Stars, Bars, and Wars

Tuesday, April 12, 2011, will be the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Fort Sumter, the beginning of the War Between the States. The lingering effect of that war in the South is remarkable. Most people whom I've asked can name more battles from that war than from any other American conflict except World War II, which has the double benefit of being a much larger and more significant conflict and having taken place recently enough that a great many participants in World War II are still living.

Not only do we remember the War Between the States after all of this time, but we also continue to fight its battles. The Anderson County Courthouse in Palestine, TX, has been in the Dallas area news for the past week. First, the courthouse agreed to raise the Confederate Flag along with the flags of the United States of America and the State of Texas on the flagpole at the county courthouse. Then, the county decided to remove the Confederate Flag. For video coverage of the controversy by one of our local television stations, click this link.

The question of the war and the Confederate Flag continues to arise and to generate controversy because it stands at the intersection of three R's: Racial tension, Regional pride, and Remembering history.

• Racial Tension: The Confederacy fought to preserve the institution of slavery. In saying so, I am not denying that other issues were involved (for example, the nature of the relationship between our federal government and our several states). Historians can quickly recite a list of reasons why the Confederacy went to war. I'm not, in this post, seeking to argue for the removal of anything from that list. I'm merely saying that, however long that list is, the continued enslavement of black Americans is on the list.

  I'm also not saying that the North was clearly fighting to end slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation came late in the war, and provoked angry demonstrations in Northern cities even then. I'm not saying that racism was then (or ever has been) the peculiar possession of Southerners. I'm merely saying that, among other people and institutions, the Southern government opposed the emancipation of the slaves.

  Furthermore, I'm not saying that each individual Confederate soldier was motivated by a desire to preserve slavery. As Shelby Foote noted in the classic Ken Burns series The Civil War, a great many individual Confederate soldiers were fighting "because [the Yankees were] down here [, that is, invading the South]." Granting that the motivating factor for a great many Confederate soldiers was something other, I'm merely saying that the effect of their military services was (among whatever else) the defense of slavery.

  For these reasons, anything that has to do with the War Between the States necessarily has to do with race. Those who object to the display of the Confederate Flag in a venue like the Anderson County Courthouse generally make their objection on the basis of racial offensiveness. I know of no credible argument suggesting that the flying of the Confederate Flag does not offend great numbers of black Americans. All sides would acknowledge, I think, that an enormous percentage of black Americans will indeed be offended whenever the Confederate Flag is displayed by a governmental entity in this manner. Perhaps someone would argue that they should not be offended in these circumstances, but one hardly could (and consequently nobody really does) argue that blacks could not possibly be or are not offended by such displays. The topic of the War Between the States and the Confederacy is a racial issue.

• Remembering History: In Palestine, TX, the offered defense of the display was partly historical in nature. Texas was part of the Confederacy. men from Anderson County died in the War Between the States. The Sons of the Confederacy argued that the display of the Confederate Flag would serve to honor those brave soldiers who died in the war and would commemorate a portion of Anderson County's history.

  Certainly they are accurate in their understanding of history, at least on this point. The Confederate States seceded. A war ensued. People died in the conflict. Then came Reconstruction. These events befell the Southwest when the development of the region was barely begun. Coming at just that moment, the historical significance of the War on the Southern States was so profound as to remain one and a half centuries later.

  And yet, I think something else is afoot here. Six flags have flown over Texas, after all, and yet I doubt seriously that the French flag will soon be hoisted in Palestine. The periods of French, Spanish, and Mexican rule are just as much a part of the history of Anderson County as is the Confederate period. Prior to the conquistadors, the area was generally the possession of various tribes of American Indians. So why is the Confederacy singled out for so much attention?

• Regional Pride and Heroes: Some people support the display of the Confederate Flag because they are KKK-nutjobs—virulent racists who would gladly enforce racial discrimination as a function of their ideology of white supremacy. But this does not tell the whole story. Another broad category of people who either support the display of the Confederate Flag or do not oppose it are those who sympathize deeply with Southern Pride. They play Alabama and Bocephus, watch "Dukes of Hazzard" and display the Confederate Flag. In doing so, they're not so much trying to offend their black neighbors as they are trying to offend Yankees and Carpetbaggers. These are the Proud Southerners. They would not fly the French flag because, although Palestine, TX, was indeed once French, the French heritage of the region is nothing from which they derive their identity. Few symbols are iconically and universally Southern as is the Confederate Flag, and so even some people who are not racists either support or merely do not oppose the flying of the Stars & Bars from the Anderson County Courthouse.

  Seemingly unfettered expansion of the size, scope, and presumptive authority of the Federal Government fuels such sentiments, as some Texans discuss secession from the United States (most solely as an exercise in Texas Pride rather than as a serious domestic strategy) in rhetoric not dissimilar from that of the 1850s. Unionism, social liberalism, socialism in medicine, and other major contributors to our national debt crisis are generally perceived as Northern ideas either transplanted into or forced upon the South.

  In such contexts, some Southerners wish to assert the distinctiveness of the South as a region; to derive their identity more from their region than from their nationality, at least in some regards; and to resist Yankee encroachment and the resulting erosion of distinctively Southern culture. "Song of the South" and "A Country Boy Can Survive" pretty easily morph into "If the South Would've Won We'd Have Had it Made," and the Confederate Flag becomes as much a statement about North-South relations at present as it is any sort of a thoughtful interaction with the antebellum South.

  Consider the lyrics of the aforementioned Hank Williams Jr. song:

  If the South woulda won we'd a had it made.
  I'd probably run for President of the Southern States.
  The day Elvis passed away would be our national holiday.
  If the South woulda won we'd a had it made.

