Virginia's 19th Century Ambition

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Posted by Chauncey DeVega at 1:00 pm
April 8, 2010

An Inconvenient Fact? Slavery Omitted from Virginia’s “Whitewashed” Confederate History Month


Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It is so even amongst us.

–Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy


Damn those minor inconveniences of history!

Question: who the hell longs for The Confederacy? Why do these folks clamor for The Lost Cause and Redemption? The South lost–or did it? Who still believes that state’s rights is somehow inseparable from the chattel enslavement of black people in this country? Are there folks, dead-enders in my mind, who really believe that The Confederacy was something to celebrate?

Apparently, Governor Robert McDonnel does. He has proclaimed April as “Confederate History Month” in order to honor how citizens of the state fought so bravely to protect their homes and communities. Interestingly, no mention of slavery appears in his proclamation (although he has now bowed to pressure from the public and the media and has had a “change of heart” on the issue). This whitewashing of slavery out of Virginia history may seem like an outlier, an interesting news piece that does not tell us anything about politics at large. But it is not. Rather, it is a central example of the political vision that is the core of the Palin, Right-wing Tea Party populism. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/04/08/an-inconvenient-fact-slavery-omitted-from-virginias-whitewashed-confederate-history-month/