a serious subject of discussion in the South. </p>
<p>In 1860, following Abraham Lincoln’s election, white leaders in Huntsville wrote to Houston seeking his advice. Houston <a href="https://www.tsl.texas.gov/exhibits/presidents/houston2/sam_houston_nov14_1860.html">counseled them in a letter written on Nov. 14, 1860</a>, to remain vigilant in their defense of American constitutional values “when the country is agitated and revolution threatened.” He urged the group not to get “carried away by the impulse of the moment.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383104/original/file-20210208-23-bkys2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=112%2C61%2C6680%2C3513&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Faded, sepia-toned Texas flag" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383104/original/file-20210208-23-bkys2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=112%2C61%2C6680%2C3513&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383104/original/file-20210208-23-bkys2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383104/original/file-20210208-23-bkys2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383104/original/file-20210208-23-bkys2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383104/original/file-20210208-23-bkys2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383104/original/file-20210208-23-bkys2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383104/original/file-20210208-23-bkys2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flag of the independent Republic of Texas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/texas-flag-royalty-free-image/140217095?adppopup=true&uiloc=thumbnail_similar_images_adp&uiloc=thumbnail_similar_images_adp">troyek/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There were natural bonds between Houston and Southern secessionists: All were white male slave owners who openly endorsed white supremacy. But Houston saw slavery as a necessary evil, not a patriotic cause. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/swh.2018.0073">It is necessity that produces slavery</a>,” he said in 1855, and “it is convenience, it is profit, that creates slavery.” </p>
<p>As a senator in 1854, he had <a href="https://www.senate.gov/reference/common/generic/Profiles_SH.htm">voted against the extension of slavery into the Kansas and Nebraska territories</a> and was condemned throughout the South for his principled stand. </p>
<p>Sam Houston was no abolitionist, however. He <a href="https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/antebellum-texas">owned more than a dozen enslaved people</a> and profited from enslaved labor throughout his life. Unlike much of America’s Southern gentry, though, Houston was not willing to shed blood to expand slavery. </p>
<p>When Texas legislators met in 1861 to consider seceding from the United States, Houston made clear his opposition to the move. But Texas secessionists were a stronger force. When Houston refused to take an oath to the Confederacy on March 16, 1861, he was removed from the governor’s office. </p>
<p>Booed by crowds and driven from state politics, Houston settled into a self-imposed exile in Huntsville. He watched in dismay as Texas <a href="https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/secession-convention">joined the Confederacy</a>. He died two years later, a lonesome and broken man.</p>
<h2>A contorted view of Texas history</h2>
<p>As scholars who focus on race and class in Texas, we have studied the state’s history and have been led to speak out against Huntsville’s Confederate monument. </p>
<p>As we wrote last year in a <a href="https://www.itemonline.com/news/university-history-professors-release-statement-on-confederate-monument/article_b9836edc-b2fb-11ea-b984-cb899727bd03.html">statement published in the local newspaper</a>, the Huntsville Item, the courthouse marker obscures and misrepresents local history. It is an insult to Houston’s refusal to pledge allegiance to the Confederacy and ignores the fact that <a href="http://studythepast.com/democracy/censusdata.htm">enslaved African Americans made up most of Walker County’s population</a> during the Civil War. </p>
<p>It is, in so many words, an ahistorical monument.</p>
<p>Yet Huntsville – population 40,000 – glorifies Houston as a military and political hero. His former home is surrounded by a <a href="http://www.samhoustonmemorialmuseum.com/">modern museum</a> dedicated to him. And Interstate 45, which runs from Houston to Dallas, features a <a href="https://www.huntsvilletexas.com/148/Statue-Visitor-Center">67-foot statue</a> known as “Big Sam” advertising Huntsville to travelers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383101/original/file-20210208-17-c9b6gi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Old white wooden building with simple architecture" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383101/original/file-20210208-17-c9b6gi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383101/original/file-20210208-17-c9b6gi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383101/original/file-20210208-17-c9b6gi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383101/original/file-20210208-17-c9b6gi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383101/original/file-20210208-17-c9b6gi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383101/original/file-20210208-17-c9b6gi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383101/original/file-20210208-17-c9b6gi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Woodland, Sam Houston’s historic home in Huntsville, Texas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/report-confederate-monument-in-downtown-huntsville-vandalized/285-1db4e442-423d-42cd-b1fb-0cf5bfd6c861">Pma03/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How can modern Huntsvillians – like local officials across Texas – both revere this anti-Confederate leader and pledge their support for Confederate symbols? </p>
<p>The answer lies in the “<a href="https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/10/25/16545362/southern-socialites-civil-war-history">Lost Cause</a>,” a tenacious Southern myth that portrays slavery as benign and the Confederacy as noble. This is the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/19/conservative-activists-texas-have-shaped-history-all-american-children-learn/">preferred version of Texas history promoted by the state’s conservative leadership</a>, the version that appears in Texas schools’ textbooks. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383124/original/file-20210208-21-1lplmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A giant white marble statue of a man with a cane, highway in the foreground" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383124/original/file-20210208-21-1lplmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383124/original/file-20210208-21-1lplmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383124/original/file-20210208-21-1lplmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383124/original/file-20210208-21-1lplmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383124/original/file-20210208-21-1lplmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383124/original/file-20210208-21-1lplmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383124/original/file-20210208-21-1lplmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Big Sam,’ off I-45 outside Huntsville.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the 1950s, when the Huntsville chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected the courthouse monument, the group had <a href="https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/10/25/16545362/southern-socialites-civil-war-history">been pushing the Lost Cause narrative for over half a century</a>. </p>
<p>Mae Wynne McFarland, a native Huntsvillian and 1941 president of the Texas Daughters of the Confederacy, <a href="https://archon.shsu.edu/?p=collections/findingaid&id=92&q=">characterized the “War Between the States”</a> as a conflict “fought for exactly the same principles which inspired the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Texas Revolution.” </p>
<p>Houston fought in two of those three battles. His repeated public statements show, however, that he did not believe the Confederacy’s effort in the Civil War aimed at the “same principles” as the War of 1812 or the Texas Revolution. </p>
<p>Conservative white Texans have long tried to knit Sam Houston into their Lost Cause narrative. But biographers and students of history have always been there to correct them. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152296/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey L. Littlejohn has publicly advocated for the removal of Walker County's Confederate monument.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aaron David Hyams has publicly advocated for the removal of Walker County's Confederate monument.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristin Henze has publicly advocated for the removal of Walker County's Confederate monument.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zachary Montz has publicly advocated for the removal of Walker County's Confederate monument.</span></em></p>Texas’ most famous statesman, Sam Houston, was a slave owner who opposed the Confederacy. But white Texans tend to omit his dissent in current debates over removing Confederate markers.Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Professor of History, Sam Houston State UniversityAaron David Hyams, Visiting Assistant Professor, Sam Houston State UniversityKristin Henze, Lecturer, History Department, Sam Houston State UniversityZachary Montz, Lecturer, History Department, Sam Houston State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1533442021-01-29T17:18:27Z2021-01-29T17:18:27ZCongress could use an arcane section of the 14th Amendment to hold Trump accountable for Capitol attack<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380264/original/file-20210122-23-3ysn1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5326%2C3545&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If the Senate acquits former President Donald Trump in the upcoming impeachment trial, there's an obscure other way to punish him.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/trump-impeachment-captiol-rally-riot-picture-id1295074778?s=2048x2048"> iStock /Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Until recently, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was an obscure part of the U.S. Constitution. </p>
<p>The amendment is better known for its first section, which <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv">guaranteed individual rights and equality</a> following the abolition of slavery. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was created to tackle a different problem related to the Civil War: insurrection. </p>
<p>It prohibits current or former military officers, along with many current and former federal and state public officials, from serving in a variety of government offices if they “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States Constitution. </p>
<p>This section was created after the Civil War as part of the 14th Amendment to <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3748639">bar military officers and civil officials who joined the Confederacy from serving in government again</a>. </p>
<p>Now, this provision is cited in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/11/us/articles-impeachment-trump.html">article of impeachment</a> against former U.S. President Donald Trump, introduced after the insurrectionist violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. An impeachment trial is began in the Senate on Feb. 9. If Trump is acquitted, some senators have reportedly <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bipartisan-senate-duo-crafts-censure-resolution-bar-trump/story?id=75518145">considered a resolution invoking Section 3 of the 14th amendment</a> in an effort to bar him from holding future office. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381375/original/file-20210129-20282-wpivml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Kaine stands in a doorway wearing a face mask" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381375/original/file-20210129-20282-wpivml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381375/original/file-20210129-20282-wpivml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381375/original/file-20210129-20282-wpivml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381375/original/file-20210129-20282-wpivml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381375/original/file-20210129-20282-wpivml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381375/original/file-20210129-20282-wpivml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381375/original/file-20210129-20282-wpivml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sen. Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, is reportedly preparing a 14th Amendment alternative to a Senate impeachment trial.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sen-tim-kaine-d-va-arrives-for-the-senate-armed-services-news-photo/1230677873?adppopup=true">Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A Reconstruction-era amendment</h2>
<p>Right after the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868, Section 3 was enforced vigorously. </p>
<p>For example, Congress directed the Union Army to oust any former Confederate officials then holding office in the ex-Confederate states still under martial law. It is estimated that tens of thousands of men were made ineligible to serve by Section 3. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380263/original/file-20210122-17-9an1oi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Snap shot of the text of the articles of impeachment" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380263/original/file-20210122-17-9an1oi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380263/original/file-20210122-17-9an1oi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380263/original/file-20210122-17-9an1oi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380263/original/file-20210122-17-9an1oi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380263/original/file-20210122-17-9an1oi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380263/original/file-20210122-17-9an1oi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380263/original/file-20210122-17-9an1oi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Article 1 of the impeachment charges against Donald Trump invokes the 14th Amendment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">U.S. House of Representatives</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Congress then enacted legislation as part of the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/EnforcementActs.htm">First Ku Klux Klan Act in 1870</a> giving the Justice Department authority to bring lawsuits in federal court to enforce Section 3 against former Confederate officials still holding office in other states. </p>
<p>Three justices on Tennessee’s Supreme Court were sued under this law. One resigned; the other two contested their ineligibility in court. North Carolina and Louisiana also <a href="https://casetext.com/case/worthy-v-barrett-and-others">enforced Section 3 in court</a> upholding in 1869 the dismissal of some state officials <a href="https://cite.case.law/la-ann/21/631/">who had served the Confederacy</a>, including a sheriff, a constable and a district attorney.</p>
<p>In 1871, after the North Carolina Legislature elected their Civil War-era governor, Zebulon Vance, to the Senate, the Senate <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/electing-appointing-senators/contested-senate-elections/059Abbott_Vance_Ransom.htm">deemed him ineligible to serve under Section 3</a>. The state legislature was forced to choose someone else. </p>
<h2>Unity versus accountability</h2>
<p>Less than five years into Reconstruction, however, many Northerners began calling on Congress to grant amnesty to Southern officers barred from office by Section 3. The 14th Amendment gives Congress the power to restore the right to hold office with a two-thirds vote in each chamber. </p>
<p>This campaign, led by the prominent New York newspaper editor Horace Greeley, reflected white fatigue with the burdens of enforcing the entire 14th Amendment and a desire to move past the bitterness of the Civil War. Greeley and his “Liberal Republicans” <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1893989">mounted a presidential campaign in 1872</a> based in part on a platform of “universal amnesty.” </p>
<p>President Ulysses S. Grant, who was running for reelection, knew white public opinion now favored amnesty. In a Dec. 4, 1871 message to Congress, he asked <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-4-1871-third-annual-message">lawmakers to grant amnesty to former Confederate officials</a>. After a long and emotional debate, Congress did so in 1872 with the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/files/research/naturalization/411-confederate-amnesty-records.pdf">General Amnesty Act</a>. </p>
<p>Soon Southern voters sent many previously disqualified men back to Congress, including Alexander Stephens, the former Confederate vice president. </p>
<p>Confederate president Jefferson Davis and a few hundred other former federal officials and military officers remained excluded from public office.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380249/original/file-20210122-13-x5tul3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Carved stone on the side of a mountain" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380249/original/file-20210122-13-x5tul3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380249/original/file-20210122-13-x5tul3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380249/original/file-20210122-13-x5tul3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380249/original/file-20210122-13-x5tul3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380249/original/file-20210122-13-x5tul3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380249/original/file-20210122-13-x5tul3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380249/original/file-20210122-13-x5tul3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Georgia’s Stone Mountain commemorates Confederates leaders Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, both banned from office in the 1870s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Stone_Mountain-Georgia-USA0992.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In granting this amnesty, Congress rejected a proposal by Massachusetts <a href="https://www.nationalbook.org/books/charles-sumner-and-the-rights-of-man/">Sen. Charles Sumner</a>, an eloquent advocate for racial equality, to couple forgiveness for white Southerners with a new civil rights law that would, among other things, have barred racial discrimination in schools. </p>
<p>In 1898, with the Spanish-American War about to begin, Congress removed Section 3 ineligibility from all living ex-rebels. It was widely seen as another gesture of national unity, but it was another nail in the coffin of Reconstruction. </p>
<h2>Neglected but not forgotten</h2>
<p>During the 20th century, Section 3 was largely ignored. It was used just once, during World War I, to exclude the <a href="https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1851-1900/Representative-Victor-Berger-of-Wisconsin,-the-first-Socialist-Member-of-Congress/">socialist Congressman Victor Berger from the House</a> for his anti-war speeches. </p>
<p>In the 1970s, Congress gave <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-pardon-of-jefferson-davis-and-the-14th-amendment">Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis</a> posthumous Section 3 amnesty. This was again done in the name of national “reconciliation,” after the divisive Vietnam War. </p>
<p>Today Section 3, created to vanquish white supremacy, is seeing a revival. The Confederate flag, which never entered the Capitol during the Civil War, was carried inside during the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380248/original/file-20210122-17-ad7bzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Pelosi signs a document with four people standing behind her, and American flags" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380248/original/file-20210122-17-ad7bzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380248/original/file-20210122-17-ad7bzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380248/original/file-20210122-17-ad7bzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380248/original/file-20210122-17-ad7bzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380248/original/file-20210122-17-ad7bzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380248/original/file-20210122-17-ad7bzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380248/original/file-20210122-17-ad7bzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi signs an article of impeachment against then-president Donald Trump, Jan. 13, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/speaker-of-the-house-nancy-pelosi-signs-an-article-of-impeachment-picture-id1230572656?k=6&m=1230572656&s=612x612&w=0&h=V-BDhqZJ7pEUiqqfWq25M5pz4SND4vIJiq3wpFu6O7Q=">Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Any congressional members determined to have “engaged in insurrection” may be expelled under this provision by a two-thirds vote in their house of Congress. That includes, potentially, lawmakers who are found to have directly aided or incited the rioters. Capitol police are investigating several Republican congressional representatives <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/15/us/impeachment-trump">for allegedly leading “reconaissance” tours of the building on Jan. 5</a>.</p>
<p>Though lawmakers can remove their colleagues from office, they cannot legally keep those members from running for, and occupying, public office again. That’s because there is today no federal statute enforcing Section 3; those parts of the Ku Klux Klan Act were repealed long ago. Unless Congress passes a new enforcement law, any expelled lawmakers could return later.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Similarly, Congress could at any time use Section 3 to declare its constitutional opinion that Trump is ineligible to hold public office again, with a majority vote. But only the courts, interpreting Section 3 for themselves, can bar someone from running for president. </p>
<p>The issue may never come up. The Senate may disqualify Trump first, as part of impeachment, or he may choose not to run again. If he does run, though, he may have to take his case to the Supreme Court. A bipartisan <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bipartisan-senate-duo-crafts-censure-resolution-bar-trump/story?id=75518145">congressional opinion of ineligibility</a> would be a big blow to his candidacy.</p>
