CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC: No, I’m not talking about Tony Horwitz’s book by that title. But it should be required reading for those who think that any mention of the Confederacy means someone is a closet racist. George Allen’s in trouble for wearing a confederate flag lapel pin. In high school. Now people are sending me copies of this speech by James Webb, Allen’s opponent, praising the bravery of confederate soldiers:
I am here, with you today, to remember. And to honor an army that rose like a sudden wind out of the little towns and scattered farms of a yet unconquered wilderness. That drew 750,000 soldiers from a population base of only five million-less than the current population of Virginia alone. That fought with squirrel rifles and cold steel against a much larger and more modern force. That saw 60 percent of its soldiers become casualties, some 256,000 of them dead. That gave every ounce of courage and loyalty to a leadership it trusted and respected, and then laid down its arms in an instant when that leadership decided that enough was enough. That returned to a devastated land and a military occupation. That endured the bitter humiliation of Reconstruction and an economic alienation from the rest of this nation which continued for fully a century, affecting white and black alike.
I am not here to apologize for why they fought, although modern historians might contemplate that there truly were different perceptions in the North and South about those reasons, and that most Southern soldiers viewed the driving issue to be sovereignty rather than slavery.
Well, they were brave, though in a wrong cause. As regular readers know, I’m no fan of neo-confederate sympathizers, but I don’t think that either Allen or Webb qualify, and this back-and-forth strikes me as silly, dirty politics.
As I’ve noted before, the real accomplishment of our civil-war-era ancestors was to bind up the nation in spite of seemingly irreconcilable differences. That’s a lesson our political operators might benefit from today.
UPDATE: Dave Weigel emails:
I live in Fairfax, VA. My first impression of TNR’s George Allen-confederate flag reporting was, “Gee, they’re really not going to help the Dems in Virginia beat him with this stuff!” Now I’m wondering if it was a secret, Rovian plot – by lambasting Allen, they teased these Webb stories out into the headlines. And no one ever lost an election in Virginia for praising the Confederate army too much. Here’s a hint: my townhouse is located just off the Robert E. Lee Highway.
Those Rovian agents are everywhere.
ANOTHER UPDATE: On reflection, though, the real news in Dave’s email is that he can afford a townhouse in Northern Virginia on what those cheapskates at Reason pay.
MORE: Reader Randolph Resor emails:
I’ve admired James Webb every since I read Fields of Fire a couple of decades ago. I’m glad to see he has kind words for the Confederates. My mother’s side of the family is from Georgia, and she still has her great-grandfather’s diary. He was with Toomb’s brigade at the Burnside Bridge at Antietam, among other places.
Southerners do have long memories. One of the reasons for this is an economic statistic: the South didn’t return to its 1860 level of gross domestic product until after 1920. That war cost a lot — in lives and in forgone economic growth.
Yes, which is why I think that romanticizing it is a bit foolish.
MORE STILL: Eric Muller corrects Webb’s history. Meanwhile Ryan Lizza emails:
Glenn, I noticed you wrote, “George Allen’s in trouble for wearing a confederate flag lapel pin. In high school.” To the extent that he is in trouble it’s not because of the high school photo. It’s because the high school photo is the beginning of a decades-long embrace of the Confederate flag by Allen, who is from southern California.
Here’s what TNR reported:
Allen:
-wore a Confederate flag pin in his high school yearbook photo
-had a Confederate flag on his car in high school
-had a Confederate flag on his truck in college
-had a Confederate flag on his truck in law school
-displayed the Confederate flag in his room in college
-displayed the Confederate flag in his living room until 1992
-included a folded Confederate flag in a shot of him in his office in his first campaign commercial for governor in 1993
-in 2000, when a voter called out to him, “Long live the Confederate flag!” Allen responded, “You got it!”
Lizza’s piece is behind the subscriber firewall, but Lizza writes: “None of this means Allen is a racist, of course.”
So what does it mean, exactly?
Jon Henke, meanwhile, notes Allen’s association with another racist symbol that Lizza has overlooked.