  I'd make my surpreme court down in Texas
  And we wouldn't have no killers getting off free.
  If they were proven guilty then they would swing quickly,
  Instead of writin' books and smilin' on T.V.

  We'd all learn cajun cookin' in Louisiana
  And I'd put that capital back in Alabama.
  We'd put Florida on the right track, 'cause we'd take Miami back
  And throw all them pushers in the slammer.

  Oh, if the South woulda won we'd a had it made.
  I'd probably run for President of the Southern States.
  The day young Skynyrd died, we'd show our southern pride.
  If the South woulda won we'd a had it made.

  I'd have all the whiskey made in Tennessee
  And all the horses raised in those Kentucky hills.
  The national treasury would be in Tupelo, Mississippi
  And I'd put Hank Williams picture on the one hundred dollar bill.

  I'd have all the cars made in the Carolinas
  And I'd ban all the ones made in China.
  I'd have every girl child sent to Georgia to learn to smile
  And talk with that southern accent that drives men wild.

  I'd have all the fiddles made in Virginia,
  'Cause they sure can make 'em sound so fine.
  I'm going up on Wolverton Mountain and see ole Clifton Clowers
  And have a sip of his good ole Arkansas wine.

  Hey, if the South woulda won we'd a had it made.
  I'd probably run for President of the Southern States.
  When Patsy Cline passed away that would be our national holiday.
  If the South woulda won we'd a had it made.

  I said if the south wouda won we would a had it made!

  Might even be better off!

  There's nothing in that song about slavery or race. The most significant implication of a victorious South (a different outcome for race relations) is entirely absent from a song speculating about the implications of a victorious South! Perhaps, one might argue, Williams is of the opinion that the South would have abandoned slavery by now even if it had been victorious. That's an interesting point for speculative discussion and debate, but I don't think it really has a thing to do with Williams's song.

  That's because Williams's song isn't about 1865 at all—it's about 1988. It reflects an opinion that, on the questions of music, law and order, cuisine, drug use, quality of whiskey (Hank apparently didn't see the contradiction between the preceding two items), horses, industrial quality and international trade policy, and the allure of women, Southern culture was superior to non-Southern culture in 1988. Southerners want to be proud of the South. Many Southerners are proud of the South. In order to accomplish this, the number one item of shame for the South—our history of violent racism—we expunge from the story of our region.

  Frankly, I believe that Williams is wrong about 1865 and right about 1988. The nadir of Southern cultural distinctiveness is corresponding with a decline in morality in the South, at least by my own perception of our region. National media are exporting Los Angeles and New York into Little Rock and Nacogdoches, and worse cultures for export would be difficult to find in this country.

  For multi-generational Southerners, entangled with this program of regional pride is the matter of family pride. Many Southerners have ancestors who wore the Gray and fought Mr. Lincoln. Many Southerners have ancestors who told them racial jokes or harbored racist views or participated in the defense of Jim Crow in their younger days. Will we vilify our own parents and grandparents for their sins? Clearly some have done so, but is this even the right thing to do?

The central tension here is between the racial and regional questions. What is the best way forward? I believe that regional pride, within limits, can be a valuable asset for the South, but it must be based upon more positive aspects of the South. If we are proud of the South, then what particular things about the South have made us proud? By the "we" I mean to signify those of us who are Southerners but are not racists. I think that we would do well to place greater emphasis upon a fourth R: Religious Faithfulness.

Were it not for the South, I believe that the United States of America would be as secular as Europe is today. Even the Christian health of the North is greater than it would otherwise be because of the influence of the South and the deliberate efforts of the South to evangelize and disciple the North through church planting in "pioneer areas." An enormous percentage of Christian ministries outside the South and possessing evangelical vitality have their roots, within two steps, in the South.

Consider rates of church attendance. Of the top ten church-going states, only one lies outside the South, and that one (Utah) is only in the list because Gallup doesn't know the difference between a church and the institutions that people attend in Utah. Of the bottom ten church-going states, none of them lie within the South, and six are among the formerly-pious New England states. (See the statistics for yourself here.)

Christian Southerners, why not be proud of that? There is nothing in that reality that would be offensive racially. Black churches and white churches, their cultural dissimilarities notwithstanding, have been partners in preserving the relative spiritual health of the South. The spiritual vitality of the South is no opponent to racial reconciliation, for Christian theology provides the best foundation in the world for racial harmony and Christ is the major source of unity bringing together many black and white Southerners today. The Confederate Flag is not a very good icon of the spiritual South, permeated as it is with small congregations whose platforms are festooned with the American Flag and the Christian Flag, with the Stars & Bars nowhere to be seen. What we need is a flag decorated with a scene of a country vale with a white clapboard church meeting house nestled in the trees.

Emphasizing the legacy of leaders like J. M. Pendleton could help in this regard. Pendleton was the only member of the Great Triumvirate of Landmarkism who was a native Southerner, and yet he was also the only member who was vocally anti-slavery and who opposed secession. With many of our other ancestors or heroes, we will need to honor the good in them while refusing to preserve their weaknesses. The goal here is to continue to carry forward to completion our region's remarkable advance toward racial reconciliation without being absorbed into the secularism that dominates other regions of our nation.

I'm thankful to have been born in Arkansas. Count me as a Proud Southerner who sees our past sins all too clearly, but who also sees the unique positive contributions of the South to our nation and the world. To commemorate Tuesday's anniversary, I will soon dig out my VHS copies of the famous Ken Burns documentary, remembering where we have been and how far we have come, and hoping for the better angels of our nature to lead us forward, after all.