<p><em>This article, originally published Jan. 29, 2021, has been updated to reflect latest developments.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153344/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gerard Magliocca does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was first used against Confederate leaders after the Civil War to expel seditionist politicians. Now it could be used against Donald Trump.Gerard Magliocca, Professor of Law, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1531122021-01-25T13:30:10Z2021-01-25T13:30:10ZHow history textbooks will deal with the US Capitol attack<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379874/original/file-20210121-19-1djw89h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C2986%2C1998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rioters clash with police as they try to enter the Capitol building. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rioters-clash-with-police-trying-to-enter-capitol-building-news-photo/1230465266?adppopup=true">Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: The Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol represented an event unlike any other in American history. But how will it be portrayed in history textbooks used in America’s K-12 schools and colleges? Here, three scholars of American history weigh in.</em></p>
<h2>How soon can we expect this attack to be included in history textbooks?</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A photo of a woman wearing a teal shirt." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380050/original/file-20210121-15-fo2e5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380050/original/file-20210121-15-fo2e5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380050/original/file-20210121-15-fo2e5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380050/original/file-20210121-15-fo2e5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380050/original/file-20210121-15-fo2e5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380050/original/file-20210121-15-fo2e5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380050/original/file-20210121-15-fo2e5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wendy L. Wall, professor of 20th-century American history at Binghamton University.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.binghamton.edu/history/faculty/profile.html?id=wwall">Binghamton University</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Wendy L. Wall, professor of 20th-century American history at Binghamton University</strong></p>
<p>The <a href="https://dailyprogress.com/news/national/media-captures-unprecedented-storming-of-u-s-capitol/article_8ad9015a-bac9-50f0-b3ee-fa5372d713e9.html">unprecedented nature</a> of this attack, combined with the widespread sense that it marks a historical turning point, ensures that it will appear in textbooks as soon as publishing turnaround times allow. </p>
<p>In recent years, the college textbook market has <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/digital-textbooks-radical-transformation/">increasingly turned to digital formats</a>. That means changes will likely be made in months rather than years, at least at the college level.</p>
<p>Publishers generally revise print textbooks every few years. The Sept. 11, 2001 attacks appeared in texts published in 2003, although textbook writers were still trying to understand the full ramifications of 9/11 at the time. As the historian <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sXkhkTYAAAAJ&hl=en">Philip Jenkins</a> noted in his preface to one of those 2003 books, “it is much too early to tell what all the consequences of the terrorist attacks will be.”</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A photo of a man in a black shirt wearing glasses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379877/original/file-20210121-13-1k3qmfv.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379877/original/file-20210121-13-1k3qmfv.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379877/original/file-20210121-13-1k3qmfv.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379877/original/file-20210121-13-1k3qmfv.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379877/original/file-20210121-13-1k3qmfv.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379877/original/file-20210121-13-1k3qmfv.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379877/original/file-20210121-13-1k3qmfv.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christian K. Anderson, associate professor of educational leadership and policies at the University of South Carolina.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/education/faculty-staff/anderson_christian.php">University of South Carolina</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Christian K. Anderson, associate professor of educational leadership and policies at the University of South Carolina</strong></p>
<p>Often the distance of time and space is needed to evaluate the historical significance of an event. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol – and the subsequent swift <a href="https://theconversation.com/at-impeachment-hearing-lawmakers-will-deliberate-over-a-deadly-weapon-used-in-the-attack-on-capitol-hill-president-trumps-words-153074">second impeachment</a> of President Donald Trump for his role in inciting mob violence.</p>
<p>A fear immediately arose that this sort of thing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/politics/state-capitols-protests-trump.html">will only continue around the country</a>. That, to me, is all the more reason that having some historical understanding of current events is crucial for <a href="https://www.scholastic.com/content/corp-home/capitol-statement.html">people of all ages</a>.</p>
<p>Consider what happened after <a href="https://www.senate.gov/senators/FeaturedBios/Featured_Bio_Sumner.htm">Sen. Charles Sumner</a> of Massachusetts, the ardent abolitionist, was <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/The_Caning_of_Senator_Charles_Sumner.htm">nearly beaten to death</a> on the Senate floor in 1856 by Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina. Brooks beat Sumner because he was insulted by Sumner’s attacks on slavery.</p>
<p>Brooks walked out of the Senate chamber without immediate repercussions. He was later censured by the House but then reelected by South Carolinians, many of whom had sent him canes to replace the one he had broken while beating Sumner. </p>
<p>Historian <a href="http://www.stephenpuleo.com/about-steve/">Stephen Puleo</a> argues that this incident is one of several that <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15807860-the-caning">led to the Civil War</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380064/original/file-20210121-17-cwxvxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man waves the Confederate flag in the US Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380064/original/file-20210121-17-cwxvxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380064/original/file-20210121-17-cwxvxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380064/original/file-20210121-17-cwxvxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380064/original/file-20210121-17-cwxvxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380064/original/file-20210121-17-cwxvxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380064/original/file-20210121-17-cwxvxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380064/original/file-20210121-17-cwxvxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man carries a Confederate flag during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporter-of-us-president-donald-trump-carries-a-news-photo/1230455296?adppopup=true">saul loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Interestingly, a portrait of Sumner can be seen in the photo of one of the rioters who was parading through the Capitol with a Confederate flag during the attack. In the same image is a portrait of <a href="https://theconversation.com/authorities-are-yanking-the-legacy-of-slaveholder-john-c-calhoun-from-public-sphere-but-his-bigotry-remains-embedded-in-american-society-140917">John C. Calhoun</a>. A devout slavery proponent, Calhoun represented South Carolina in the Senate and served as vice president in the early 19th century.</p>
<p>To me, that a Confederate flag could enter the Capitol – particularly when the Confederacy itself never invaded Washington, D.C., much less the Capitol – stands as a stark sign of how the attack is part of a much larger thread of history.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A photo of a woman wearing glasses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379879/original/file-20210121-13-jng9n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379879/original/file-20210121-13-jng9n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379879/original/file-20210121-13-jng9n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379879/original/file-20210121-13-jng9n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379879/original/file-20210121-13-jng9n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379879/original/file-20210121-13-jng9n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379879/original/file-20210121-13-jng9n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Daisy Martin, director of the History & Civics Project at UC Santa Cruz.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://scale.stanford.edu/about/staff/daisy-martin">UC Santa Cruz</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Daisy Martin, director of the History & Civics Project at the University of California, Santa Cruz</strong></p>
<p>For K-12 education, the timing of including this attack on the Capitol in history textbooks is likely more affected by textbook companies’ revision schedules and states or school districts’ textbook adoption schedules than considerations about how much time must pass after an event to get the narrative right. This attack is a part of U.S. history now. It could be included in textbooks by the fall of 2021, if publishers can respond that quickly. The attack was not a complete anomaly, and it can be described as both a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/opinions/capitol-riot-confederacy-reconstruction-birth-of-a-nation-merritt-barnes/index.html">continuation of and a change from the past</a>, even while its long-term impacts are still unfolding. This event was seen worldwide. Its significance and drama likely will interest students, potentially propelling them into deeper questions about democracy, <a href="https://theconversation.com/symbols-of-white-supremacy-flew-proudly-at-the-capitol-riot-5-essential-reads-153055">white supremacy</a> and the American past. </p>
<h2>How will the attack itself be portrayed?</h2>
<p><strong>Wall:</strong> Dutch historian Pieter Geyl once called history “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/493146?seq=1">an argument without end</a>.” While history is based on facts, scholars are constantly reinterpreting and arguing over the past as they uncover new evidence and develop new methodologies. Contemporary politics and social and cultural trends also reshape what historians view as important. For decades after World War II, most scholars believed that liberalism had triumphed in the U.S. Historians saw modern conservatism as irrational and irrelevant, and paid it <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/right/">scant attention</a> in scholarly accounts or textbooks. That changed after the <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Reaganland/Rick-Perlstein/9781476793054">conservative political resurgence</a> ushered in by the presidency of Ronald Reagan.</p>
<p>Textbooks once focused almost exclusively on the militancy of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25622477.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Aeede2bdc4a34a5a6e3b9949195ff455a">Black Power</a>, a political and social movement of the 1960s and 1970s that advocated racial pride, economic empowerment and self-determination for people of African descent. Today many college textbooks <a href="http://www.americanyawp.com/text/27-the-sixties/#VII_Beyond_Civil_Rights">also discuss</a> the educational, food and medical programs that groups like the Black Panthers set up in African American communities.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380253/original/file-20210122-15-1ity79g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People line up to get food at a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380253/original/file-20210122-15-1ity79g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380253/original/file-20210122-15-1ity79g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380253/original/file-20210122-15-1ity79g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380253/original/file-20210122-15-1ity79g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380253/original/file-20210122-15-1ity79g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380253/original/file-20210122-15-1ity79g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380253/original/file-20210122-15-1ity79g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the Black Panthers distribute food to people in New Haven, Connecticut.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-black-panther-party-stand-behind-tables-and-news-photo/85211692?adppopup=true">David Fenton/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>New sources, new approaches and changing sensibilities will shape textbook accounts of this attack as well. Moreover, authors and publishers will make different decisions when they decide how much space to devote to the attack, what photos they will use to illustrate it and how to assign blame and contextualize it.</p>
<p>Was this attack the culmination of the four years of the Trump presidency or of the direction the Republican Party has taken over the <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/01/07/historians-and-political-scientists-react-wednesdays-siege-capitol">last four decades</a>? Does it reflect a deeply <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2021/01/historians-on-the-unprecedented-chaos-in-congress/#close">American strain of white supremacy</a> or the rise of virulent populism and <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/74199/ousted-autocratic-e%20presidents-and-their-backers-in-the-legislative-branch/">authoritarianism</a> around the globe? Is it the result of how <a href="https://www.timesnownews.com/international/article/capitol-attack-will-go-down-in-history-as-social-medias-911-eu-commissioner/705802">social media is influencing democracy</a>? Textbook authors might emphasize one or more of these themes and questions – or others, including some we can’t yet foresee.</p>
<p><strong>Anderson:</strong> Surely, all of these terms being mentioned – riot, insurrection, attack, sedition, treason – will be used. A good approach for a text might be to list each of these terms along with others, such as “protest,” with definitions. As an exercise or discussion question section, readers could be given examples of each of these from history and asked to determine how they would define the events that took place on Jan. 6, 2021. Alternatively, they could be asked to evaluate those events against each of these terms. In the end, it is likely that most students would conclude that there is a lot of overlap among these terms and that more than one might apply.</p>
<p>Is there a right or wrong answer? No. History is all about interpretation and reinterpretation. At some point a select few terms may become the most used, but for now professors, teachers, students and others will wrestle with what happened, why it happened and what we call it. The ambiguity is part of process.</p>
<p><strong>Martin:</strong> Textbooks should not carry the history curriculum on their own. A textbook can be a reference in the classroom, but it is also a source that, just like any other source, is worthy of interrogation. The content included in textbooks regarding the insurrection at the Capitol should therefore be the start of a conversation, rather than the end of it. History requires consulting multiple sources and identifying, critiquing and constructing evidence-based narratives. Engaging students in doing this work in the classroom, rather than just memorizing a particular narrative, is a better representation of the historical discipline and allows students to learn history.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wendy Wall has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and has been paid for work done for various textbook publishers. She is a member of the Tioga County Democratic Committee in Tioga County, New York.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian K. Anderson receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daisy Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The whole world saw the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol. How will the textbooks read by America’s students describe what took place?Wendy Wall, Associate Professor of 20th Century American History, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkChristian K. Anderson, Associate Professor of Higher Education, University of South CarolinaDaisy Martin, Director of The History & Civics Project, University of California, Santa CruzLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1530712021-01-14T13:20:53Z2021-01-14T13:20:53ZThe Confederate battle flag, which rioters flew inside the US Capitol, has long been a symbol of white insurrection<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378638/original/file-20210113-21-1t6lk0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5440%2C3566&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A historic first: the Confederate battle flag inside the U.S. Capitol.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporter-of-us-president-donald-trump-holds-a-confederate-news-photo/1230505137">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Confederate soldiers never reached the Capitol during the Civil War. But the Confederate battle flag was flown by rioters in the U.S. Capitol building for the first time ever on Jan. 6. </p>
<p>The flag’s prominence in the Capitol riot comes as no surprise to those who, like <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Vjw_kxsAAAAJ">me</a>, know its history: Since its debut during the Civil War, the Confederate battle flag has been flown regularly by white insurrectionists and reactionaries fighting against rising tides of newly won Black political power.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378614/original/file-20210113-23-1ch64ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four flags of the Confederacy" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378614/original/file-20210113-23-1ch64ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378614/original/file-20210113-23-1ch64ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378614/original/file-20210113-23-1ch64ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378614/original/file-20210113-23-1ch64ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378614/original/file-20210113-23-1ch64ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1845&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378614/original/file-20210113-23-1ch64ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1845&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378614/original/file-20210113-23-1ch64ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1845&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 1897 lithograph shows changes in Confederate flag design. The ‘Southern Cross’ design, chosen to visually distinguish Confederates from Union soldiers in battle, became a symbol of white insurrection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/reference/united-states-history/how-confederate-battle-flag-became-symbol-racism/#/confederate-flag-explainer-02.jpg">Library of Congress via National Geographic</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The infamous diagonal blue cross with white stars on a red background <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/reference/united-states-history/how-confederate-battle-flag-became-symbol-racism/">was never the Confederacy’s official symbol</a>. The Confederacy’s original “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Stars-and-Bars">stars and bars</a>” design was too similar to the U.S. flag, which led to confusion on the battlefields, where troop positions were marked by flags.</p>
<p>The official flag went through a series of changes in attempts to distinguish Confederate from Union troops. The Confederacy would ultimately adopt the “Southern Cross” as its battle flag – cementing it as a symbol of white insurrection. While it is technically the battle flag, it has been used the most, and therefore has become known more generally as the Confederate flag.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378633/original/file-20210113-13-xhsukn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The battle of Franklin" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378633/original/file-20210113-13-xhsukn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378633/original/file-20210113-13-xhsukn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378633/original/file-20210113-13-xhsukn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378633/original/file-20210113-13-xhsukn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378633/original/file-20210113-13-xhsukn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378633/original/file-20210113-13-xhsukn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378633/original/file-20210113-13-xhsukn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Confederate battle flag figures prominently in this depiction of the 1864 battle of Franklin, Tennessee.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kurz_and_Allison_-_Battle_of_Franklin,_November_30,_1864.jpg">Kurz and Allison, restoration by Adam Cuerden, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The original emblem</h2>
<p>Six decades before the Nazi swastika became an instantly recognizable symbol of white supremacists, the Confederate battle flag flew over the forces of the insurgent Confederate States of America – military troops <a href="https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/T/The-Confederate-and-Neo-Confederate-Reader2">organized in revolt</a> against the idea that the federal government could outlaw slavery.</p>
<p>The founding documents of the Confederacy make its goals of white supremacy and preservation of slavery explicitly clear. In March 1861, Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens declared of the Confederacy, “<a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/cornerstone-speech">its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests</a>, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.”</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states">documents drafted by seceding states</a> make this same point. Mississippi’s declaration, for instance, was very specific: “<a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states#Mississippi">Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery</a> – the greatest material interest of the world.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378637/original/file-20210113-21-134zqw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="University of Mississippi students hold a Confederate battle flag" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378637/original/file-20210113-21-134zqw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378637/original/file-20210113-21-134zqw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378637/original/file-20210113-21-134zqw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378637/original/file-20210113-21-134zqw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378637/original/file-20210113-21-134zqw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378637/original/file-20210113-21-134zqw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378637/original/file-20210113-21-134zqw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rioting white students at University of Mississippi hoist a Confederate battle flag in a backlash against James Meredith’s attendance as the first Black student in 1962.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/oxford-ms-prior-to-the-arrival-of-negro-james-meredith-here-news-photo/515454562">Bettman via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Backlash against racial integration</h2>
