So Bob McDonnell stepped into it big time the other day by proclaiming April Confederate History Month. Then a few people noted that in the whole proclamation there wasn’t a single mention of, you know, slavery. So he amended it. And bluntly it still sucks, thought it’s a little improved. So I decided to write the governor, and this is what I sent.
Dear Governor McDonnell,
I want to start this off by saying I voted for you and I don’t regret that. But even as amended this Confederate History month declaration is profoundly disappointing. It is incomplete, it is frankly the product of confused thinking (perhaps the result of multiple disagreeing authors), and it contains factual errors, although to be fair on the last point, I myself was taught to believe some of those misstatements were true as a child. So maybe the authors of this proclamation weren’t told the truth in the first place, and of course we cannot be faulted for repeating the lies we were told.
However, you can be unambiguously faulted for allowing to be released, under your name, a proclamation that on one hand declares that “it is important... to understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens” and then, with the recent amendment to your proclamation, to say on the other hand “it is important for all Virginians to understand that the institution of slavery led to this war and was an evil and inhumane practice that deprived people of their God-given inalienable rights.” That second statement is commendable in that it accurately states that the Civil War was caused by slavery and in recognizing it as an evil institution in direct contradiction of very own Declaration of Independence, not to mention George Mason’s immortal words in the Virginia Constitution.
But it also makes the first statement nonsense. Ordinarily when you call on people to remember the sacrifices of someone, you mean they should honor it. But to be blunt, there is no honor in fighting for evil. Let me give you a concrete example. I presume that you will put out a declaration related to September 11, 2001, around its anniversary. Do you plan to say that it’s important to remember the sacrifices of the nineteen men who attacked the World Trade Center, Flight 93, and the Pentagon? Of course not. It’s absurd. But I ask you what the moral difference is, between honoring those who died hoping to extend Islamofascism over the United States and honoring those who died to maintain the institution of slavery.
There are other problems with your proclamation. It begins by saying, “April is the month in which the people of Virginia joined the Confederate States of America.” Well, if you mean to imply that this was a democratic act, there is considerable doubt on that point. The State of Virginia held two referendums on the subject. The first time the people voted against secession. Then they held a second referendum and the Confederate Army, led by Robert E. Lee, occupied the state and each polling place. Bear in mind, voting was not done anonymously in that day. Lincoln commented on this with his usual wit, stating that “the result of an election, held in military camps, where the bayonets are all on one side of the question voted upon, can scarcely be considered as demonstrating popular sentiment. At such an election all that large class who are, at once, for the Union and against coercion would be coerced to vote against the Union.”
Indeed, there was so much opposition to secession—particularly concentrated in the mountainous western part of Virginia—that a group of Unionists got together and seceded from secession. Thus the state of West Virginia was born. So a significant portion of the people of Virginia, circa 1861, wanted nothing to do with secession.
Which brings me to another omission, almost as awful as the omission of slavery originally. You tell us to remember the sacrifices of the Confederates, but what about the Unionists, including those people who eventually formed West Virginia? They were Virginians, too, at least as of April, 1861. And even sacrifice by non-Virginians should be honored. They gave no less to the cause of freedom and democracy than the Confederates gave to the cause of slavery, but their sacrifices strike me as far more noble.
Finally, I object to this line: “the surviving, imprisoned and injured Confederate soldiers gave their word and allegiance to the United States of America, and returned to their homes and families to rebuild their communities in peace.” The fact is that many Confederates were bound and determined to keep black people in chains, even after being defeated. Some did it by “peaceful” means such as the Black Codes and abusive vagrancy laws. As we today resist a health care law that purports to force us to enter into a contract with insurance companies, let’s not forget that often black people were forced to enter into employment contracts not of their choosing—slavery, in all but name.
And let us not forget that not all of this conduct was peaceful. All across the South a terrorist movement, going under names such as the KKK and the Red Shirts, waged a campaign of violence in order to keep African Americans in a state of servitude. The most outrageous example was actually in South Carolina, where two-thirds of the population and two thirds of the voters were black, in 1870. In the brief, shining moment of Reconstruction, African Americans in South Carolina saw great political progress, even giving our nation its first black Lieutenant Governor. By 1880, however, the government was all white. That’s all you need to know that something went horribly wrong, there: in a state where two thirds of the population and two thirds of eligible voters were black, the government was somehow all-white. Ballot fraud, terrorism, and outright murder caused this shameful undemocratic occurrence, and Virginia was only different in degree but not kind. It can be correctly stated that our first War on Terror was against organizations such as the KKK, and the good guys lost that one.
But all of that masks a basic philosophical problem I have with all of this. At a time of crunched budgets, why are we even wasting our time with this? Why are we straining our relationships with African American friends? I am a proud Tea Partier. I was down in D.C. protesting up until the day this health care monstrosity was passed, and I still work to oppose it. I am against big, bloated government. But these kinds of empty proclamations are exactly the kind of thing I don’t want to see. How much money did it cost the state of Virginia in terms of the salaries of whoever wrote this? If it was even a dollar, it was wasted money.
What purpose did this proclamation serve? To get people interested in history? Having been a history major in college, I appreciate the value of the study of history, but I don’t think the Civil War buffs need your permission or blessing to do what they do. And if a person doesn’t care about history, I highly doubt a declaration from the Governor is going to change anything. You stepped into this political minefield and I have yet to figure out what you had to gain from it, nor can I figure out what concrete good this does the people of Virginia. It’s an unforced error, plain and simple.
And I will add something else. I was down at the Capital the day before the Health Care bill was passed. I came home from it all to learn that some members of the Congressional Black Caucus were claiming that people from my group spat on them and called them an ugly racial slur repeatedly. I applied an appropriate level of skepticism to their accounts, given what I knew about the average Tea Partier and what I knew about the average politician (present company excepted, of course). Since then it has become obvious that this incident was almost certainly fabricated. So is this the best time to put out a proclamation that was less than racially sensitive, by a Governor who was supported significantly by the Tea Party movement?
That being said, I still don’t regret voting for you, and I still support you on topics like the economy, health care and jobs. But this was a needless error, and even if a staffer is responsible for the language, it was still your responsibility. Bluntly, I think the whole thing should be withdrawn, and replaced with a proclamation saying, more or less, “I am sorry I brought the entire thing up.”
I thank you for your time and consideration.
I thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
