An uncivil war

On the battlefield

Hot weather tends to make me a cranky, especially when an 18-pound mass of fur and muscle decides to share the love ... and sweat.

That means I get a bit crankier than usual when people try to rewrite history.

I'm not just talking about the movement to rid us of Civil War history as a whole, but about those who seem to think that if you really, really believe something, that makes it true, historical record be damned.

I've tried that belief thing, but cookie crumbs still have calories. (But maybe if I close my eyes and cross my fingers ...)

No amount of trying, other than traveling back in time to completely rearrange matters (and muck a whole lot of things up) will make the Emancipation Proclamation signed a year after the Civil War ended. That'd be a neat trick, especially since Abraham Lincoln would have been dead for a year by that time. The proclamation was still signed and issued on Jan. 1, 1863, at which time the war was still going on.

Nor was the South's manufacturing more mighty than that of the North. Agriculture, not industry, was king in the South. The Civil War Trust states: "The fertile soil and warm climate of the South made it ideal for large-scale farms and crops like tobacco and cotton. Because agriculture was so profitable, few Southerners saw a need for industrial development. Eighty percent of the labor force worked on the farm."

By 1860, though, the South's agricultural economy was beginning a decline, according to the Civil War Trust, just as industry in the North was booming.

Slavery wasn't the only reason for the war, but denying its impact as impetus would be foolhardy. Even a cursory glance at the secession declarations of the Confederate states shows how important slaveholding was, even couched in terms of states' rights.

The Sentinel-Record of Hot Springs recently published a letter by Earl Babbie of Hot Springs Village making just that point, noting part of Arkansas' Secession Convention resolutions from March 11, 1861, which had marked similarities to those of South Carolina:

" '1. People of the northern states have organized a political party, purely sectional in character, the central and controlling idea of which is, hostility to the institution of slavery, as it exists in the southern states ...'

"Points 2 and 3 charge the Union with 'refusing them the same protection to their slave property therein that is afforded to other property' and claiming 'the power to abolish slavery.' So it's pretty hard to say the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery."

Not that that will stop some people from pretending slavery had little to nothing to do with the war.

I see this as symptomatic of a sort of jingoism, defined by Webster's as "the feelings and beliefs of people who think that their country is always right and who are in favor of aggressive acts against other countries." The South is better than the North, the U.S. is better than every other country, and if it means selectively leaving out history that might not reflect well on us (slavery, Trail of Tears and other ill effects of Manifest Destiny, etc.), so be it.

But the teaching of history should include the good, the bad, the indifferent and the uncomfortable, and we should trust students to draw their own conclusions from what they've learned. Ignoring the bad parts of history won't make them go away or cease to be a factor in succeeding events. My history teachers didn't gloss over that stuff because it was, well, history, and part of what made us who we are. Thanks for that, fellas.

Where do I stand on the flag/statue/other Confederate artifacts matter? As a born-and-bred Southerner, I see no need to outright ban the battle flag, but it should not fly at government buildings, local, state or federal. Individuals are free to fly the flag; public officials in official capacity, not so much.

As far as removing Confederate memorials and the like, they're there to remind us of our history, and sometimes our history is ugly. Common sense and restraint are needed on both sides. Getting rid of a statue or paving over a battlefield won't cause history to mend itself, and going overboard on removal of Civil War relics will just result in more digging in by those opposed to such action.

And there is that quote about being doomed to repeat history if you fail to learn from it ... and surely we don't want that. Along those lines, science fiction writer and editor John W. Campbell Jr. opined: "History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes it just yells, 'Can't you remember anything I told you?' and lets fly with a club."

Think of Civil War relics as that club.

On the other hand, there's an anonymous quote I found: "If history repeats itself, I am so getting a dinosaur."

Sign me up. There are days I could really use a velociraptor.

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Assistant Editor Brenda Looper is editor of the Voices page. Read her blog at blooper0223.wordpress.com.

Editorial on 07/15/2015

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