<p>After the Civil War, Confederate veterans groups used the flag at their meetings to commemorate fallen soldiers, but otherwise the flag <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/12/confederate-symbols-largely-disappeared-after-the-civil-war-the-fight-against-civil-rights-brought-them-back/">mostly disappeared</a> from public life. </p>
<p>After World War II, though, the flag surfaced as part of a backlash against racial integration.</p>
<p>Black soldiers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/magazine/black-soldiers-wwii-racism.html">who fought discrimination abroad</a> experienced discrimination when they came home. Racist violence against Black veterans <a href="https://eji.org/reports/targeting-black-veterans/">who had returned from battle</a> prompted President Harry Truman to <a href="https://www.history.com/news/harry-truman-executive-order-9981-desegration-military-1948">issue an executive order</a> desegregating the military and banning discrimination in federal hiring. Truman also <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42977761?seq=1">asked Congress to pass a federal ban on lynching</a>, one of nearly <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/lynching-federal-crime-us-sen-rand-paul-stands/story?id=71056869">200 unsuccessful attempts</a> to do so.</p>
<p>In 1948, the retaliation for Truman’s integration efforts came, and the Confederate battle flag resurfaced as a symbol of white supremacist public intimidation. </p>
<p>That year, U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, a South Carolina Democrat, ran for president as the leader of a new political party of segregationist Southern Democrats, nicknamed the “<a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807849101/the-dixiecrat-revolt-and-the-end-of-the-solid-south-1932-1968/">Dixiecrats</a>.” At their rallies and riots, they opposed Truman’s integration under the banner of the Confederate battle flag. </p>
<p>Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, white Southerners flew the Confederate battle flag at riots – including violent ones – to oppose racial integration, especially in schools. For example, in 1962, white students at the University of Mississippi hoisted it at a riot defying James Meredith’s enrollment as the university’s first Black student. </p>
<p>It took the deployment of 30,000 U.S. troops, federal marshals and National Guardsmen <a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/10/01/161573289/integrating-ole-miss-a-transformative-deadly-riot">to get Meredith to class</a> after the violent race riot left two dead. Historian William Doyle called the riot – which featured the Confederate battle flag at its center – an “<a href="https://www.squarebooks.com/book/9780385499705">American insurrection</a>.”</p>
<h2>Charleston, Charlottesville and the Capitol</h2>
<p>More recently, the Black Lives Matter era has seen an increase in violent incidents involving the Confederate battle flag. It has now featured prominently in at least three recent major violent events carried out by people on the far right.</p>
<p>In 2015, a white supremacist who had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/us/dylann-storm-roof-photos-website-charleston-church-shooting.html">posed with the Confederate battle flag</a> online <a href="https://theconversation.com/hate-violence-and-the-tragedy-of-the-charleston-shootings-43579">killed nine Black parishioners</a> during a prayer meeting at their church.</p>
<p>In 2017, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/eric-foner-white-nationalists-neo-confederates-and-donald-trump/">carried the battle flag</a> when they <a href="https://theconversation.com/charlottesville-attack-shows-homegrown-terror-on-the-right-is-on-the-rise-78242">marched in Charlottesville, Virginia</a>, seeking to prevent the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/28/charlottesville-james-fields-life-sentence-heather-heyer-car-attack">One white supremacist</a> drove his car through a crowd of anti-racist counterprotestors, killing Heather Heyer. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>At the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, an <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/confederates-in-the-capitol/617594/">image of an insurrectionist</a> toting the Confederate battle flag inside the Capitol building arguably <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photo-trump-supporter-riot-confederate-flag-us-capitol-2021-1">distills the siege’s dark historical context</a>. In the background of the photo are the portraits of two Civil War-era U.S. senators – one an ardent proponent of slavery and the other an abolitionist once beaten unconscious for his views on the Senate floor.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man carries the Confederate battle flag in the U.S. Capitol" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man carries the Confederate battle flag in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, between portraits of senators who both opposed and supported slavery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporter-of-us-president-donald-trump-carries-a-news-photo/1230455296">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The flag has always represented white resistance to increasing Black power. It may be a coincidence of exact timing, but certainly not of context, that the riot happened the day after Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won U.S. Senate seats representing Georgia. Respectively, they are the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/georgia-runoff-results-1109665/">first Black and first Jewish senators from the former Confederate state</a>. Warnock will be <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/06/how-raphael-warnock-won-georgia-455320">only the second Black senator</a> from below the Mason-Dixon Line since Reconstruction.</p>
<p>Their historic victories – and President-elect Joe Biden’s – in Georgia happened through large-scale <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/29/magazine/georgia-senate-runoff-election.html?smid=tw-nytpolitics&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR0UI-ibJHUbdwWnuKH1v6-BP4ndT96ygvzOA2yPiQ9JfD-dU-tNmDyNpNw">organizing and turnout</a> of people of color, especially Black people. Since 2014, <a href="https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/Elections/voter_registration_statistics">nearly 2 million voters</a> have been added to the rolls in Georgia, signaling a new bloc of Black voting power.</p>
<p>It should come as no surprise, then, that today’s white insurrectionists opposed to the shifting tides of power identify with the Confederate battle flag.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jordan Brasher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Since its creation, the infamous diagonal blue cross with white stars on a red background has been a symbol of white resistance to giving Black Americans more political power.Jordan Brasher, Assistant Professor of Geography, Columbus State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1503202020-11-20T13:21:37Z2020-11-20T13:21:37ZFive reasons Trump’s challenge of the 2020 election will not lead to civil war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370185/original/file-20201118-23-15u4kbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C8%2C2982%2C1985&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pro-Trump supporters, including Infowars host Alex Jones, hold a 'Stop The Steal' protest Wednesday in Atlanta as Georgia's recount nears the end. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/alex-jones-host-of-infowars-an-extreme-right-wing-program-news-photo/1229673008?adppopup=true">Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/09/22/disunited-states-could-a-second-civil-war--and-an-end-to-the-union--really-happen/">Some Americans fear</a> that the deep political divisions in the country and President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1329054683441278977">determination to challenge the results</a> of the election <a href="https://www.qcherald.com/columnists/time-gather-together-and-fight-%E2%80%A6-not-each-other">will cause civil war</a>.</p>
<p>Those who object to Trump’s tactics argue that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/world/europe/trump-autocrats-dictators.html">he behaves like an autocrat</a>. <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/enemy-people-trumps-war-press-new-mccarthyism-and-threat-american-democracy">Delegitimizing sources of information that resist his narrative</a>, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-10-14/column-trumps-demonization-of-his-opponents-is-dangerous">demonizing political opponents</a>, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/09/14/trump-escalates-the-signals-to-his-followers-use-lethal-violence-to-help-me-hold-power/">supporting political violence </a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/opinion/autocratic-legalism-trump.html">using courts as political tools</a> are all hallmarks of dictators.</p>
<p>Much as the South rejected President Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 election with armed rebellion, will President Trump’s many supporters attempt to violently overthrow a Biden-led government? </p>
<p>I <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/alexander-cohen-976110">am a political scientist</a> who studies public opinion and American politics. I believe the United States will not erupt in open rebellion. Here are five reasons.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370322/original/file-20201119-24-xp5vxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Georgia state trooper separates Biden supporters from Trump supporters." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370322/original/file-20201119-24-xp5vxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370322/original/file-20201119-24-xp5vxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370322/original/file-20201119-24-xp5vxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370322/original/file-20201119-24-xp5vxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370322/original/file-20201119-24-xp5vxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370322/original/file-20201119-24-xp5vxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370322/original/file-20201119-24-xp5vxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Georgia state trooper separates Biden supporters from Trump supporters at a ‘Stop the Steal’ rally Wednesday outside the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/georgia-state-trooper-separates-biden-supporters-from-trump-news-photo/1229673829?adppopup=true">Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. The American political system remains stable, if stressed.</h2>
<p>As the lawfully elected president of the United States, President Trump must follow certain rules and laws. This rule of law has continued even while he challenges the election. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/us/politics/trump-election-lawsuits.html">The courts are quickly dispatching judicial challenges as meritless</a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/11/07/were-heading-for-some-recounts-dont-expect-them-to-change-the-outcome/?sh=332646ad17e0">recounts are proceeding legally and normally</a>. Despite <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/19/election-2020-updates-georgia-release-recount-results/3775154001/">the recent invitation of Michigan GOP legislators to the White House</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/electors-vote.html">state legislatures have not signaled any desire to upend the electoral process</a>. While outcomes may frustrate the president, the legal process is being honored.</p>
<p>In contrast, before the Civil War, interpretation of the Constitution <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/69.2.327">became contentious</a>, states argued that the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-war-glass-negatives/articles-and-essays/time-line-of-the-civil-war/1861/">Union was dead</a> and politicians <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/field-of-blood_article-180970043/">fought in open combat in the Senate</a>. Military officers <a href="https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/g/going-south-u-s-navy-officer-resignations-dismissals-on-the-eve-of-the-civil-war.html">resigned their commissions</a> to support revolution. The current American political system has avoided such systematic conflict.</p>
<p>Of course, <a href="https://www.ushistory.org/us/10f.asp">governments can be shaken by the will of their citizens</a>. While President Trump’s supporters are vocal, they are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/11/09/strongman-trump-defeat-pinochet-election/">organized around a cult of personality</a> rather than any organizational structure. This limits their ability to overthrow systems of power. Compared with <a href="https://time.com/5106608/protest-1968/">organizations that resisted the Vietnam War</a> or <a href="https://www.history.com/news/sons-of-liberty-members-causes">Revolutionary War</a>, they lack discipline and hierarchy. They also lack supplies and material to combat entrenched resistance, and can hardly be seen as dangerous to military and federal law enforcement, which as of Jan. 20 will report to Joe Biden.</p>
<h2>2. Trump’s most vocal supporters enjoy little support from the powerful.</h2>
<p>The South rebelled with the full <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/why-non-slaveholding-southerners-fought">support of politicians, the plantation class and the small landholders</a>. Nearly everyone embraced rebellion. </p>
<p>Currently, however, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/business/joe-biden-wall-street.html">Wall Street does not embrace Trumpism</a> and has nothing to gain from rebellion. While many Fox News commentators have covered allegations of voter fraud – claims that have often been <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2020/11/15/fox-news-host-tucker-carlson-apologizes-false-claim-voter-fraud/6303120002/">debunked</a> – the channel is hardly calling for violent revolution. President Trump actually <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-fox-news-tweets/">finds them too moderate</a>. </p>
<p>Many prominent Republicans are seeking to satisfy Trump supporters while also <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/12/politics/republicans-recognizing-biden-legitimacy-president-elect/index.html">quietly backing a transition of power</a>. <a href="https://www.businessroundtable.org/business-roundtable-congratulates-president-elect-biden-vice-president-elect-harris?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top">Corporate America has not signaled any interest</a> in entering the fray. Powerful communications platforms are <a href="https://deadline.com/2020/11/twitter-facebook-senate-judiciary-committee-1234617061/">resisting streams of misinformation</a>.</p>
<p>The powerful do not support revolution.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370330/original/file-20201119-19-1w3zx22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Text on this Civil War-era envelope is from Jefferson Davis: 'Slave states, once more let me repeat, that the only way of preserving our slave property, or what we prize more than life, our Liberty, is by a union with each other.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370330/original/file-20201119-19-1w3zx22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370330/original/file-20201119-19-1w3zx22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370330/original/file-20201119-19-1w3zx22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370330/original/file-20201119-19-1w3zx22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370330/original/file-20201119-19-1w3zx22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370330/original/file-20201119-19-1w3zx22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370330/original/file-20201119-19-1w3zx22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Text on this Civil War-era envelope is from Jefferson Davis: ‘Slave states, once more let me repeat, that the only way of preserving our slave property, or what we prize more than life, our Liberty, is by a union with each other.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/image-depicts-a-snake-labeled-with-the-names-of-the-news-photo/175319121?adppopup=true">G. W. Falen/The New York Historical Society/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. The geography of pro-Trump support does not favor rebellion.</h2>
<p>In 1861, although the <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469606859/border-war/">border states were heavily divided</a>, the Confederacy was unified in rebellion. Anti-war sentiment in the North <a href="https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/a-23-2005-04-06-voa1-83126097/124809.html">was generally sporadic</a> and mostly anti-draft rather than pro-Southern. </p>
<p>In short, the North and South were relatively unified, quite adversarial, and ideologically polarized. In the South, this made arming and preparing for insurrection easy. It also made the rebellion difficult to quell.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The Constitution of the Confederate States of America before the U.S. Civil War, circa March 1861." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370189/original/file-20201118-23-10lwrjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370189/original/file-20201118-23-10lwrjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370189/original/file-20201118-23-10lwrjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370189/original/file-20201118-23-10lwrjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370189/original/file-20201118-23-10lwrjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370189/original/file-20201118-23-10lwrjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370189/original/file-20201118-23-10lwrjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Constitution of the Confederate States of America before the U.S. Civil War, circa March 1861.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-constitution-of-the-confederate-states-of-america-prior-news-photo/99859058?adppopup=true">Photo by Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/america-divided-rural-urban/2020/11/04/8ddac854-1ebf-11eb-b532-05c751cd5dc2_story.html">The geography of those strenuously contesting the election</a> is far less uniform. Blue metropolitan areas dot the map throughout the country. Demonstrators do not represent the views of all Republicans. And even in a deep-red state like North Dakota, <a href="https://www.270towin.com/2020-election-results-live/state/north-dakota">almost 32% of voting residents chose Biden</a>. This <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/11/18/rural-city-trump-voters/">geographical diffusion of ideology</a> makes organized rebellion extremely difficult. </p>
<h2>4. The military is loyal to the office, not the man.</h2>
<p>When governments are overthrown, <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/seizing-power">at least some elements of the military must be supportive</a>. In the U.S. Civil War, both commanders and soldiers joined the rebellion.</p>
<p>This seems implausible in the contemporary United States. Trump’s mismanagement and <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/08/trump-mocked-us-military-troops-losers-whole-life/">disrespect toward enlisted soldiers and the generals</a> have been notable, and <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/01/04/the-clash-between-trump-and-his-generals/">he keeps firing very popular commanders</a> and replacing them with political surrogates. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/military-officers-trump/598360/">Privately, many generals are eager for his presidency to end</a>, and most are unlikely to execute any unlawful orders. Some have even criticized his politicization of the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/21/politics/esper-milley-trump/index.html">military</a>. </p>
<p>Certainly, the president can dismiss officers and appointees he believes are personally disloyal to him, such as former <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-purge-of-defense-agencies-comes-at-a-vulnerable-time-for-us-national-security-149853">Secretary of Defense Mike Esper</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/trump-fires-head-u-s-election-cybersecurity-after-he-debunked-n1248063">Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Christopher Krebs</a>. Yet the military at large has not demonstrated unwavering loyalty to Trump, and appears to remain loyal to the office and rule of law. </p>
<p>In extending increased protection to Joe Biden, the Secret Service has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-secret-service/2020/11/06/0057dc5e-1fd9-11eb-90dd-abd0f7086a91_story.html">demonstrated this</a> too.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370334/original/file-20201119-15-owe4lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="President Trump and then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370334/original/file-20201119-15-owe4lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370334/original/file-20201119-15-owe4lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370334/original/file-20201119-15-owe4lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370334/original/file-20201119-15-owe4lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370334/original/file-20201119-15-owe4lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370334/original/file-20201119-15-owe4lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370334/original/file-20201119-15-owe4lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Among the military figures who have rebuked President Trump is retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, right, who resigned as Trump’s defense secretary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trump-speaks-alongside-secretary-of-news-photo/887037010?adppopup=true">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>5. Present civil disorder is, relatively speaking, tame.</h2>
<p>Finally, the social upheaval of the present day should be placed in historical perspective. Compared with the 1860s, or even <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/6/2/21277253/george-floyd-protest-1960s-civil-rights">the 1960s</a>, civil disorder is tame at best. </p>
