Sorry to be so late to the party, but I was reading something the other day that placed Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell‘s discussion of slavery and Virginia and the Civil War of a couple of weeks ago in particularly sharp relief. You’ll recall that as a sop to the Sons of Confederate War Veterans, McDonnell proclaimed April Confederate History Month, seizing an opportunity to appease some lost-in-the-past cavaliers that his two immediate predecessors had let go unavailing. In fairness, McConnell’s actual proclamation was fairly innocuous pap, calling upon “all Virginians” to “reflect upon our Commonwealth’s shared history, to understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War, and to recognize how our history has led to our present.” Says the proclamation, “this defining chapter in Virginia’s history should not be forgotten, but instead should be studied, understood and remembered by all Virginians, both in the context of the time in which it took place, but also in the context of the time in which we live.”
McDonnell must have thought that he had pulled off quite a fast one: the Lost Causers got their proclamation, and all McDonnell had to say was that he urged people to study and reflect. No tributes to famous traitors like Lee and Jackson, no exaltations about the confederate army’s talent for carnage, no gee whizzy moments about how close they came to victory: just study and reflection. But those who resent the pernicious nostalgia of the whole Sons of the Confederate Veterans thing were shrewd enough to give him his study and reflection, and instead asked him “Okay, Bob, what about slavery?”
And here, Bob stumbled. Instead of saying “Look, it would have been massively self-defeating if not simply impolite to bring up the great moral evil of slavery in the midst of my self-serving sop to these dead-enders, but if you, in the course of your reflection and study, wish to draw a connection between these fighting men and the corrupt institutions they served, well, be my guest,” McDonnell said “There were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia.”
As it happened, not long after McDonnell uttered these maladroit comments, I was reading The Battle Cry of Freedom, James M. McPherson‘s brilliant history of the war. As he reports, Virginia seceded when a convention adopted a resolution supporting secession by a vote of in April 1861 by a vote of 88 to 55. As it turns out, the median number of slaves owned by delegates supporting secession was 11.5; the median number owned by delegates opposing secession was 4. Fifty-three of the delegates supporting secession came from counties where the number of slaves was greater than 25% of the population–big slave-holding regions, in other words. In a popular vote that ratified the convention’s recommendation, in the 35 counties where the slave population was less than 2.5%, voters rejected secession–from the United States, that is. In fact, these counties ended up seceding from Virginia. They formed their own state, and joined the Union as West Virginia.
So it seems slavery was a pretty significant issue for Virginians–more than the Governor argued. Or pretended to argue. After some study and reflection, McDonnell apologized for his omission and amended the proclamation so that it now reads “The abomination of slavery divided our nation, deprived people of their God-given inalienable rights, and led to the Civil War. Slavery was an evil, vicious and inhumane practice which degraded human beings to property, and it has left a stain on the soul of this state and nation.”
True that. But one wonders what will happen when McDonnell proclaims “Let’s Reflect On and Study Slavery Month.” Perhaps he will pause for a moment and give us a chorus of Dixie.