The evil gift that keeps on giving

Like a deadly hereditary disease, spread by a gift gladly accepted long ago, hatred broke out again at Charlottesville last week. That sickening display by people who apparently consider themselves real Americans, and the damage done to those opposing Naziism and white supremacy, deserve more eloquent voices than mine, so I won’t dwell on the subject. As one whose kin and neighbors bled and died to fight and destroy the political system that made a religion of mass murder of innocent humans, I want to vomit when I see their sacrifices discounted by fools waving swastikas and soiled Confederate battle flags.

But no need to add my voice to the many already dissecting and condemning the display of madness that stained Charlottesville and the support it received, both tacit and explicit, from the highest level of government. Nor to beat the drum for or against the removal of a Confederate statue that was the trigger. Such removals will continue, and such Nazi rallies probably will, too.

The catalyst for this recent spasm grew out of our past. I want to examine my own stumbling odyssey through and reaction to the history of the region that molded me and that was molded itself by a vicious and awful “peculiar institution,” and the criminally stupid and doomed war it spawned. And, no, that war was not driven by states’ rights, unbalanced trade, or any of the other factors that may have had some degree of influence. It was a war to defend slavery, a historically provable fact. I do not agree that it was a rebellion. It was not designed to overthrow the government or destroy it. It was designed to leave that government. But I’m quibbling — it was an insane and hopeless idea. And it was driven by slavery.

I grew up fascinated by the history of the Confederacy and the Civil War, and I respected my ancestors who fought in it. Still do. I honor soldiers who do their duty, at risk of life, even when I don’t respect the war they fought in. One relative, Confederate soldier, walked home on leave from Northern Virginia, missing an eye, just before the war ended. Several others, on both sides of my family, also fought for the Confederacy. I know few details about them, but I respect them. Obviously, no rational person could have respect for slavery, but they weren’t slave holders.

I learned early to compartmentalize my life. Ideas, thoughts, plans, beliefs were stored in separate compartments. They might conflict with each other if considered together, but putting them in compartments meant I didn’t have to face my own inconsistencies. Putting my opinion of slavery and my consideration of my Confederate relatives in separate boxes made my life more pleasant, and it was made infinitely more palatable by a strange fact: while history is normally written by the winners, in the case of the Civil War the losing side took control of the narrative and put a hazy, romantic glow on what was actually a vicious, bitter, disastrous bloodletting.

Over time I have learned to break down some, not all, of the compartment walls. I came to realize I can’t pretend there’s no connection between slavery and the war that was fought to preserve and extend it. Don’t get me wrong; I still admire and respect my Confederate ancestors. Soldiers rarely get to choose their own wars, and if ever there was a “rich man’s war and poor man’s fight,” as the Confederates called it, the Civil War was such. But I understand that Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and other leaders, however much I might admire their talents and sacrifices, cannot be separated from the evil of the slavery they fought to preserve.

Nor can we be separated from it if we still yield to the impulses that sustained it. I am convinced that slavery was but one of the fruits of the real culprit, the evil that has been with us from the beginning, the readiness to believe others are somehow less than we are. If we believe that, we find it not so difficult to ignore their needs and dreams and pain.

I resist change and look often to the past, so I feel a twinge of regret at the removal of Civil War statues. But I leave it to others to decide pro or con. I will live with the results. Our history is the same, with or without statues. The bigger question is, with or without the statues, can we remove the evil, the belief that we are greater and others lesser, that keeps staining us?

This story was originally published August 18, 2017 at 6:18 PM with the headline "The evil gift that keeps on giving."