<p>Protests have been mostly orderly. While there has been some <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/11/14/million-maga-march-dc-protests/">violence at recent demonstrations in Washington</a> and leftist-led disturbances on the West Coast, the violence is far less dramatic or widespread than in previous periods. Consider, for instance, violence at <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1968-democratic-convention-931079/">the 1968 Democratic Convention</a>, the <a href="https://www.kent.edu/may-4-historical-accuracy">1970 shootings at Kent State</a>, or <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/john-browns-day-of-reckoning-139165084/">John Brown’s bloody raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859</a>. If things were going to fall apart, city halls and statehouses would be occupied, National Guardsmen would throw down their weapons and join a revolution and violence would escalate beyond control. We simply are not there.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Without a doubt, the president’s attempts to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/13/trump-election-voter-fraud-claims-attack-democracy">undermine faith in the integrity of the election are dangerous to democracy</a>. Legal processes to ensure that every legal vote is counted will proceed. And, without a doubt, Trump and his surrogates will continue to focus on small details, broad generalizations and debunked theories to cast popular doubt on the legitimacy of a possible President Biden. They will try to delay vote certification, nullify state results and push the election to the House, where the president would win. </p>
<p>This is their right in a democracy. Yet, for the moment, the system appears poised to hold together. The months ahead will be turbulent, but civil war is unlikely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150320/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Cohen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Much as the South rejected President Lincoln’s election with a massive armed uprising, could President Trump’s many supporters rise up and overthrow a Biden-led government?Alexander Cohen, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Clarkson UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1471392020-10-12T15:23:12Z2020-10-12T15:23:12ZPacking the Court: Amid national crises, Lincoln and his Republicans remade the Supreme Court to fit their agenda<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362673/original/file-20201009-19-9macn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C11%2C808%2C641&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 9-member Chase Court in 1867, dominated by Northern Republicans.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/visiting/exhibitions/GroupPhotoExhibit/section1.aspx">Alexander Gardner/The U.S. Supreme Court</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a political battle over the Supreme Court’s direction rages in Washington with President Donald Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, history shows that political contests over the ideological slant of the Court are nothing new.</p>
<p>In the 1860s, President Abraham Lincoln worked with fellow Republicans to shape the Court to carry out his party’s anti-slavery and pro-Union agenda. It was an age in which the court was unabashedly a “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/supreme-court-politics-history/2020/09/25/">partisan creature</a>,” in historian Rachel Shelden’s words.</p>
<p>Justice John Catron had advised Democrat James K. Polk’s 1844 presidential campaign, and Justice John McLean was a serial presidential contender in a black robe. And in the 1860s, Republican leaders would change the number of justices and the political balance of the Court to ensure their party’s dominance of its direction.</p>
<h2>Overhauling the Court</h2>
<p>When Lincoln became president in 1861, <a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-war-glass-negatives/articles-and-essays/time-line-of-the-civil-war/1861/">seven Southern states had already seceded from the Union</a>, yet half of the Supreme Court justices were Southerners, including Chief Justice Roger B. Taney of Maryland. One other Southern member had died in 1860, without replacement. All were Democratic appointees.</p>
<p>The Court was “<a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83016751/1862-01-03/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1862&index=0&rows=20&words=last+power+Southern+stronghold&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1863&proxtext=last+stronghold+southern+power&y=23&x=20&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1">the last stronghold of Southern power</a>,” according to one Northern editor. Five sitting justices were among the court’s 7-2 majority in the racist 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling, in <a href="https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/dred-scott-v-sandford/">which Taney wrote</a> that Black people were “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.” </p>
<p><a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82014306/1861-02-06/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1861&index=4&date2=1869&words=Court+Federal+reorganize&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&rows=20&proxtext=reorganization+%22federal+courts%22&y=12&x=17&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1">Some Republicans declared</a> it “the duty of the Republican Party to reorganize the Federal Court and reverse that decision, which … disgraces the judicial department of the Federal Government.”</p>
<p>After Lincoln called in April, 1861 for 75,000 volunteers to put down the Southern rebellion, four more states seceded. So did Justice John Archibald Campbell of Georgia, who resigned on April 30.</p>
<p>Chief Justice Taney helped the Confederacy when he <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/lincoln-and-taneys-great-writ-showdown">tried to restrain</a> the president’s power. In May 1861, he issued a writ of habeas corpus in <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/lincoln-and-taneys-great-writ-showdown">Ex Parte Merryman</a> declaring that the president couldn’t arbitrarily detain citizens suspected of aiding the Confederacy. Lincoln ignored the ruling.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Chief Justice Roger Taney." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362670/original/file-20201009-23-jnd2g7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362670/original/file-20201009-23-jnd2g7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362670/original/file-20201009-23-jnd2g7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362670/original/file-20201009-23-jnd2g7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362670/original/file-20201009-23-jnd2g7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362670/original/file-20201009-23-jnd2g7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362670/original/file-20201009-23-jnd2g7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chief Justice Roger Taney tried to limit Lincoln’s powers in the Civil War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3c07588/">Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Remaking the Court</h2>
<p>To counter the court’s southern bloc, Republican leaders used judicial appointments to protect the president’s power to fight the Civil War. The Lincoln administration was also looking ahead to Reconstruction and a governing Republican majority.</p>
<p>Nine months into his term, Lincoln <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/first-annual-message-9">declared</a> that “the country generally has outgrown our present judicial system,” which since 1837 had comprised nine federal court jurisdictions, or “circuits.” Supreme Court justices rode <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1540-5818.2011.01270.x">the circuit</a>, presiding over those federal courts.</p>
<p>Republicans passed the Judiciary Act of 1862, overhauling the federal court system by <a href="https://www.fjc.gov/history/exhibits/graphs-and-maps/federal-judicial-circuits">collapsing federal circuits</a> in the South from five to three while expanding circuits in the North from four to six. The old ninth circuit, for example, included just Arkansas and Mississippi. The new ninth included Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Minnesota instead. Arkansas became part of the sixth, and Mississippi, the fifth.</p>
<p>In 1862, after Campbell’s resignation and McLean’s death, Lincoln filled three open Supreme Court seats with loyal Republicans <a href="https://www.oyez.org/justices/noah_swayne">Noah H. Swayne</a> of Ohio, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/justices/samuel_f_miller">Samuel Freeman Miller of Iowa</a> and <a href="https://www.oyez.org/justices/david_davis">David Davis of Illinois</a>. The high court now had three Republicans and three Southerners.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1850-1900/67us635">The 1863 Prize cases</a> tested whether Republicans had managed to secure a friendly court. At issue was whether the Union could seize American ships sailing into blockaded Confederate ports. In a 5-4 ruling, the high court – including all three Lincoln appointees – said yes.</p>
<p>Congressional Republicans spied a way to expand the court while solving what amounted to a geopolitical judicial problem. In 1863, Congress created a new <a href="https://govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/12/STATUTE-12-Pg794.pdf">tenth circuit by adding Oregon</a>, which had become a state in 1859, to California’s circuit. The Tenth Circuit Act also added a tenth Supreme Court justice. Lincoln elevated pro-Union Democrat <a href="https://www.oyez.org/justices/stephen_j_field">Stephen Field</a> to that seat.</p>
<p>And after Chief Justice Taney died in 1864, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Salmon-P-Chase">Lincoln selected his political rival, Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase</a>, an architect of national monetary policy, to replace him. With Chase, Lincoln succeeded in creating a pro-administration high court.</p>
<h2>Unpacking the Court</h2>
<p>After Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/johnson/life-in-brief">President Andrew Johnson of Tennessee</a>, who succeeded him, soon began undoing Lincoln’s achievements. He was a Unionist Democrat given the vice presidency as an olive branch to the South. He rewarded that gesture in part by pardoning rank and file Confederates. Johnson also opposed civil rights for newly-freed African Americans.</p>
<p>He also threatened to appoint like-minded judges. But the Republican-dominated Congress blocked Johnson from elevating unreconstructed Rebels to the high court. <a href="https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/39th-congress/session-1/c39s1ch210.pdf">The Judicial Circuits Act of 1866</a> shrank the number of federal circuits to seven and held that no Supreme Court vacancies would be filled until just seven justices remained. </p>
<p>The Philadelphia Evening Telegraph’s Democratic <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025925/1867-02-12/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1862&index=1&rows=20&words=Court+pack+Supreme&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1870&proxtext=pack+%22supreme+court%22&y=19&x=14&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1">editor sighed</a> that at least Republicans “cannot pack the Supreme Court at this moment.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362672/original/file-20201009-17-17ln89d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Noah H. Swayne." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362672/original/file-20201009-17-17ln89d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362672/original/file-20201009-17-17ln89d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362672/original/file-20201009-17-17ln89d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362672/original/file-20201009-17-17ln89d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362672/original/file-20201009-17-17ln89d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362672/original/file-20201009-17-17ln89d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362672/original/file-20201009-17-17ln89d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lincoln appointed three Republicans to the Court in 1862, including then-Judge Noah H. Swayne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2017895202/">Library of Congress Brady-Handy Collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Courting paper money</h2>
<p>Republicans refused to consider nominating Johnson in 1868, picking General Ulysses S. Grant instead. He won, and after President Grant’s inauguration, Congress passed <a href="https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/41st-congress/session-1/c41s1ch22.pdf">the Circuit Judges Act of 1869</a>, raising back to nine the number of Supreme Court justices. </p>
<p>Shortly after, Republicans faced a financial problem of their own making.</p>
<p>Beginning in 1862, Congress had passed three <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Legal-Tender-Cases#ref285279">Legal Tender Acts</a> – initially to help finance the war, authorizing debt payments using paper money not backed by gold or silver. Then-Treasury Secretary and current Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase had crafted the legislation.</p>
<p>But in an 1870 case, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/75/603">Hepburn v. Griswold</a>, Chase reversed himself in a 4-3 decision, ruling the Legal Tender Acts unconstitutional. That threatened national monetary policy and Republicans’ cozy relationship with industries reliant on government sponsorship.</p>
<p>President Grant, preparing for Chase’s ruling, was already working on a political solution. On the day of the Hepburn decision, he appointed two pro-paper-money Supreme Court nominees, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/justices/william_strong">William Strong of Pennsylvania</a> and <a href="https://www.oyez.org/justices/joseph_p_bradley">Joseph P. Bradley of New York.</a> Comparing the Republican administration to “a brokerage office,” a Democratic newspaper <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84038628/1870-09-20/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1862&index=4&rows=20&words=court+pack+supreme&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1870&proxtext=pack+%22supreme+court%22&y=19&x=14&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1">howled that</a> “the attempt to pack the supreme court to secure a desired judicial decision … (has) brought shame and humiliation to an entire people.” </p>
<p>It also brought a Republican majority to the high court for the first time.</p>
<p>Chief Justice Chase opposed revisiting the paper money issue. But the Supreme Court about-faced, ruling 5-4 in the 1871 cases <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/79/457">Knox v. Lee and Parker v. Davis</a> that the government could indeed print paper money to pay debts. Chase died in 1873, and his successor <a href="https://library.cqpress.com/scc/document.php?id=bioenc-427-18170-979622&v=4f9cfec81ebd03f5">Morrison Waite</a> championed the Republican pro-business agenda.</p>
<h2>Careful what you wish for</h2>
<p>Republican transformation of the federal judiciary in the 1860s and 1870s served the party well in the Civil War and constructed a legal framework for a modernizing industrial economy.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>But in the end Lincoln and Grant’s high court appointments ended up being disastrous for civil rights. Justices Bradley, Miller, Strong and Waite tended to constrain civil rights protections like the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees equal protection of laws. Their rulings in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/92/542">United States v. Cruikshank</a> in 1876 and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/109/3">Civil Rights Cases</a> in 1883 both sounded the retreat on <a href="https://theconversation.com/on-the-supreme-court-difficult-nominations-have-led-to-historical-injustices-103579">Black civil rights</a>. </p>
<p>In remaking the court in Republicans’ image, the party got what it wanted – but not what was needed to fulfill the promise of “<a href="http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm">a new birth of freedom</a>.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147139/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Calvin Schermerhorn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the 1860’s, the Supreme Court was a ‘partisan creature’ and President Lincoln and the Republican Party remade it so that it reflected the party’s priorities.Calvin Schermerhorn, Professor of History, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1433182020-09-04T12:24:19Z2020-09-04T12:24:19ZMonuments ‘expire’ – but offensive monuments can become powerful history lessons<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356156/original/file-20200902-20-14ywezs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4082%2C2780&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Charlottesville city workers drape a tarp over the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in 2018. Debate over removing the statue continues today.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Confederate-Monuments-Virginia/d95f1d175d4f4e1f94cdaec565c90845/3/0">AP Photo/Steve Helber, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Historical monuments are intended to be timeless, but almost all have an expiration date. As society’s values shift, the legitimacy of monuments can and often does erode. </p>
<p>This is because monuments – whether statues, memorials or obelisks – reveal the values of the time in which they were created and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=A_xmDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA7&dq=lies+across+america+loewen&ots=dvIDkQmqi5&sig=a8Jo_vADxErbjPGB0cdM8mqqbWg#v=onepage&q=lies%20across%20america%20loewen&f=false">advance the agendas of their creators</a>. </p>
<p>Many 9/11 monuments in the U.S., for example, <a href="https://www.911memorial.org/">serve both to remember and honor victims of the attacks</a> while promoting national vigilance. These views garnered nearly universal support immediately after the attacks. Over time, however, as the costs and consequences of “homeland security” became clearer, unqualified support for this agenda has waned. </p>
<p>Current debates around racism confirm that Confederate statues and Christopher Columbus statues, both of which effectively commemorate white superiority, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/12/876293231/confederate-monuments-the-history-of-controversial-symbols">have expired</a>, too. </p>
<p>The question then becomes: What’s a nation to do with expired monuments?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two young blond boys jump and crawl on a fallen bronze statue in a park" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356154/original/file-20200902-20-1vsxaqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C3824%2C2570&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356154/original/file-20200902-20-1vsxaqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356154/original/file-20200902-20-1vsxaqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356154/original/file-20200902-20-1vsxaqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356154/original/file-20200902-20-1vsxaqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356154/original/file-20200902-20-1vsxaqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356154/original/file-20200902-20-1vsxaqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Russian children play atop a toppled statue of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/after-the-coup-children-play-on-a-toppled-statue-of-stalin-news-photo/635966617?adppopup=true">Peter Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Purpose of monuments</h2>
<p>Over the past century, American public officials, citizens and historians have taken one of two paths. They either ignored expired monuments – the 20th-century approach – or, more recently, rejected them. </p>
<p>Ignoring problem monuments left the impression among many that officials endorsed the views they embodied. Today, people who see a host of monuments as illegitimate symbols of racism, authoritarianism and oppression have rejected this official indifference. Through protest or policy change, they have forced more open and productive discussions about race in America. Ultimately, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53005243">many offensive monuments have been removed</a>. </p>
<p>Removal eliminates the symbols of now-rejected values. But as <a href="https://cthistory.org/">historians</a> and <a href="https://education.uconn.edu/person/alan-marcus/">educators</a> who have <a href="https://www.socialstudies.org/system/files/publications/articles/se_7403131.pdf">explored the instructive value of monuments</a>, we believe statue removal can also limit the important conversations underway about their expired agendas. </p>
<p>Monuments provide an especially useful educational service because they serve double duty. They mark historical events or figures – the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/bost/learn/historyculture/bhm.htm">Battle of Bunker Hill</a>, say, or <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/local/photos-martin-luther-king-statues-around-the-country-and-beyond/oMpTNGO3Bkq2CEqfpvVLEN/">Martin Luther King Jr.</a> – and reflect the prevailing values of the time in which they were created. Monuments are also unique compared with other forms of cultural expression like art or literature in that they almost always reside in public spaces and are found in practically every town and city in America. </p>
<p>These attributes make monuments ideal launching points for helping society assess its current values and compare them with what mattered in the past. </p>
<p>Expired monuments are a lesson: They teach that people can be tragically wrong about something even when that belief once had widespread public support and official approval. Simultaneously, they show that radical, marginalized or contrary voices can turn out to be right. Or they may be, like their opponents, creatures of a particular moment in time. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356155/original/file-20200902-18-10up4y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Workers in hardhats use a small orange crane to hoist a plastic-wrapped and padded bronze statue" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356155/original/file-20200902-18-10up4y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356155/original/file-20200902-18-10up4y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356155/original/file-20200902-18-10up4y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356155/original/file-20200902-18-10up4y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356155/original/file-20200902-18-10up4y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356155/original/file-20200902-18-10up4y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356155/original/file-20200902-18-10up4y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1933 statue of Confederate leader Jefferson Davis is removed from the University of Texas campus to be placed in a university museum, 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/statue-of-confederate-leader-jefferson-davis-is-removed-news-photo/539558538?adppopup=true">Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reinventing monuments</h2>
<p>We’ve been studying <a href="https://www.wnpr.org/post/seeing-cracks-controversial-statues">how the function of expired monuments might be entirely reinvented</a> so that their outdated agendas provide a cautionary tale. </p>
