Montana Cowgirl has an excellent post and discussion on GOP gubernatorial hopeful Robert Fanning’s selection of Chuck Baldwin for his running mate. Her story references former Flathead Beacon reporter Dan Testa’s profile of Baldwin, which noted that Baldwin thinks right was on the side of the South during the Civil War.
I found Baldwin’s original “Me in a Nutshell” post on that subject, and what I found stinks to high heaven:
I believe the South was right in the War Between the States, and I am not a racist. (And I invite anyone to ask any of the numerous members of minority races that attend my church to verify that!) Neither do I believe that the leaders of the old Confederacy were racists. In fact, I hold men such as General Robert E. Lee and General T.J. “Stonewall” Jackson in highest regard.
The Confederacy’s big kahunas weren’t racists, eh Chuck? And I’ll bet you think the war wasn’t about slavery, either, that it was fought by heroic men to defend the sacred right of states to protect private property and God’s scheme for organizing humankind by skin color. A true Lost Cause.
Well, here’s a reality check from Dr. Gary Gallagher, professor of history at the University of Virginia:
Gallagher and Alan Nolan further develop the theme in their entertaining and informative book, The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History.
Contrary to Baldwin’s belief, the leaders of the Confederacy were racists and slavers, practitioners of human bondage, wielders of whips and chains who plunged this nation into a bloody war simply to preserve the most appalling system of cheap labor ever devised. And they said so at the time:
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. From Mississippi’s declaration of succession (Mississippi, the second state to secede, joined the insurrection on 9 January 1861).
Not racists? Or perhaps just not leaders?
So what did the Confederacy’s vice president, Alexander Stephens, have to say about race and slavery?
Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature’s laws. With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper material-the granite; then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for the superior, but for the inferior race, that it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them. For His own purposes, He has made one race to differ from another, as He has made “one star to differ from another star in glory.” The great objects of humanity are best attained when there is conformity to His laws and decrees, in the formation of governments as well as in all things else. Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws. Excerpted from Stephens’ Cornerstone speech, delivered on 21 March 1861 in Savannah, Georgia.
Still not convinced? Then consider Jefferson Davis’ argument for armed rebellion:
Our greatest contemporary historian of the Civil War, James McPherson, has noted that Confederate President Jefferson Davis, a major slaveholder, “justified secession in 1861 as an act of self-defense against the incoming Lincoln administration.” Abraham Lincoln’s policy of excluding slavery from the territories, Davis said, would make “property in slaves so insecure as to be comparatively worthless ... thereby annihilating in effect property worth thousands of millions of dollars.” E.J. Dionne, Jr., writing in The New Republic on 26 December 2010.
And if that’s still not enough, John A. Tures, a political science professor at LaGrange College, analyzed the secession declarations of four states:
…I ran a hypothesis test to determine if states left the Union to join the Confederacy over slavery, or whether that was more of a side issue. I located the declarations of secession for four different states that were available: South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas.
The word “slave” appears 82 times in these four state declarations. The states even refer to themselves as “Slave-Holding States.” I always thought that was a Northern term. On the other hand, the words “State’s rights,” “states’ rights” or “states rights” do not appear in any of these four secession declarations. The word “rights” appears 14 times and “right” appears 32 times, but many of these references involve “the right to own slaves.”
Was it about economics? Cotton and rice don’t appear. Plantation is noted once, but it refers to a place in Rhode Island. Tariffs are never discussed. Tax is mentioned once. Nullification is not included either, though “null” appears three times, mostly to do with leaving the Union. “Econ” (as in economics, economy or any other term) is mentioned twice. And if you read the declarations, they are chock full of excuses for the necessity of slavery that would make the most political incorrect person today cringe. Excerpted from the Southern Political Report.
Of course the leaders of the old Confederacy were racists. Their own words and actions prove it. Baldwin, by embracing the historically wrong and intellectually disreputable myth of the Lost Cause, makes himself a lost cause for human rights.