Iconic Ignorance

I am not a Southerner by birth, descent, or location, but I have to say a few things against the statue smashing know-nothings currently exulting in the spotlight.

Most if not all these statues and monuments were erected to honor the soldiers who fought for the South's Terrible Cause in the Civil War. The know-nothings have one simple rule: hate the cause, then hate the soldiers and tear down their statues. And if you've got a little hate left over, expend it on all the rest of the Southerners today.

But as has been amply pointed out to largely deaf ears, most Southerners (95% or so) did not own slaves. Certainly many of these non-slave owners supported the institution, but this support was not for them the protection of their wealth and economic status. It was more in the nature of loyalty to the people and institutions one grows up with; solidarity with their own family, towns, cities, and cultures.

Misplaced loyalty? Perhaps; but a virtue nonetheless, as we can see in these divisive times where community fellow feeling is at a disastrously low ebb. If people exhibited a little more loyalty to the general community rather than banding together in their tight little identity tribes, it might help in hashing out our differences.

The second and more important fact is that, various provocations notwithstanding (principally Fort Sumter), the North invaded the South with massive armed force. Nothing the South had done before that time was of such a scale as this military response by the North. In our day, we talk of a 'proportionate response' as the only acceptable level of warfare. Well, I don't necessarily agree with the theory, but on any measure at all, the North's response was about as disproportionate as it gets.

Thus, the primary reason that massive numbers of young men leapt to their guns and joined the Confederate Army was to protect their very homes and families against an invading force. In this context, whether the South was to blame for provoking the North, and even the odiousness of the ultimate cause being served, was irrelevant.

Such times as were faced by the sons of the South were terrible and tragic. In the face of an invading army, a sudden decision was demanded of them, a decision that would show where their honor and loyalties lay and whether they were willing to sacrifice their very lives. Spoiler alert: the Southern young men stepped up. And they proceeded to serve not only with great courage but with a skill in battle that made them one of the most effective fighting forces in recorded history.

In the face of monuments to such men as these, the Social Justice Warriors ought to scuttle in shame back to their parents' basements.