<p>Many thinkers, artists and public officials <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/06/confederate-monuments-fall-question-how-rewrite-history/">have put forward suggestions</a>. </p>
<p>A common idea is to move expired monuments to museums, where they would be recast as art or as historic artifacts. The most creative proposals include making a <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-confederate-statue-graveyard-could-help-bury-the-old-south-118034">Confederate statues “graveyard”</a> or moving expired monuments to a <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/what-to-do-with-all-those-toppled-monuments-artist-suggests-turning-chicago-dump-site-into-sculpture-park">sculpture park</a>. </p>
<p>In all these settings, expired monuments would be stripped of the seal of official endorsement and clearly explained as once-venerated symbols of views now understood to be morally unacceptable. That raises larger questions about how societies can be blind to their own moral failures. </p>
<p>European countries offer some examples of how statues from painful chapters of history can be, as artist Jonathan Keats put it, “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathonkeats/2019/02/15/getty-monument/#1723d49852c5">forcefully repositioned in a radically new context</a>.” </p>
<p>Gorky Park in Moscow <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/07/21/892914684/what-to-do-with-toppled-statues-russia-has-a-fallen-monument-par">contains an area displaying old Soviet-era monuments</a> that deprives them of their symbolic power. Statues of dictators Stalin and Lenin are no longer in a prominent public location and are clumped together in an apolitical manner. </p>
<p>In Estonia, old Soviet-era monuments <a href="https://www.ajaloomuuseum.ee/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/noukogude-aegsete-monumentide-valinaitu">are part of a history-rich museum exhibition</a> that uses these relics of authoritarianism as a warning to future generations. </p>
<p>In post-World War II Germany, virtually all monuments to Hitler and the Third Reich were destroyed; perhaps some crimes are simply too abhorrent to be remembered so soon. But in 1986 <a href="https://www.shalev-gerz.net/portfolio/monument-against-fascism/">an unusual monument against fascism was erected</a> in Hamburg. Each year a portion of this vertical gray column was lowered underground until by 1993 it was completely gone. The 39-foot monument “disappeared” before it could expire. </p>
<p>The sunken monument can still be viewed underground. This tactic communicates that society needs to remember the dangers of fascism, but that a monument is not enough. Ultimately, only engaged citizens can attack injustice.</p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/217650363" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Artists Esther Shalev-Gerz and Jochen Gerz’s disappearing anti-fascism monument went up in 1986 and was fully sunk into the ground by 1993. Video from www.shalev-gerz.net.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>From valorizing to analyzing</h2>
<p>Reinventing expired monuments uses outdated objects to teach about a society’s past values while assessing – and perhaps challenging – its contemporary beliefs. In other words, it moves from valorizing monuments to analyzing them. </p>
<p>That’s rich terrain for educators. Teachers can use reinvented monuments to ask students to consider the validity of what American society believes, says and does. </p>
<p>Monuments expire because views change. But because present-day cultural values are themselves often difficult for people to see from another perspective, analyzing monuments also has the educational value of prompting deliberations about how future generations will reflect upon today’s United States. How did this generation of Americans grapple with issues like racial injustice, climate change and economic inequality? </p>
<p>Future generations will hold current society to account, just as Americans today are scrutinizing the views and actions of past generations. </p>
<p>Reinventing rather than simply removing monuments requires confronting the past, recognizing current conditions and planning for the future – all while embracing the reality that historical change is a complex, messy and malleable process.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143318/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Once stripped of their symbolic power, problem monuments offer what educators call ‘teachable moments,’ helping people assess society’s current values and compare them with what mattered in the past.Alan Marcus, Professor, University of ConnecticutWalter Woodward, Associate Professor of History, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1423272020-08-11T12:10:01Z2020-08-11T12:10:01ZAfrican Americans have long defied white supremacy and celebrated Black culture in public spaces<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351663/original/file-20200806-18-1phy7tm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=65%2C16%2C2609%2C1781&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters at the Richmond, Virginia monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee on June 18, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protesters-against-police-violence-and-racism-continue-to-news-photo/1221109212?adppopup=true">Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From Richmond to New York City to Seattle, anti-racist activists are getting results as Confederate monuments are <a href="https://hgreen.people.ua.edu/csa-monument-mapping-project.html">coming down</a> by the dozens.</p>
<p>In Richmond, Virginia, protesters have changed the story of Lee Circle, home to a 130-year-old monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. </p>
<p>It’s now a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/style/statue-richmond-lee.html">new community space</a> where graffiti, music and projected images turn the statue of Lee from a monument to white supremacy into a backdrop proclaiming that <a href="http://www.blacklivesmatter.com/">Black Lives Matter</a>. </p>
<p>This isn’t a new phenomenon. I’m a historian of celebrations and protests after the Civil War. And in my <a href="https://networks.h-net.org/node/4113/discussions/157750/register-kentucky-historical-society-vol-115-no-1-now-available">research</a>, I have found that long before Confederate monuments occupied city squares, African Americans used those same public spaces to celebrate their history. </p>
<p>But those African American memorial cultures have often been overshadowed by Confederate monuments that dominate public space and set in stone a white supremacist story of the past.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351665/original/file-20200806-20-1qr4rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351665/original/file-20200806-20-1qr4rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351665/original/file-20200806-20-1qr4rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351665/original/file-20200806-20-1qr4rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351665/original/file-20200806-20-1qr4rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351665/original/file-20200806-20-1qr4rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351665/original/file-20200806-20-1qr4rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351665/original/file-20200806-20-1qr4rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sketch of the ‘Colored National Convention’ in Tennessee, 1876.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sketch-of-the-colored-national-convention-in-tennessee-1876-news-photo/657153622?adppopup=true">From the New York Public Library/Photo via Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Black celebrations</h2>
<p>In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, African Americans had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/protesters-denounce-abraham-lincoln-statue-in-dc-urge-removal-of-emancipation-memorial/2020/06/25/02646910-b704-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html">less power and money</a> than whites did to erect statues to celebrate their past. </p>
<p>Instead, they challenged white dominance of public space using <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/emancipation-day">holidays</a>, <a href="https://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/13704/barkleybrown_negotiatingandtransforming.pdf;jsessionid=DD208F1EE358CB9A7B81FAD9BB7A0D42?sequence=1">parades</a>, <a href="https://coloredconventions.org/about-conventions/">conventions</a>, mass meetings and other events. Black people used public celebrations such as <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/historical-legacy-juneteenth">Juneteenth</a> to tell a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=0JWdKmh64XgC&printsec=frontcover">positive story</a> about their history, debate and set political goals for the community, applaud the role of Black soldiers and workers, and create a legacy and <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/history-and-memory-in-african-american-culture-9780195083972?q=fabre&lang=en&cc=us">cultural identity</a> for Black men, women and children. </p>
<p>These community celebrations helped guide Black protests and organizing after the Civil War and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/06/19/heres-what-juneteenth-looks-like-in-2020-photos/#2becddaf4199">continue to inspire activists today</a>. </p>
<p>Here are just a few of the ways African Americans challenged white dominance in public spaces:</p>
<p>• On July 4, 1866, Black people <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Defining_Moments/e8M8fnMcwyUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=kathleen+clark+%22liberty+which+no+white+man+ever+yet+presumed+to+take+with+Virginia%E2%80%99s+great+work+of+art%22&pg=PA52&printsec=frontcover">gathered</a> in Richmond’s Capitol Square and decorated the statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and George Mason with garlands and flags – a radical act that a reporter from the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/sn84024738/">Richmond Dispatch</a> fumed was “a liberty which no white man ever yet presumed to take with Virginia’s great work of art.” By claiming the Founding Fathers as their own, African Americans protested against their exclusion from public space and citizenship. </p>
<p>• In 1867 Black men and women publicly assembled at a convention in Lexington, Kentucky, where political leader William F. Butler <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=6NC-Yu-AHzgC&pg=PA47#v=onepage&q&f=false">stated</a>, “First we ha[d] the cartridge box, now we want the ballot box, and soon we will get the jury box. I don’t mean with our fists, but by standing up and demanding our rights.” Butler argued that Black men fought to maintain the Union, “but we were left without means of protecting ourselves….We need and must have the ballot box for that purpose.” </p>
<p>• A Baltimore procession in May 1870 celebrated the ratification of the <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/15th-amendment">Fifteenth Amendment</a>, which guaranteed Black men the right to vote. The event had more than 12,000 participants and 20,000 spectators. Newspapers called the procession <a href="https://msa.maryland.gov/dtroy/project/newspapers/american/">“vast and magnificent in its appointments, gorgeous in its decorations, and noble in its purposes.”</a> Participants carried banners reading, “Give us equal rights and we will protect ourselves,” and “Equity and justice goes hand in hand.” </p>
<p>These and other African American celebrations asserted their right to public spaces where previously enslaved people might have needed <a href="https://www.ncpedia.org/slave-codes">passes</a> or were supposed to be invisible. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351661/original/file-20200806-22-u0zlie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351661/original/file-20200806-22-u0zlie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351661/original/file-20200806-22-u0zlie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351661/original/file-20200806-22-u0zlie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351661/original/file-20200806-22-u0zlie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351661/original/file-20200806-22-u0zlie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351661/original/file-20200806-22-u0zlie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351661/original/file-20200806-22-u0zlie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The central part of this image, called ‘The Fifteenth Amendment,’ depicts the grand parade held in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 19, 1870.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/tr22a.html#obj11">Thomas Kelly after James C. Beard/Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Monuments and power</h2>
<p>For both Black and white residents, the actions they took to commemorate their cultures demonstrated the importance of residential and commercial spaces, such as city parks, neighborhoods and shopping districts, and especially official civic spaces such as city halls or courthouses. </p>
<p>White organizations raised hundreds of statues in public spaces, especially in the South, during the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20190201/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy">height of Confederate memorializing</a> in the Jim Crow and civil rights eras.</p>
<p>White supremacist groups such as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/08/16/the-whole-point-of-confederate-monuments-is-to-celebrate-white-supremacy/">United Daughters of the Confederacy</a> erected these Confederate monuments to, in their words, <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009583001">“correct history”</a> by celebrating the <a href="https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/lost_cause_the#start_entry">Lost Cause</a>, the idea that slavery was a benevolent institution and the Confederate cause was just. </p>
<p>These monuments represented a way to remind African Americans that <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/06/how-charlottesvilles-confederate-statues-helped-decimate-the-citys-historically-successful-black-communities.html">public spaces, public commemoration and public advancement</a> were not for them. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/06/29/why-bree-newsome-took-down-the-confederate-flag-in-s-c-i-refuse-to-be-ruled-by-fear/">And while protests</a> that Confederate flags and monuments do not belong in public spaces have grown stronger since <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/17/878828088/5-years-after-charleston-church-massacre-what-have-we-learned">2015</a>, resistance is not new. African Americans have been protesting against Confederate monuments since they were erected. </p>
<p>In Charleston, South Carolina, Black citizens in the 1880s and 1890s mocked and defaced the original monument to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-C-Calhoun">John C. Calhoun</a>, a South Carolina congressman and U.S. vice president, who defended slavery as a “positive good.” </p>
<p>Teacher and civil rights activist <a href="https://snaccooperative.org/ark:/99166/w68p67zx">Mamie Garvin Fields</a> remembered that as a child it seemed as if Calhoun’s statue was “looking you in the face and telling you … I am back to see you stay in your place.” She recalled bringing something to <a href="https://www.whatitmeanstobeamerican.org/places/the-south-carolina-monument-that-symbolizes-clashing-memories-of-slavery/">“scratch up the coat, break the watch chain, try to knock off the nose”</a> – perhaps leading to its replacement in 1896 with a much taller monument. </p>
<p>In 1923 the United Daughters of the Confederacy urged Congress to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/opinion/sunday/confederate-monuments-mammy.html">fund a monument</a> “to the faithful slave mammies of the South” in Washington, D.C. The National Association of Colored Women mobilized several Black activist organizations in letter-writing campaigns, petitions and editorials and crushed the plan. The monument was never built.</p>
<h2>Turning away</h2>
<p>White residents had the power to ignore Black residents’ commemorative activities. </p>
<p>Rather than watch the festivities or listen to Black speakers, they chose to leave town for the day, stay inside or express disgust among themselves. White people in Richmond celebrated the Fourth of July in the countryside, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=hGE3CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA130&lpg=PA130&dq=partly+to+enjoy+the+days+relaxation+from+business+and+partly+to+avoid+the+spectacle+which+they+could+not+have+avoided+witnessing+had+they+remained+at+home.&source=bl&ots=gvRTZzZnH9&sig=ACfU3U15UP1QzeTLZvGcgxKj44Rq61ZsFw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiSwe_s2bHqAhUFXc0KHcrDCvMQ6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=partly%20to%20enjoy%20the%20days%20relaxation%20from%20business%20and%20partly%20to%20avoid%20the%20spectacle%20which%20they%20could%20not%20have%20avoided%20witnessing%20had%20they%20remained%20at%20home.&f=false">noted the Richmond Dispatch newspaper</a>, “partly to enjoy the day’s relaxation from business and partly to avoid the spectacle which they could not have avoided witnessing had they remained at home.” </p>
<p>The Baltimore American newspaper noted that those who were too “thin-skinned” to see Black residents celebrating the Fifteenth Amendment shut their doors, “presenting the appearance that ‘nobody was in.’” White residents <a href="https://msa.maryland.gov/dtroy/project/newspapers/american/">“refused to witness the procession, declaring they could not gaze upon such a humiliating scene.”</a> </p>
<h2>Remaking public space</h2>
<p>In 2017, white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia on Aug. 11-12 for the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/14/543471538/charlottesville-rally-aimed-to-defend-a-confederate-statue-it-may-have-doomed-ot">Unite the Right rally</a>, ostensibly to protect a monument of Robert E. Lee. </p>
<p>It was a battle over what vision of America would prevail in public space in the 21st century. </p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s science, health and technology editors pick their favorite stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-favorite">Weekly on Wednesdays</a>.]</p>
<p>Chanting “White lives matter” and “Jews will not replace us,” the white supremacists violently attacked counterprotesters. </p>
<p>Today, the tables are turned. Anti-racism protesters are transforming public space by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/11/us/richmond-jefferson-davis-statue-pulled-down-trnd/index.html">tearing down</a> Confederate monuments or demanding their removal. Years of activism combined with these same types of activities – mourning, celebration of Black pasts, public demands for the future, politics in the streets – have led to the removal of many Confederate monuments, despite the violence and fury of white supremacists. </p>
<p>Activists are telling a <a href="https://www.vmfa.museum/about/rumors-of-war/">new story</a> of African American history out of the relics of a white supremacist past, just as they did in public celebrations in the 19th century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142327/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannon M. Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Protests of Confederate flags and monuments have grown since 2015, but resistance is not new. African Americans have been protesting against Confederate monuments since they were erected.Shannon M. Smith, Associate Professor of History, College of Saint Benedict & Saint John's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1432562020-07-23T23:56:39Z2020-07-23T23:56:39ZWhy is the Confederate flag so offensive?<p>Most Australians — aside from a few groups dedicated to <a href="http://2ndvirginiacsa.tripod.com/index.html">reenacting American Civil War battles</a> and history buffs including <a href="https://www.newsmaker.com.au/news/287596/american-civil-war-continues-to-interest-bob-carr-speaking#.XxksmfgzZyp">Bob Carr</a> and <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/all-the-pms-men-20090917-ftpg.html">Kim Beazley</a> — were not familiar until recently with the charged history of the flag of the Confederate States of America. </p>
<p>Now the flag is in the Australian news with reports SAS military in Afghanistan in 2012 used the bold red, blue and white flag to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-22/australian-soldiers-with-a-confederate-flag/12477738?nw=0">guide in a US helicopter</a>. Two SAS personnel also <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-22/australian-soldiers-signal-with-confederate-flag-in-afghanistan/12476530">posed for a photograph</a> with the flag.</p>
<p>Why do these images of Australian soldiers posing with a flag from another country’s long-ago war provoke such strong reactions? Because the flag has long symbolised defiance, rebellion, an ideal of whiteness and the social and political exclusion of non-white people — in a word, racism.</p>
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<h2>The Confederacy defeated, but not punished</h2>
<p>The flag represents the Confederate States of America (CSA or Confederacy), created in 1861 when 11 states seceded from the 85-year-old nation. This rebellion was prompted by the election of Abraham Lincoln as president. Lincoln argued slavery should not be extended to new territories the United States was annexing in the west. Southern enslavers feared slavery in their established states would be Lincoln’s next target. </p>
<p>The ensuing four-year Civil War between the CSA and US was resolved in 1865 with the defeat of the Confederacy and the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/thirteenth-amendment">near-abolition of enslavement</a>.</p>
<p>In the aftermath of the war, a longer battle began: how to interpret the war. For 155 years, this struggle has turned largely on the contradiction that although the US fought to end slavery, most white Americans, including in the North, had little commitment to ending racism.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-confederate-battleflag-comes-in-waves-with-a-history-that-is-still-unfurling-43997">The Confederate battleflag comes in waves, with a history that is still unfurling</a>
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<p>After a decade of military occupation of the South, known as the period of <a href="https://time.com/5562869/reconstruction-history/">Reconstruction</a>, the US military withdrew its forces. White Southerners, who had <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZIeiIgHl7A">retained their land</a>, implemented <a href="https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3100">unjust legal and labour systems</a>, <a href="https://eji.org/reports/reconstruction-in-america-overview/">underpinned by violence</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-herald-suns-serena-williams-cartoon-draws-on-a-long-and-damaging-history-of-racist-caricature-102982">racist ideas about black people’s inferiority</a>.</p>
<h2>Memorials of war</h2>
<p>The reembrace of white Southerners into the nation showed a desire to <a href="http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/the-lost-cause-reading-list/">“heal” the nation</a> by downplaying the horrors of enslavement and the struggle to end it. </p>
