A Southerner Repents

Guest Post by Fred Reed

 

A Confession

The Rappahannock. ViFoto

My sins creep up on me, sent by the Devil, and beset me by surprise. I know not what to do. A month ago, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, I sat on the banks of the Rappahannock River, upon which as a stripling I had canoed and fished, and reflected on how much I liked the South. I knew I should not. At least I am told that I should not, chiefly by people who would make a hoe seem a pinnacle of intellect, but these are the bedrock of Yankee society, and I must respect them.

Besides, I fear that meridional leanings are in my blood. Yes, alas. I am tainted.  I am Frederick Venable Reed. Charles Scott Venable was on Lee’s staff, and Andrew Reid Venable of the staff of Jeb Stuart. We have never looked fondly on Federal intrusion. So there I am.

And yet, much as I loved the peace and light of the riverbank in that Southern town, much as I treasured a boyhood of BB guns and bare feet and dogs with no licences and people who talked slow and suppple as the Good Lord intended, I had to concede the sins of the South. Even today, the dark stains remain. The signs are everywhere.

Although it wrenches my soul to confront it, there are reasons why the South has so often been wracked by racial rioting—by outpourings of the rage of the downtrodden against an unjust civilization. However much the states of the old Confederacy may seek to deny it, they cannot. People do not take to the streets, burn their homes and cities, unless pressed beyond forbearance by the cruelty of the oppressor’s iron fist.

Thus these eruptions of racial desperation have occurred all across Dixie: in Detroit, Ferguson, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Washington DC, Watts, St. Louis, Cincinnati. Yes. Though I am a son of the Southland, I will not lie. The truth is the truth. I bow my head in shame.

And I am further forced to own that, while the black population of the North prospers, and mingles easily with its white brethren in casual but sincere amity, in the South the Negro huddles in the slums, denied schooling, and living on the meager charity of whites.  Should you doubt this, look to Newark, Trenton, Camden, Detroit, Chicago, Flint, Gary. The flowering of blacks in the North a century and a half after the end of the Civil War, the rise in scholarly achievement, the frequent and accepted intermarriage of the races—here we have irrefutable proof of the superior moral culture of the North.

There is worse. The absence of all artistic expression in the South, of anything higher than the dull, the stolid, the ignorant and industrial—oh, I can hardly go on, so greatly does it pain me.

Yet I will bear up manfully, and say it: The South has been devoid of all culture. Yes. From Massachusetts came country music, gospel, jazz, blues, bluegrass, Cajun, Zydeco, indeed all music that is originally and characteristically American. And it was a young man from Tupelo, New Jersey, who brought about rock’n’roll.

There is no avoiding facts, such as the overwhelming number of fine blues singers from Maine and Vermont. The South, lacking the creative spark, satisfied itself with repeating the tired music of Europe, the Beethovens and Mozarts. It was pretty fair music, I grant, and they played it tolerably well for mere copiers.

Or talk to visitors from foreign climes and remote lands. To a man they will attest, I promise you, of a preference for the relaxed courtliness of New York to the acerbic harshness of Memphis.

A Southerner will lie about this. Yes. He will tell you, with no trace of shame, that as you go south you notice a change of atmosphere, of mood, even of sunlight. It shows, he will say, even in the distance from Washington to Fredericksburg, only an hour to the south.  People in the Yankee Capital are neutral, neither welcoming nor hostile, having the character and savor of wallpaper paste. There is nothing to them. They are just a passel of people in the same place—so will say the mendacious Southerner.

But go south, he will say. By Fredericksburg, you find yourself assured of a smile, of courtesy without distance, of helpfulness. Relations between the races grow easier and more natural—the silver-tongued apostle of Dixie will say. He will imply that in the South you could even come to like humanity, though I grant it would be a pretty far stretch.

It was Marse Bob, Robert E. Lee, who said of confederation as distinct from central power, “…I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have practiced it….”

I reluctantly confess this to be a slander upon our great nation.  Heaven forfend, so mad was General Lee that in his crazed imaginings he may have thought that  the Federals might wage war in—this is almost too absurd for utterance—Afghanistan, or Iraq. Indeed, he may evenn have conjured up armored military vehicles in the hands of uncontrolled police all across America, or–here I may strain the reader’s credulity–little boys being led from school in handcuffs for pointing chicken fingers and saying “Bang.” Aggression abraod? Despotism at home? Fah. A crass libel on the Yankee Capital.

Now, if I were a vile friend of Dixie, which I assuredly am not, I would say that Yankees constitute the most glitteringest, most self-satisfiedest and preening collection of pious frauds ever to inflict a groaning earth. The first thing a damn Yank does in any circumstance is to adopt a moral pose. His every action is driven by goodness. Why, before the Yankees destroyed Iraq, they could hardly sleep so great was their urge to spread democracy. Oil, Israel, and the Lincolnian craving for empire had nothing to do with it. Aggression abroad? Not a trace of it.

So I would say were I an apologist. I am not, so I will not say it.

But it is the attitudes of the South to those of darker hue that are most damning. Southerners were unembarrassed by these reprehensible notions.

Consider:  “There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races … A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas ..”.

Now, I am a poor sinner, and a man of little education, and cannot remember with confidence whether this was said by Jesus Christ, Joan of Arc, or Abraham Lincoln. I expect it was Joan of Arc. If it had been Mr. Lincoln, he would be revealed as a…pious fraud, an early George Wallace.