<p>New narratives depicted the war as a righteous, though tragic, struggle over “states’ rights”. By avoiding a conversation as to what those rights were about — that is, enslavement — <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/01/03/04/reviews/010304.04fonert.html">by the 1890s, they remade the meaning of the war</a>.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-louisiana-to-queensland-how-american-slave-owners-started-again-in-australia-140725">From Louisiana to Queensland: how American slave owners started again in Australia</a>
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<p>Confederate flags were a powerful symbol in reinterpreting the <a href="https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/the-name-of-war/">War of the Rebellion</a>. In the 1915 box-office hit feature film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0004972/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">The Birth of a Nation</a>, for example, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebtiJH3EOHo?t=1:00m55s">the central battle scene</a> involves a key character, Ben Cameron of South Carolina, ramming the pole of a Confederate flag down a United States army cannon. </p>
<p>In the very next shot, however, the injured Cameron is rescued from the no-man’s land between trenches by his longtime family friend, Northerner and US Army commander, Phil Stoneman. </p>
<p>The movie’s second half cemented the theme of reconciling white Southerners and white Northerners. As it stated in an intertitle, “The former enemies of North and South are united again in common defense of their Aryan birthright”. It even became a tool to <a href="https://www.history.com/news/kkk-birth-of-a-nation-film">recruit new members to the Ku Klux Klan</a>. </p>
<p>The war, in this telling, was a struggle between white and Black Americans, not between the US and the rebel Confederacy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349078/original/file-20200723-31-1h9rd6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Old film footage of Civil war film." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349078/original/file-20200723-31-1h9rd6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349078/original/file-20200723-31-1h9rd6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349078/original/file-20200723-31-1h9rd6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349078/original/file-20200723-31-1h9rd6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349078/original/file-20200723-31-1h9rd6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349078/original/file-20200723-31-1h9rd6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349078/original/file-20200723-31-1h9rd6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jamming the flag in the famous war film The Birth of a Nation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebtiJH3EOHo?t=1:00m55s">YouTube</a></span>
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<h2>Blowing in the wind</h2>
<p>The Confederate flag featured prominently in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031381/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Gone with the Wind</a> (1939), another immensely popular film that again glorified the way of life of white Southerners during and immediately after slavery. In this case, however, Hollywood used the more visually striking Confederate Battle Flag, which General Robert E. Lee had flown during the war, rather than any of the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/24/us/confederate-flag-myths-facts/index.html">CSA’s national flags</a>. </p>
<p>As Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) arrives at a makeshift hospital, the camera pans back to a field of hundreds of wounded and dead soldiers. The scene shifts only once those soldiers are framed by a <a href="https://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/article25592437.html">Confederate flag, blowing majestically</a> in the breeze.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349087/original/file-20200723-15-1uxupr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Confederate flag flies over the battlefield in Gone with the Wind." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349087/original/file-20200723-15-1uxupr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349087/original/file-20200723-15-1uxupr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349087/original/file-20200723-15-1uxupr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349087/original/file-20200723-15-1uxupr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349087/original/file-20200723-15-1uxupr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349087/original/file-20200723-15-1uxupr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349087/original/file-20200723-15-1uxupr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The battlefield in Gone with the Wind (1939).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNzhjNjI0YmYtZWY3Yi00MzJjLWJmZDgtMDE4NDNjYWVlMTA3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjE5MzM3MjA@._V1_.jpg">IMDB</a></span>
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<p>These two films buttressed a political economy that relied on a cheap labour force of disenfranchised Black Americans. But as African Americans began to make headway in the fight for civil rights, starting <a href="https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/fdr-racial-discrimination-1942">during World War II</a>, symbols such as the Confederate flag became <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/how-us-military-came-embrace-confederate-flag/613027/">even more important</a> to those who felt affronted by their gains. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/i-am-not-your-nice-mammy-how-racist-stereotypes-still-impact-women-111028">I am not your nice 'Mammy': How racist stereotypes still impact women</a>
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<h2>Enter the ‘Dixiecrats’</h2>
<p>In the late 1940s, a new political party of Southerners opposed <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/07/26/how-harry-s-truman-went-from-being-a-racist-to-desegregating-the-military/">Harry S. Truman</a> and the Democratic Party’s <a href="https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/executive-orders/9981/executive-order-9981">relatively sympathetic stance on civil rights</a>. </p>
<p>These “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-g-o-p-s-dixiecrat-problem">Dixiecrats</a>” adopted the Confederate battle flag as their party’s emblem. From that point, the flag was clearly associated with racist opposition to civil rights and with umbrage at perceived government intrusion into the lives of individuals.</p>
<p>When civil rights activism was at its most visible, in the 1950s and 1960s, many white Southerners became firmly attached to the flag. </p>
<p>The state of Georgia, where <a href="https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/a5799059-a479-474e-8df4-8f38c8d948a3/georgias-resistance-to-the-civil-rights-movement/#.Xxkv2PgzZyo">resistance to desegregation</a> was <a href="http://digital.wustl.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eop;cc=eop;rgn=main;view=text;idno=pri0015.0208.083">fierce</a>, adopted a <a href="https://time.com/5867157/confederate-flag-georgia/">new state flag</a> that incorporated the Confederate flag. </p>
<p>A few years later, in 1961, neighbouring state South Carolina began <a href="https://time.com/3930464/south-carolina-confederate-flag-1962/">flying the Confederate flag above its state Capitol</a>. </p>
<h2>Banning the flag</h2>
<p>In 2000, after years of protest, South Carolina legislators moved the Confederate flag to the State House’s grounds. Then, after <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/28/dylann-roof-charleston-church-shooting-appeal">white supremacist Dylann Roof</a> endorsed the Confederate flag and murdered nine black churchgoers in 2015, activist Bree Newsome shimmied up the pole and removed it in a galvanising act of <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/bree-newsome-removes-confederate-flag-south-carolina-state-house">civil disobedience</a>.</p>
<p>Two weeks later, the flag in South Carolina’s house of government was finally <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85CUyq4fJGQ%20%20https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/10/confederate-flag-south-carolina-statehouse">removed for good</a>. In the <a href="https://hgreen.people.ua.edu/csa-monument-mapping-project.html">years</a> since, hundreds of Confederate flags, statues and memorials have disappeared, including in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/us/politics/confederate-statues-us-capitol.html">national Capitol</a>. </p>
<p>In 2016, recognising the flag’s toxic history, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/22/politics/confederate-flag-walmart-south-carolina/index.html">major retailers announced</a> they would no longer sell the flag. </p>
<p>In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, the removal of Confederate symbols has <a href="http://cwmemory.com/recent-confederate-monument-removals/">accelerated</a>. In recent months, Southern company <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jul/07/bubba-wallace-donald-trump-twitter-nascar">Nascar</a> has banned the flag and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/confederate-flag-military-bases-ban/2020/07/17/301e9b48-c832-11ea-a9d3-74640f25b953_story.html">Department of Defense</a> has effectively done so, too.</p>
<p>In a polarised political and media environment, many white Southerners continue to defend their allegiance to the Confederate flag. </p>
<p>They claim the battle flag represents their Southern heritage, as if that heritage comprises an innocent history of mint juleps and church-going. The problem with that claim, as the history of the use of the flag demonstrates, is that the heritage it symbolises is also that of enslavement, inequality, violence and gross injustice. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1286085886468333569"}"></div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143256/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clare Corbould has received funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the Australian Greens.</span></em></p>Flying the distinctive Confederate flag stokes strong reactions — as Australian soldiers are discovering.Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1421192020-07-17T12:16:55Z2020-07-17T12:16:55ZConfederate flags fly worldwide, igniting social tensions and inflaming historic traumas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348002/original/file-20200716-27-1n0w6uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C10%2C3369%2C2010&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brazil's 'Festa Confederada.' Organizers say the annual event celebrates their Southern American heritage, but some Black Brazilians disagree.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jordan Brasher</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United States isn’t the only country debating Confederate symbols. </p>
<p>The Confederate flag can be seen flying in Ireland, Germany, Brazil <a href="https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/handle/1773/43616/Crelling_washington_0250O_19735.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">and beyond</a>. Sometimes, the red-white-and-blue-crossed flag is seemingly displayed as kitsch, a kind of Americana. Other times, its display conveys a political meaning more reflective of the flag’s origins in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-fully-appreciate-black-history-the-us-must-let-go-of-lingering-confederate-nostalgia-90723">slave-holding, Southern American republic</a>. </p>
<p>Wherever the Confederacy crops up, controversy usually follows. My <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=aahQqKkAAAAJ">academic research</a> as a cultural geographer traces how Confederate iconography gets stitched into the cultural fabric of places thousands of miles from the United States. </p>
<h2>Irish ‘rebels’</h2>
<p>In the city of Cork, Ireland, fans of the local hurling and soccer teams have <a href="https://www.irishcentral.com/news/confederate-flag-flew-proudly-at-a-major-irish-sporting-event">long flown</a> the Confederate flag, which is sometimes called the “rebel flag,” from the stands. Both teams are called “The Rebels,” and their team colors match those of the Confederate flag. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"896828827963469826"}"></div></p>
<p>After NASCAR banned Confederate flags at its racing courses in June 2020, a Gaelic Athletic Association administrator <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/06/12/ireland-is-addressing-its-own-issue-confederate-flags-being-displayed-by-sports-fans/">announced</a> that it would ban the flag at <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/cork-gaa-to-confiscate-confederate-flags-from-fans-attending-matches-1.4277385">Cork soccer games</a>, too. Some Cork Rebels fans had already <a href="https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/calls-for-cork-fans-to-abstain-from-flying-the-confederate-flag-in-croke-park-amid-violent-protests-in-virginia-36027521.html">soured on the flag</a>. In 2017 a defender of Confederate statues <a href="https://theconversation.com/charlottesville-attack-shows-homegrown-terror-on-the-right-is-on-the-rise-78242">killed anti-racism activist Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia</a>, cementing for many the flag’s association with white supremacy.</p>
<p>But the Red Hand Defenders, a right-wing paramilitary organization in Ireland, still brandishes the Confederate flag because of its potent political symbolism.</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=experts">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get expert takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em>]</p>
<p>The Protestant hardliner group emerged in the Ulster region in 1998 to oppose Northern Ireland’s possible secession from the United Kingdom and reunification with Ireland. To thwart this “home rule” campaign, the Red Hand Defenders <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/red-hand-defender-claims-belfast-bombing-1.409422">executed a series of deadly bombings</a> and in 1999 killed the Catholic human rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson. </p>
<p>Ireland’s connection with the Confederacy dates back to the Civil War. Many of the Confederate generals whose statues dot the U.S. South, including Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, were Scots-Irish. Their families came from Ulster, which includes parts of both Ireland and Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>In a 2008 post called “War of Northern Aggression,” the Belfast-based photography website Extra Mural Activity featured some <a href="https://extramuralactivity.com/2008/06/04/the-war-of-northern-aggression/">murals in the Ulster region</a>, including <a href="https://extramuralactivity.com/2008/06/04/the-war-of-northern-aggression/#jp-carousel-19450">one celebrating the Ulster heritage of</a> Generals Lee and Jackson. </p>
<p>“The Confederate attempt to secede from the union is put in parallel with loyalist resistance to Home Rule,” it explains.</p>
<h2>Brazil’s Confederate roots</h2>
<p>Like Ireland, Brazil has an ancestral connection to the American Confederacy. </p>
<p>After the Civil War ended slavery in the United States, some <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/blar.12202">8,000 to 10,000</a> Confederate soldiers left the vanquished South and migrated to Brazil. There, farmland was cheap and slavery was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/slavery-sociology">still legal</a>. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/blar.12202">Historical research</a> suggests that as many as 50 Confederate families purchased over 500 enslaved Black people in Brazil. </p>
<p>Today, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/brazil-confederate-flag-civil-war-americana-santa-barbara/2020/07/11/1e8a7c84-bec4-11ea-b4f6-cb39cd8940fb_story.html">descendants of these “Confederados</a>,” as the Americans came to be known in Portuguese, hold an annual <a href="http://www.focusongeography.org/publications/articles/brazil_confederacy/index.html">festival in São Paulo state celebrating their heritage</a>. Dancers clad in antebellum and Civil War attire square dance to American country music on <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazils-long-strange-love-affair-with-the-confederacy-ignites-racial-tension-115548">an enormous stage emblazoned with the Confederate flag</a> while visitors enjoy Southern fried chicken and biscuits and purchase Confederacy-themed souvenirs. </p>
<p>The festival, held in the <a href="https://www.sbnoticias.com.br/noticia/Festa-Confederada-acontece-neste-fim-de-semana-no-Cemiterio-do-Campo/167994">Protestant cemetery</a> where many original Confederate settlers were buried back when Brazil was predominantly Catholic, began in 1980. Since the 2017 killing in Charlottesville, the Confederados’ event has met <a href="http://www.focusongeography.org/publications/articles/brazil_confederacy/index.html">resistance from Black Brazilians</a>, who find its <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1743873X.2020.1768262">romanticization of the slaveholding South</a> and its Confederate iconography disturbing. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346771/original/file-20200710-30-zqaf57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346771/original/file-20200710-30-zqaf57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346771/original/file-20200710-30-zqaf57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346771/original/file-20200710-30-zqaf57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346771/original/file-20200710-30-zqaf57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346771/original/file-20200710-30-zqaf57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346771/original/file-20200710-30-zqaf57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Confederate iconography sold on miniature flags, buttons and mousepads at the 2019 ‘Festa Confederada.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jordan Brasher</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>White supremacy in Germany</h2>
<p>For Neo-Nazis in Germany, the white supremacy embedded in Confederate iconography is useful. It’s a stand-in for the Nazi swastika, which has <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/german-law-journal/article/ban-of-rightwing-extremist-symbols-according-to-section-86a-of-the-german-criminal-code/9C27FD4AFAC94347A3F04EE17C9E5DCD">been banned in Germany since the Holocaust</a>. And during <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/06/confederates-on-the-rhine/239724/">Civil War reenactments in Germany</a>, Germans who side with the South are often acting out “Nazi fantasies of racial superiority,” Wolfgang Hochbruck, professor of American Studies at the University of Freiburg, told The Atlantic in 2011. </p>
<p>In those situations, the Germans flying the Confederate flag clearly understand its historic origins and meaning. That’s not always the case. A Confederate flag spontaneously <a href="https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/handle/1773/43616/Crelling_washington_0250O_19735.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">appeared in the crowd at the fall of the Berlin Wall</a> in 1989, for example. </p>
<p>There, it may have been understood as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/how-us-military-came-embrace-confederate-flag/613027/">a symbol of anti-communism</a>. A recent <a href="https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/handle/1773/43616/Crelling_washington_0250O_19735.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">study</a> shows that German schools, like <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20180131/teaching-hard-history">many in the United States</a>, teach the Civil War as primarily a battle over Southern states’ desire to remain “free” from federal interference – not over their desire to preserve slavery. </p>
<p>Historians have debunked this “<a href="https://qz.com/378533/for-the-last-time-the-american-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/">states rights</a>” theory of the conflict. But many in Germany may still view the flag as a symbol of freedom or independence.</p>
<p>Sometimes, people in Germany and elsewhere seem to see the Confederate flag as simply part of American culture. The Confederate iconography spotted at a country music festival in <a href="http://ruthellengruber.com/blog/2015/06/23/confederate-flag-in-europes-wild-westcountry-scene/">Geiselwind</a> in 2007, for example, was probably seen as kitsch.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346763/original/file-20200710-18-vfb2cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346763/original/file-20200710-18-vfb2cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346763/original/file-20200710-18-vfb2cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346763/original/file-20200710-18-vfb2cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346763/original/file-20200710-18-vfb2cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346763/original/file-20200710-18-vfb2cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346763/original/file-20200710-18-vfb2cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Confederate flag among German flags as the Berlin Wall crumbled in 1989.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">public domain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Culture wars</h2>
<p>Though Confederate iconography takes on different meanings in other countries, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=aahQqKkAAAAJ">research shows</a> it often crops up along those countries’ own political fractures, religious conflicts and racial divides. Flying it tends to inflame simmering social tensions, reopen old wounds and spur debates about history like those underway in the United States. </p>
<p>For Americans, who are almost evenly split <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/us/minneapolis-floyd-protests.html">on whether the Confederacy represents racism</a>, the Confederate flag is today an unmistakable signal of a deeply divided society. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/18/politics/confederate-statues-removal-robert-e-lee-jefferson/index.html">In a 2020 poll, 52% said they support</a> removing Confederate monuments from public space.</p>
<p>That’s <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3663">up 19 percentage points</a> since 2017, when modern blood was shed over the 19th-century Confederacy. Charlottesville has forced people everywhere to contend with both the historic reality of the American South and, increasingly, its surprisingly worldwide 21st-century legacy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142119/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jordan Brasher has received funding from the National Security Education Program's David L. Boren Fellowship, The University of Tennessee’s Thomas-Penley-Allen Fellowship, the W.K. McClure Scholarship for the Study of World Affairs, and the Stewart K. McCroskey Memorial Fund. Jordan Brasher is a member of the American Association of Geographers and a Research Fellow with Tourism RESET, a collaborative research and outreach initiative dedicated to identifying, studying, and challenging patterns of social inequity in the tourism industry. </span></em></p>Symbols of the Confederacy can be seen in Brazil, Ireland, Germany and beyond. While some people may not grasp their racist history, others clearly fly the ‘rebel flag’ to defend white supremacy.Jordan Brasher, Assistant Professor of Geography, Columbus State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1409152020-06-19T04:33:25Z2020-06-19T04:33:25ZTrump rally in Tulsa, a day after Juneteenth, awakens memories of 1921 racist massacre<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342628/original/file-20200618-41230-kxa5pn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C9%2C1280%2C787&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Greenwood section of Tulsa, Okla., is seen in flames during in 1921 during one of the worst acts of anti-Black racism in American history.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Creative Commons)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For only the second time in a century, the world’s attention is focused on Tulsa, Okla. You would be forgiven for thinking Tulsa is a sleepy town “where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain,” in the words of the musical <em>Oklahoma!</em>.</p>
<p>But Tulsa was the site of one of the worst episodes of racial violence in American history, and a long, arduous process of reconciliation over the <a href="https://www.tulsahistory.org/exhibit/1921-tulsa-race-massacre/">Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921</a> was jarred by President Donald Trump’s decision to hold his first campaign rally there since the COVID-19 pandemic began. </p>
<p>The city is on edge. Emotions are raw. There’s anxiety about a spike in coronavirus cases, but lurking even deeper in the collective psyche is a fear that history could repeat itself. Tens of thousands of Trump supporters will gather close to a neighbourhood still reckoning with a white invasion that claimed hundreds of Black lives. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342865/original/file-20200619-41248-k4l8jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342865/original/file-20200619-41248-k4l8jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342865/original/file-20200619-41248-k4l8jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342865/original/file-20200619-41248-k4l8jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342865/original/file-20200619-41248-k4l8jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342865/original/file-20200619-41248-k4l8jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342865/original/file-20200619-41248-k4l8jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this June 15, 2020, photo, people walk past a Black Wall Street mural in the Greenwood district in Tulsa, Okla. Dozens of blocks of Black-owned businesses were destroyed by a white mob in deadly race riots nearly a century ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A Trump rally near a site of a race massacre during a global pandemic already sounded like a recipe for a dangerous social experiment. But then there was the matter of timing. The rally was to be held on <a href="https://www.juneteenth.com/history.htm">Juneteenth (June 19)</a>, a holiday commemorating the day slaves in the western portion of the Confederacy finally gained their freedom. </p>
<p>Normally, Juneteenth in Tulsa is one big party, the rare event that brings white and Black Oklahomans together. But fears about spreading COVID-19 <a href="https://www.kjrh.com/news/local-news/tulsas-annual-juneteenth-celebration-postponed-to-2021-due-to-pandemic">led organizers to cancel the event</a>. Then came the protests over the police killing of George Floyd. During those demonstrations in Tulsa, a truck ran through a blockade of traffic, causing one demonstrator to fall from a bridge. <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oklahoma/articles/2020-06-10/man-paralyzed-in-fall-from-bridge-during-oklahoma-protest">He is paralyzed from the waist down</a>. </p>
<h2>COVID-19 cases surging</h2>
<p>To make a bad situation even worse, the city is witnessing a <a href="https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/covid-19-spike-in-new-cases-continues-tuesday-as-oklahoma-reports-another-new-high/article_bea47715-0b9c-59e3-bbfa-76e17b905e78.html">surge in coronavirus cases</a>. Local health officials have acknowledged that the increase in new cases, mixed with close to 20,000 people packed into an arena, is “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/16/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-rally.html">a perfect storm</a>” that could fuel a super-spreader event. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342870/original/file-20200619-41209-3fh2gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342870/original/file-20200619-41209-3fh2gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342870/original/file-20200619-41209-3fh2gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342870/original/file-20200619-41209-3fh2gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342870/original/file-20200619-41209-3fh2gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342870/original/file-20200619-41209-3fh2gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342870/original/file-20200619-41209-3fh2gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342870/original/file-20200619-41209-3fh2gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum speaks during a news conference at police headquarters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Matt Barnard/Tulsa World via AP)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of Mayor G.T. Bynum’s biggest supporters began pleading with him to cancel the event. Bynum is of that rarest of species, a Republican who has staked part of his political legacy on combating racism. It was Bynum who shocked the white establishment by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/03/13/tulsa-mayor-bynum-mass-graves/">ordering an investigation into potential mass grave sites from the 1921 massacre</a>, even as many Republicans accused him of opening old wounds. </p>
<p>Faced with the prospect of provoking a fight with Trump, however, Bynum equivocated.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1271167155891994627"}"></div></p>
<p>Bynum found himself under attack from former friends and allies who urged him to do something. Then, on June 13, the Trump campaign announced <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7062475/trump-tulsa-rally-juneteenth-change/">that it would change the date of the rally to June 20 “out of respect” for Juneteenth</a>. It was a small victory for protesters, but some were further enraged by Bynum’s moral equivalence between the protests over Floyd’s death and a Trump campaign rally. </p>
<h2>Reminiscent of another mayor</h2>
<p>The mayor’s impotence has also brought back memories of 1921. The mayor then, T.D. Evans, found himself unable — or unwilling — to stand between an angry white mob ginned up over fears of a “Black uprising” and a Black community demanding racial equality. </p>
<p>Evans saw the rising influence of the Ku Klux Klan in Oklahoma politics and quietly voiced his displeasure. As the <em>Tulsa Tribune</em> cultivated white paranoia about a Black invasion of white Tulsa, Evans, and many like him, did little. “Despite warnings from Blacks and whites that trouble was brewing,” <em>Tulsa Word</em> reporter <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Tulsa_1921.html?id=ZX6mDwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Randy Krehbiel wrote in a book about the massacre</a>, “(Evans) remained mostly silent.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342872/original/file-20200619-41209-xq0fko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342872/original/file-20200619-41209-xq0fko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342872/original/file-20200619-41209-xq0fko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342872/original/file-20200619-41209-xq0fko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342872/original/file-20200619-41209-xq0fko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342872/original/file-20200619-41209-xq0fko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342872/original/file-20200619-41209-xq0fko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 1921 file image provided by the Greenwood Cultural Center, Mt. Zion Baptist Church burns after being torched by white mobs during the 1921 Tulsa massacre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Greenwood Cultural Center via Tulsa World via AP)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One historical parallel with 1921 stands out above the rest: the power and influence of “fake news” to mobilize alienated voters.</p>
<p>While much has been made of a revolution of social media and YouTube to undercut the gatekeepers of traditional media, a false news article was the most proximate cause of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. </p>
<p>The <em>Tulsa Tribune</em> published an article on May 30, 1921, with an unproven allegation that a Black man, Dick Rowland, had tried to rape a white woman in a downtown elevator. The dog-whistle came through loud and clear. No evidence was presented and charges were later dropped. But the news was enough to set off calls for a lynching of Rowland.</p>
<h2>Hundreds killed</h2>
<p>A mob formed around the Tulsa courthouse. <em>The Tribune</em> had been stoking fears of a “Black uprising” for months, running stories of race mixing, jazz and interracial dancing at Black road houses. </p>
<p>A few Blacks armed themselves and tried to stop the lynching. The sight of armed Blacks made the white mob direct its fury at a bigger target — the Black section of town, Greenwood. </p>
<p>By the dawn of June 1, 1921, Greenwood lay in ruins, with hundreds dead and thousands interned in camps. The devastation did not come as a surprise to those who had watched the rise of xenophobia during the First World War and the second coming of the KKK, an organization that received a boost after the screening <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150206-the-most-racist-movie-ever-made">of the racist film <em>The Birth of a Nation</em></a> in 1915 at the White House. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342876/original/file-20200619-41242-bs7m6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342876/original/file-20200619-41242-bs7m6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342876/original/file-20200619-41242-bs7m6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342876/original/file-20200619-41242-bs7m6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342876/original/file-20200619-41242-bs7m6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342876/original/file-20200619-41242-bs7m6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342876/original/file-20200619-41242-bs7m6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342876/original/file-20200619-41242-bs7m6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trump reaches into his suit jacket to read remarks following the events in Charlottesville, Va. He defended white supremacists following a Unite the Right rally that turned violent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tulsa, and the nation, had been primed for racial violence by a white supremacist media and presidential administration. Many well-intentioned people stood idly by, hoping the trouble would soon blow over. It did not.</p>
<p>Karl Marx wrote that history repeats itself, <a href="https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2016/11/24/trump--tragedy-or-farce.html">the first time as tragedy, the second as farce</a>. During the spring of 1921, Tulsa got the tragedy. With Trump rallying tens of thousands of his supporters near Greenwood amid a deadly pandemic, the best we can hope for this time around is farce.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140915/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Russell Cobb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>History will cast a long shadow over Donald Trump’s first campaign rally since the pandemic began.Russell Cobb, Associate Professor of Latin American Studies, University of AlbertaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1298462020-01-30T13:13:43Z2020-01-30T13:13:43ZUnion gunboats didn’t just attack rebel military sites – they went after civilian property, too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311438/original/file-20200122-117917-8aavdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=111%2C123%2C3930%2C2675&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The USS Cairo pulls up to the banks of the Mississippi River in 1862.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-61000/NH-61568.html">U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the American Civil War, huge metal monsters roamed the Mississippi River. Called ironclads, these boats were about 50 yards long, carried 75 tons of armor on their hulls and decks, sported up to 13 guns, and had crews numbering up to 250 men. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nps.gov/vick/learn/historyculture/city-class-ironclads.htm">seven city-class ironclads</a>, sometimes called the turtles, were the most recognizable boats in the fleet, but northern laborers also converted a few existing steamboats into armored vessels. </p>
<p>The Union used this cutting-edge naval technology to attack Confederate forts at places like Tennessee’s <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/fall-fort-henry">Fort Henry</a> and <a href="https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/island-no.-10.html">Island No. 10</a>, and <a href="https://www.nps.gov/vick/index.htm">Vicksburg, Mississippi</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311442/original/file-20200122-117943-104l601.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311442/original/file-20200122-117943-104l601.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311442/original/file-20200122-117943-104l601.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311442/original/file-20200122-117943-104l601.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311442/original/file-20200122-117943-104l601.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311442/original/file-20200122-117943-104l601.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311442/original/file-20200122-117943-104l601.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311442/original/file-20200122-117943-104l601.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The USS Essex operating on the Mississippi River on Nov. 1, 1862, as drawn by William M.C. Philbrick, a crew member of a nearby Navy ship.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-54000/NH-54284.html">U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But these conventional battles are only one part of the larger story of the Union’s Mississippi River Squadron.</p>
<h2>Piecing together fragments</h2>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=SsoLG_0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Civil War historian</a> who has been researching the Union’s river navy for seven years, I have learned that the fleet was important in ways beyond its attacks on southern forts. It protected Union transports and supply boats from Confederate ambushes. In the process, the Union navy waged a nasty war against southerners who supported the insurgents.</p>
<p>The evidence for this unconventional war is hidden in the shadows of the archives. Bits and pieces of information are littered throughout the <a href="http://collections.library.cornell.edu/moa_new/ofre.html">Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies</a>, materials in the National Archives, collections of sailors’ letters and <a href="https://www.rbhayes.org/clientuploads/pdfs/Manuscripts/James%20A.%20Dickinson%20Diary%20Transcription.pdf">diaries</a>, and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=SMoOAAAAIAAJ&printsec=titlepage&dq=military+order+loyal+legion+united+states&source=gbs_summary_r">post-war accounts</a>. </p>
<p>Piecing together this fragmentary material, I created a database of 559 separate episodes where gunboats attacked a target, southerners shot at a federal boat, or there was a mutual fight. I then worked with <a href="https://gis.colostate.edu/">my university’s mapping experts</a> to analyze the data using computers.</p>
<p>As the resulting map makes clear, combat between Union gunboats and southerners occurred across the Civil War’s western theater but was also clustered in a few important areas. My research also reframes our understanding of the Civil War away from well-known battles to a constant, grinding war that sucked in thousands of civilians. </p>
<p><iframe id="QUj79" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/QUj79/10/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Confederates seek loot and supplies</h2>
<p>This irregular guerrilla war was an improvisation that began in earnest in the summer of 1862. By that point, Union ironclads and speedy rams had squashed the measly <a href="https://www.navalhistory.org/2015/10/27/battle-report-ramming-speed">Confederate River Defense Fleet</a> at Memphis. As northern armies began to march overland toward Vicksburg and elsewhere, they depended on steamboats for supplies. </p>
<p>The Confederates created mobile ambush squads that were conglomerations of artillery and cavalry and sent them to the shores of the Mississippi River and its tributaries to attack Union supply boats and the ironclad gunboats that protected them. </p>
<p>One of these ambush groups was a mixture of about 250 men from the <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000006018795&view=1up&seq=398">Third Maryland Artillery</a> and a squadron of Texas cavalry. They had four cannons, including one christened “Black Bess.” On May 3, 1863, they captured the Minnesota, a steamer carrying US$40,000 worth of Union supplies. </p>
<p>Hungry Confederates swarmed aboard to find “<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000006018795&view=1up&seq=398">flour, bacon, potatoes, pickles of all sorts</a>, sugar, coffee, rice, ginger, syrup, cheese, butter, oranges, lemons, preserves, canned oysters, whiskey, wines, musquito [sic] nets, clothing, stationery, tobacco, etc. etc.” After wolfing down “a luxurious dinner,” a member of the artillery remembered how the rebels shared their extra food with sympathetic civilians in the area.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311440/original/file-20200122-117911-1qqhga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311440/original/file-20200122-117911-1qqhga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311440/original/file-20200122-117911-1qqhga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311440/original/file-20200122-117911-1qqhga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311440/original/file-20200122-117911-1qqhga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311440/original/file-20200122-117911-1qqhga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311440/original/file-20200122-117911-1qqhga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311440/original/file-20200122-117911-1qqhga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The USS Rattler, a so-called ‘tinclad’ gunboat made by putting armor on a rivergoing steamboat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-55000/NH-55836.html">U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Union fights back</h2>
<p>Union commanders realized that their ironclads clustered their men into a few boats, so they improvised and created a fleet of <a href="https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-55000/NH-55524.html">tinclads</a>, also known as “mosquitoes.” These boats were lightly armored, had a crew of about 70 men, carried six to eight light cannons and could go just about anywhere because they had a draft of 30 inches of water. </p>
<p>By the end of 1862, the Union put 17 tinclads into action and fitted out 74 by the time Robert E. Lee surrendered in 1865.</p>
<p>The crews of the tinclads and the other gunboats waged a deadly game of whack-a-mole along the western rivers. Whenever rebels popped up and attacked a boat, the fleet tried to smite it. </p>
<p>This reactive strategy failed because rebels could quickly retreat into the southern countryside, so <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/david-dixon-porter">Admiral David Dixon Porter</a> devised a new strategy. </p>
<p>He gave Union commanders the authority to confiscate or destroy civilian property, including food, animals, cotton, buildings and personal property. Porter intended to starve rebels by depriving the men and their horses of food. He also hoped to inflict enough punishment on civilians that they would withdraw their support from the insurgents. </p>
<h2>Punishment turns to plunder</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311439/original/file-20200122-117943-1722kbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311439/original/file-20200122-117943-1722kbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311439/original/file-20200122-117943-1722kbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311439/original/file-20200122-117943-1722kbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311439/original/file-20200122-117943-1722kbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311439/original/file-20200122-117943-1722kbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1179&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311439/original/file-20200122-117943-1722kbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1179&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311439/original/file-20200122-117943-1722kbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1179&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. Navy Admiral David Dixon Porter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:David_Dixon_Porter_-_Mathew_Brady%27s_National_Photographic_Art_Gallery.jpg">Mathew Brady/Restored by Adam Cuerden/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Union sailors were quick to carry out Porter’s orders. For instance, when Confederate-aligned guerrillas near Helena, Arkansas, killed one sailor from the USS Cairo and nearly captured another, revenge was swift. Union sailor <a href="https://www.nps.gov/vick/learn/education/language-arts-sailors-story.htm">George Yost</a>, who was a 14-year-old cabin boy, reported that 40 sailors from the boat landed at a nearby plantation and burned “up all the houses barns and everything combustible near the scene of the assassination.”</p>
<p>But such punitive attacks often became plundering sprees. When the USS Cincinnati stopped at a plantation on the Mississippi River in March 1863, sailors went ashore and, after chasing away the owner, took 150 chickens, 600 pounds of bacon, a bull, some geese and a couple of guinea hens. </p>
<p>According to a sailor whose letters are in the <a href="http://www.buffalohistory.org/">Buffalo History Museum</a>, they also helped themselves to bed clothes, pictures, crockery, “&c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c.” – a clear implication that they took all kinds of personal possessions.</p>
<p>This strategy of exhaustion produced indifferent results. The Mississippi River Squadron was not able to quash resistance. Many civilians stayed loyal to the Confederacy and supported guerrillas until the war ended. </p>