There you have it. I have revealed the stains of perfidy and crime that come of being a Virginian. Yet I will atone. I plan to spend the rest of my life helping black children from Alabama to move to Detroit, where they will enjoy the splendid education, the perfect social equality, and the high economic station that Yankees, never hypocritical, provide for those darker than they.

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flash
flash

the snark is thick is this one ….excellent… well played Fred!

“Everyone should do all in his power to collect and disseminate the truth, in the hope that it may find a place in history and descend to posterity. History is not the relation of campaigns and battles and generals or other individuals, but that which shows the principles for which the South contended and which justified her struggle for those principles. ”
Robert E. Lee

“Why doesn’t the Confederacy just fade away? Is it because we are irresistibly fascinated by catastrophic loss? Or is it something else? Is it because the Confederacy is to this day the greatest conservative resistance to federal authority in American history?”
Professor David Blight

Are You Confederate But Don’t Know It?
Other Views
June 24, 2001|By Charley Reese, Sentinel Columnist

Most of the political problems in this country won’t be settled until more folks realize the South was right.

I know that goes against the P.C. edicts, but the fact is that on the subject of the constitutional republic, the Confederate leaders were right and the Northern Republicans were wrong.

Many people today even argue the Confederate positions without realizing it.

For example, if you argue for strict construction of the Constitution, you are arguing the Confederate position; when you oppose pork-barrel spending, you are arguing the Confederate position; and when you oppose protective tariffs, you are arguing the Confederate position. But that’s not all.

When you argue for the Bill of Rights, you are arguing the Confederate position, and when you argue that the Constitution limits the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, you are arguing the Confederate position.

One of the things that gets lost when you adopt the politically correct oversimplification that the War Between the States was a Civil War all about slavery is a whole treasure load of American political history.

It was not a civil war. A civil war is when two or more factions contend for control of one government. At no time did the South intend or attempt to overthrow the government of the United States. The Southern states simply withdrew from what they correctly viewed as a voluntary union. They formed their own union and adopted their own constitution.

The U.S. government remained intact. There were just fewer states, but everything else remained as exactly as it was. You can be sure that, with as much bitterness and hatred of the South that there was in the North, the Northerners would have tried Confederates for treason if there had been any grounds. There weren’t, and the South’s worst enemy knew that.

Abraham Lincoln’s invasion of the South was entirely without any constitutional authority. And it’s as plain as an elephant in a tea party that Lincoln did not seek to preserve the Union to end slavery. All you have to do is read his first inaugural address. What Lincoln didn’t want to lose was tax revenue generated by the South.

As Northern states gained a majority in both houses, they began to use the South as a cash cow. Here’s how it worked: Most Southerners who exported cotton bartered the cotton in Europe for goods. When the protective tariffs were imposed, that meant Southerners had to pay them. To make matters worse, the North would then use the revenue for pork-barrel projects in its states. The South was faced with either paying high tariffs and receiving no benefits from the revenue or buying artificially high-priced Northern goods.

Southerners opposed pork-barrel spending. Their correct view was that, because the federal government was merely the agent of all the states, whatever money it spent should be of equal benefit. Their position on public lands was that they belonged to all the people and the federal government had no authority to give the lands away to private interests.

Northerners had announced they would not be bound by the Constitution. What you had was the rise of modern nationalism fighting the original republic founded by the American Revolution.

So, regardless of where you were born, you may be a Southerner philosophically.

TC
TC

Fred’s right on about Yankee hypocrisy… but you’ve got to admit that Memphis and Atlanta are true Southern style urban shitholes. The last time we were down on Beale Street in Memphis (granted it was probably 20 years ago), we got to observe a gold-toothed pimp roughing up his hoe out on the sidewalk outside BB King’s restaurant, then later while taking a touristy horse carriage ride witnessed a hooker giving a handy to a john on a park bench. Once spotted, she just let out a giggle. Classy place.

Tommy
Tommy

Northerner’s don’t talk fast, southerner’s just listen slow.

Rise Up
Rise Up

Long live the Old Dominion!

Dr. Stucky's Teaching Assistant
Dr. Stucky's Teaching Assistant

The title itself is a contradiction since the South never forgets, never forgives – two necessary conditions for true repentance.

Southern Sage
Southern Sage

Fred for President!

indialantic
indialantic

Federal tax paid by Southern states (prior to the civil war) was about 40 percent. Northern states paid about 17 percent. As is stated in the above article, none of Southern taxes were re-invested in the South.

Slavery was present in Northern states BEFORE, DURING and AFTER the war.

Dr. Stucky's Teaching Assistant
Dr. Stucky's Teaching Assistant

Excerpt from Adventures of Huck Finn: “Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here. There was a free nigger there from Ohio—a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat; and there ain’t a man in that town that’s got as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane—the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the State. And what do you think? They said he was a p’fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain’t the wust. They said he could VOTE when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was ’lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn’t too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where they’d let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I’ll never vote agin. Them’s the very words I said; they all heard me; and the country may rot for all me—I’ll never vote agin as long as I live. And to see the cool way of that nigger—why, he wouldn’t a give me the road if I hadn’t shoved him out o’ the way. I says to the people, why ain’t this nigger put up at auction and sold?—that’s what I want to know. And what do you reckon they said? Why, they said he couldn’t be sold till he’d been in the State six months, and he hadn’t been there that long yet. There, now—that’s a specimen. They call that a govment that can’t sell a free nigger till he’s been in the State six months. Here’s a govment that calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and yet’s got to set stock-still for six whole months before it can take a hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger, and—”

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