<p>And since the boats only patrolled the water, they could not occupy the land and drive out the rebels. But the river navy provided enough protection to Union supply lines to ensure victory over the Confederate army. The Union’s Mississippi River Squadron didn’t have to win its war; it merely had to prevent the rebels from winning theirs.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129846/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Gudmestad does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new look at detailed data about Civil War skirmishes along the Mississippi River reveals another key to the Union’s victory.Robert Gudmestad, Professor and Chair of History Department, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1285032019-12-19T13:52:28Z2019-12-19T13:52:28ZConfederate Christmas ornaments are smaller than statues – but they send the same racist message<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307509/original/file-20191217-58302-hef1w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C0%2C3435%2C2297&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Decorated with ornaments purchased, created and inherited for years, even generations, Christmas trees are a reflection of a family's history and tastes.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/7j8ZcZ">John Morgan/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Christmas approaches, many families undertake a familiar ritual: an annual sojourn to the attic, basement or closet to pull out a box of treasured ornaments bought, created and collected over years, even generations. </p>
<p>Hanging these ornaments on the tree is an opportunity to reconnect with memories of personal milestones, holiday icons and, in many cases, destinations visited. </p>
<p>But, I argue, it may be time to take some of these old travel keepsakes off the tree. </p>
<p>In researching my 2019 book, “<a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-2869-8.html">Confederate Exceptionalism</a>,” I studied sites throughout the American South whose <a href="https://theconversation.com/slave-lifes-harsh-realities-are-erased-in-christmas-tours-of-southern-plantations-125042">histories are tied to enslaved labor</a>. Seemingly charming souvenirs are sold to commemorate many of these places – from the White House of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia, to Stone Mountain, a Georgia cliffside carved with images of Confederate generals.</p>
<p>Christmas ornaments are among them. And while these keepsakes may seem apolitical, their very circulation enables Confederate myths and symbols to become “normal” features of people’s daily lives. My research suggests they can thus desensitize Americans to the destructive nature of such stories and icons. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307512/original/file-20191217-58339-1phcofe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307512/original/file-20191217-58339-1phcofe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307512/original/file-20191217-58339-1phcofe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307512/original/file-20191217-58339-1phcofe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307512/original/file-20191217-58339-1phcofe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307512/original/file-20191217-58339-1phcofe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307512/original/file-20191217-58339-1phcofe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307512/original/file-20191217-58339-1phcofe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The front and back of a Christmas ornament commemorating Georgia’s Stone Mountain, the ‘Mt. Rushmore of the Confederacy,’ screengrab Dec. 17, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.zazzle.com/stone_mountain_atlanta_georgia_ornaments-175760156339078337?rf=238840279726397180&tc=EAIaIQobChMIhvGY5pe95gIVWNyGCh1JOwU7EAQYASABEgJ3RfD_BwE&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=us_shopping&utm_term=z175760156339078337&ca_chid=2001810&ca_source=gaw&ca_ace=&ca_nw=g&ca_dev=c&ca_pl=&ca_pos=1o1&ca_cid=381150128120&ca_agid=77529482133&ca_caid=6483100273&ca_adid=381150128120&ca_kwt=&ca_mt=&ca_fid=&ca_tid=pla-542343087558&ca_lp=9004354&ca_li=1015519&ca_devm=&ca_plt=&gclsrc=aw.ds&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIhvGY5pe95gIVWNyGCh1JOwU7EAQYASABEgJ3RfD_BwE">www.zazzle.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Contesting Confederate symbols</h2>
<p>In recent years the U.S. has seen heated conversations about public symbols that commemorate the Confederacy, centered on the Confederate battle flag and statues of Confederate generals. </p>
<p>After a white shooter’s <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/charleston-church-massacre-2015/">deadly 2015 massacre of nine black congregants at Emanuel AME Church</a> in Charleston, South Carolina, activist Bree Newsome scaled the flagpole outside the state capitol to <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/6/27/15880052/bree-newsome-south-carolinas-confederate-flag">remove the Confederate flag flying there</a>. </p>
<p>After Newsome’s act of civil resistance, then-President Barack Obama referred to the Confederate battle flag as “<a href="https://gawker.com/obama-on-confederate-flag-a-reminder-of-systemic-oppr-1714239113">a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation</a>.” But some <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/04/why-conservatives-love-defending-the-confederate-flag.html">in the U.S.</a> and <a href="http://theconversation.com/brazils-long-strange-love-affair-with-the-confederacy-ignites-racial-tension-115548">even abroad</a> still see the flag as a symbol of “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/19/does-the-confederate-flag-breed-racism/the-confederate-flag-is-a-matter-of-pride-and-heritage-not-hatred">heritage not hate</a>.”</p>
<p>Statues of Confederate generals that dot courthouse lawns and public plazas across the United States have prompted similar controversy. In 2017 plans to remove a Robert E. Lee statue triggered violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a white supremacist at the <a href="https://time.com/charlottesville-white-nationalist-rally-clashes/">“Unite the Right” rally</a> killed activist counter-protester Heather Heyer.</p>
<p>That tragedy spurred more cities, towns and colleges to <a href="https://theconversation.com/tearing-down-confederate-statues-leaves-structural-racism-intact-101951">remove or relocate Confederate statues</a> seen as offensive. Nationwide debates followed on how best to grapple appropriately with this <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-confederate-statue-graveyard-could-help-bury-the-old-south-118034">chapter of American history</a>. </p>
<h2>Consuming the Confederacy</h2>
<p>Beyond the scope of these national discussions, my <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-2869-8.html">research on Confederate myths and memory</a> finds, many unexamined Confederate symbols have made their way into people’s kitchens, bedrooms and living rooms. </p>
<p>Take “Confederate cookbooks” that help modern-day chefs recreate the recipes of the Old South and stuffed animals based on Little Sorrel, the <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-skin-of-little-sorrel-lexington-virginia">taxidermied war horse of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson</a>, for example.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307760/original/file-20191218-11951-o3hc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307760/original/file-20191218-11951-o3hc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307760/original/file-20191218-11951-o3hc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307760/original/file-20191218-11951-o3hc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307760/original/file-20191218-11951-o3hc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307760/original/file-20191218-11951-o3hc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307760/original/file-20191218-11951-o3hc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307760/original/file-20191218-11951-o3hc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Little Sorrell was the favored war horse of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/oeZBsc">Internet Archive Book Images</a></span>
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<p>People probably don’t reflect on the horrors of slavery when baking an apple pie or purchasing a cuddly toy for their child. They aren’t meant to. But they are <a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820331690/dixie-emporium/">participating in that history and its mythologies</a> nonetheless.</p>
<p>In that way, seemingly apolitical objects like cookbooks, toys and Christmas ornaments commemorating Confederate history serve to normalize – rather than problematize – the objects, rituals and stories surrounding the Confederacy.</p>
<h2>More than a souvenir</h2>
<p>As a result, tree ornaments depicting the White House of the Confederacy, a <a href="https://www.stratfordhall.org/">home of Gen. Robert E. Lee</a> or the carvings of Stone Mountain are not simply mementos of a leisurely visit. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307515/original/file-20191217-58321-191iz7t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307515/original/file-20191217-58321-191iz7t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307515/original/file-20191217-58321-191iz7t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307515/original/file-20191217-58321-191iz7t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307515/original/file-20191217-58321-191iz7t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307515/original/file-20191217-58321-191iz7t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307515/original/file-20191217-58321-191iz7t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307515/original/file-20191217-58321-191iz7t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A decorative ornament on sale at the White House of the Confederacy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://acwm.org/product/white-house-ornament">American Civil War Museum</a></span>
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<p>These places and people are also icons of the “<a href="https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/lost_cause_the">Lost Cause</a>,” an ideology that romanticizes the Confederacy by portraying the American Civil War as a battle of “states’ rights” rather than a fight to preserve slavery. </p>
<p>The Lost Cause is <a href="https://www.jacksonville.com/news/national/2017-08-22/how-civil-war-taught-school-depends-where-you-live">still taught in some Southern schools</a>, demonstrating that the vestiges of the Confederacy are powerful and lasting. Like Confederate statues and flags, Confederate Christmas ornaments strengthen this myth that the Confederacy – an entity built on white supremacy – was about southern “heritage.”</p>
<p>What appears to be a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0160738390900856">nostalgic trip reminder</a>, then, is in fact deeply implicated in a complex matrix of memory, history and racism in the United States. It’s just packaged in a seemingly benign way.</p>
<p>Christmas ornaments communicate something about <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10510970109388553?needAccess=true">the person or family that displays them</a>. They reveal their history, passions and aesthetic taste. </p>
<p>So pause to consider whether your Christmas tree represents your values. Does a keepsake from Stone Mountain really belong between an ornament crafted in a kindergarten classroom and a glass nutcracker gifted by your grandmother? </p>
<p>[ <em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128503/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Maurantonio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Take a good look at those old Christmas ornaments before hanging them on the tree – you may find it’s time to retire some family keepsakes.Nicole Maurantonio, Associate Professor of Rhetoric & Communication Studies and American Studies, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1180342019-07-26T13:03:40Z2019-07-26T13:03:40ZA Confederate statue graveyard could help bury the Old South<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285786/original/file-20190726-43136-xpbabp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A damaged Confederate statue lies on a pallet in a warehouse in Durham, N.C. on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017, after protesters yanked it off its pedestal in front of a government building. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Confederate-Monument-Protest-Statue-Toppled/15d7476fae6e4d1d887d525278683db8/81/0">AP Photo/Allen Breed</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>An estimated <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20190201/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy">114 Confederate symbols</a> have been removed from public view since 2015. In many cases, these cast-iron Robert E. Lees and Jefferson Davises were <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/08/05/633952187/where-do-confederate-monuments-go-after-they-come-down">sent to storage</a>.</p>
<p>If the aim of statue removal is to build a more racially just South, then, as many analysts have <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-taking-down-confederate-memorials-is-only-a-first-step-78020">pointed out</a>, putting these monuments in storage is a lost opportunity. Simply unseating Confederate statues from highly visible public spaces is just the first step in a much longer process of <a href="http://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/5597/">understanding, grieving and mending the wounds</a> of America’s violent past. Merely hiding away the monuments does not necessarily change <a href="https://theconversation.com/tearing-down-confederate-statues-leaves-structural-racism-intact-101951">the structural racism that birthed them</a>. </p>
<p>Studies show that the environment in which statues are displayed <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1464936042000252769?journalCode=rscg20">shapes how people understand their meaning</a>. In that sense, relocating monuments, rather than eliminating them, can help people put this painful history into context. </p>
<p>For example, monuments to Confederate war heroes first appeared in cemeteries <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/585508">immediately following</a> the Civil War. That likely evoked in visitors a direct and private honoring and grieving for the dead. </p>
<p>By the early 1900s, hundreds of Confederate statues dotted courthouse lawns and town squares across the South. This prominent, centrally located setting on government property sent an <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544266880/confederate-statues-were-built-to-further-a-white-supremacist-future">intentionally different message</a>: that local officials endorsed the prevailing white social order.</p>
<p>So what should we do with rejected Confederate monuments? We have a modest proposal: a Confederate statue graveyard.</p>
<h2>Lessons from the Soviet past</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780815354260">research as cultural geographers</a> recognizes that Confederate monument controversies – while typically considered regional or national issues – are in fact part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazils-long-strange-love-affair-with-the-confederacy-ignites-racial-tension-115548">global struggles</a> to recognize and heal from the wounds of racism, white supremacy and anti-democratic regimes.</p>
<p>The idea of a Confederate monument graveyard is modeled after ways that the former communist bloc nations of <a href="http://www.mementopark.hu/">Hungary</a>, <a href="http://grutoparkas.lt/en_US/">Lithuania</a> and <a href="https://www.ajaloomuuseum.ee/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/noukogude-aegsete-monumentide-valinaitus">Estonia</a> have dealt with statues of Soviet heroes like <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/russia/history-of-the-soviet-union">Joseph Stalin</a> and Vladimir Lenin.</p>
<p>Under communist Soviet rule between 1945 and 1991, Eastern European countries suffered <a href="https://www.history.com/news/ukrainian-famine-stalin">mass starvation</a>, land theft, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/4477/iron-curtain-by-anne-applebaum/9781400095933/">military rule and rigid censorship</a>. An estimated <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Great-Terror-Reassessment-Robert-Conquest/dp/0195317009">15 million</a> people in the Soviet bloc died during this totalitarian reign.</p>
<p>Despite these horrors, many countries have opted not to destroy or hide their Soviet-era monuments, but they haven’t left them to rule over city hall or public plazas, either. </p>
<p>Rather, governments in Eastern Europe have altered the meaning of these politically charged Soviet statues by relocating them. Dozens of Soviet statues across Hungary, Lithuania and Estonia have been pulled from their pedestals and placed in open-air parks, where interested visitors can reflect on their new significance.</p>
<p>The idea behind relocating monuments is to dethrone dominant historical narratives that, in their traditional places of power, are tacitly endorsed.</p>
<h2>A statue graveyard</h2>
<p>The Eastern European effort to create a new <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10708-008-9201-5">memorial landscape</a> has been met with mixed public reaction. </p>
<p>In Hungary, some see it as <a href="https://urbanlabsce.eu/budapests-memento-park-an-example-for-america/">a step in the right direction</a>. But, in Lithuania, people have expressed that re-erecting the statues of known dictators is in “<a href="https://www.economist.com/prospero/2017/08/30/how-lithuania-dealt-with-its-soviet-statues">poor taste</a>” – an affront to those who suffered under totalitarianism. </p>
<p>The relocation of Soviet statues in Estonia has taken an even more interesting turn. </p>
<p>For the past decade, the <a href="https://www.ajaloomuuseum.ee">Estonian History Museum</a> has been collecting former Soviet monuments with the intention of <a href="https://www.ajaloomuuseum.ee/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/noukogude-aegsete-monumentide-valinaitus">making an outdoor exhibition</a> out of them. For years it kept a decapitated Lenin and a noseless Stalin, among other degraded Soviet relics, <a href="https://www.timetravelturtle.com/soviet-statue-graveyard-tallinn-estonia/">in a field next to the museum</a>. </p>
<p>The statues weathered Eastern European winters and languished in a defunct, toppled state. Weeds grew over them. The elements took their toll. </p>
<p>Travel writer <a href="https://www.timetravelturtle.com/soviet-statue-graveyard-tallinn-estonia/">Michael Turtle</a>, who visited the museum in 2015, called the field a “statue graveyard.”</p>
<p>“Everything here seems to fit into some kind of purgatorial limbo,” he wrote on his blog. “The statues are not respected enough to be displayed as history but are culturally significant enough to not just be destroyed.” </p>
<p>To this we would add that these old statues, when repurposed thoughtfully and intentionally, have the potential to mend old wounds.</p>
<h2>Confederate monument graveyard</h2>
<p>What if the United States created its own graveyard for the distasteful relics of its own racist past? </p>
<p>We envision a cemetery for the American South where removed Confederate statues would be displayed, perhaps, in a felled position – a visual condemnation of the white supremacy they fought to uphold. Already crumpled monuments, like the statue to “The Boys Who Wore Grey” that was <a href="https://www.apnews.com/dace53761754407a8d48c193d52d522e">forcefully removed from downtown Durham, North Carolina</a>, might be placed in the Confederate statue graveyard in their <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article224038660.html">defunct state</a>. </p>
<p>One art critic has even <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathonkeats/2019/02/15/getty-monument/#624ec6e452c5">suggested</a> that old monuments be physically buried under tombstones with epitaphs written by the descendants of those they enslaved. </p>
<p>We are not the first to suggest relocating Confederate statues.</p>
<p>Democratic presidential candidate <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elizabeth-warren-president-confederate-monuments-museum-a8830841.html">Elizabeth Warren</a>, for example, has proposed that toppled Confederate statues be housed in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-museum-of-confederate-statues-could-help-end-the-american-civil-war-82934">history museum</a> – “where they belong.” </p>
<p>That has proven <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/are-museums-right-home-confederate-monuments-180968969/">challenging for curators</a>. </p>
<p>When The University of Texas moved a statue of the Confederate President Jefferson Davis from its pedestal on campus to a campus museum, some <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-Happened-When-One/244481">students criticized</a> the ensuing exhibit’s “lack of focus on racism and slavery.” One suggested that the statue’s new setting inadvertently glorified Davis, given the inherent value conferred on objects in museums. </p>
<p>And since statues in museums are typically exhibited in their original, upright position, Confederate generals like Robert E. Lee still tower over visitors – maintaining an imposing sense of authority.</p>
<p>We believe felled and crumpled monuments, in contrast, would create a somber commemorative atmosphere that encourages visitors to grieve – without revering – their legacy. A carefully-planned and aesthetically sensitive Confederate monument graveyard could openly and purposefully undermine the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2747/0272-3638.23.1.31">power these monuments once held</a>, acknowledging, dissecting and ultimately rejecting the Confederacy’s roots in slavery.</p>
<p>Planning a Confederate monument graveyard will prompt many questions. Where should it be located? Will there be one central Confederate monument graveyard or many? Who will design and plan the graveyard?</p>
<p>Answering these questions would not just be part of a conversation about steel and stone but about the serious pursuit of peace, justice and racial healing in the nation — and about putting the Old South to rest. </p>
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<p><a href="http://www.aag.org">Jordan Brasher is a member of the American Association of Geographers</a></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.aag.org">Derek H. Alderman is a member of the American Association of Geographers</a></p>
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</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118034/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jordan Brasher is a member of the American Association of Geographers.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek H. Alderman is a member of the American Association of Geographers</span></em></p>Where do old Confederate statues go when they die? The former Soviet bloc countries could teach the US something about dealing with monuments from a painful past.Jordan Brasher, Doctoral Candidate in Geography, University of TennesseeDerek H. Alderman, Professor of Geography, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.