One Nation, After All
Virginia’s new Confederate proclamation is a force of unity.

Mr. Clegg is general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He is also a native Texan and lives now in Virginia.
March 22, 2001 9:40 a.m.

n Tuesday, Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III replaced his annual Confederate History Month proclamation with "A Proclamation in Remembrance of the Sacrifices and Honor of All Virginians Who Served in the Civil War." The story made the front page of both the Washington Post and the Washington Times.

The announcement was not well received by those referred to in a Post headline as "Confederacy supporters" and, in the Times story, as "Southern heritage groups." (The difference in nomenclature is predictable: The Post is establishment liberal, and the Times courts a conservative Virginia readership.) "Gilmore has knuckled under to the NAACP," said Bragdon Bowling of Richmond, the second-highest officer in the state chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Bowling also declared: "This is an outright betrayal of all Confederate soldiers in Virginia," a quote the Post found understandably impossible to resist.

The Times likewise found Mr. Bowling quotable in his criticism of Gilmore's respectful nod toward those who joined the Union forces: "This is an army which invaded Virginia and killed thousands of its citizens and burned farms, and killed livestock and raped women — this is what he's honoring here." Remember the scene in Blazing Saddles when, in a similar tirade, the women and cattle get switched around?

Probably everything that Mr. Bowling says is true. Certainly Gov. Gilmore has been under pressure from the NAACP, the state chapter of which last year threatened a statewide tourism boycott because of the governor's earlier designation of Confederate History Month.

I have a lot of sympathy for those who want to recognize the heroism of Confederate soldiers, and even more for those who have a reflexive and negative reaction to the NAACP's pronouncements these days. My father's parents were from Mississippi, and my parents and I are Texans, and in all my years growing up and playing army I can never remember choosing to be a Yankee rather than a Rebel.

As for the NAACP, there was a time when that organization did good work, but no more, and it has become essentially an arm of the Democratic party. For instance, the NAACP could just as easily have threatened Maryland with a boycott. After all, the organization is actually based in Baltimore, and the state song, "Maryland, My Maryland," is notoriously anti-Union, beginning, "The despot's heel is on thy shore, Maryland!" and ending, "Huzza, she spurns the Northern scum!" But Maryland is liberal, with a Democratic governor, and conservative Virginia has a Republican governor, so guess who's targeted?

All that said, however, Gov. Gilmore's new proclamation takes the right course — and for exactly the same reason that the NAACP is so often these days headed in the wrong direction: It seeks to unite rather than divide. Those interested can read the proclamation for themselves, which is accessible here.

The proclamation extols the bravery of those who fought for the Confederacy as well as those who fought for the Union. Virginians were in both camps, and every Southern schoolboy knows — or knew — that for Robert E. Lee himself it was an agonizing decision. Pride of place is given to the Confederates, with Lee and Stonewall Jackson mentioned first in the proclamation, followed by examples of those who fought for the Union. The proclamation, while condemning slavery, even acknowledges that in the war North and South alike fought "to protect what each side believed to be threatened rights and imperiled liberty."

Apparently one of the most controversial passages in the proclamation is its statement that "had there been no slavery there would have been no war." This angers the Southern heritage groups/Confederacy supporters because it is their belief that the war was not about slavery per se but about how much power the federal government should have vis-à-vis the states.

Well, sure, the South believed the North was a threat to legitimate state powers, but, no, if there hadn't been the matter of slavery to force the issue then the dispute would not have led to secession. Would there sooner or later have arisen some other dispute to force the issue? Nobody can know.

So the proposition that slavery was the "but, for" cause of the Civil War is in a narrow sense undeniably true. On the other hand, the statement that "had there been no slavery there would have been no war" is sheer speculation — on par with the Saturday Night Live skit that asked, "Would it have shortened World War II if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly?"

It was, in other words, silly for the proclamation to get into this quagmire. But it redeems itself by the way in which it concludes. The proclamation declares that the meeting between Lee and Grant at Appomattox "set the Nation on its course toward reconciliation" and that "remembrance of the profound sacrifices and honorable service of the men and women of Virginia who served both Confederacy and Union shall unite Virginians of all regions, races, and creeds forevermore." This let's-move-on-as-one-America exhortation is exactly the right note to hit.

Last week I wrote about the use of Indian mascots by sports teams. Not only is it politically incorrect to have such mascots, but our public-school textbooks now stress to the nth degree the injustices that Indians suffered. And the reaction of most Americans likely runs like this: Yes, certainly, the Indians were treated badly. They fought bravely for their way of life and no one should blame them for that or minimize their suffering. But at some point the past must be released. It is fine to have pride in one's ancestors, but we are all Americans now and so let's talk about something else.

You see where I'm going with this, don't you? Just substitute Confederates for Indians. Yes, Confederates were brave. Yes, they suffered enormously. Yes, they were just fighting for their way of life and for what they believed in. But they lost, and as a nation we can't change that or be sorry that they lost, any more than we can give the country back to the Indians or wish that they had won.

How would a Southern conservative feel if an Indian group wanted to fly an American-Indian pride flag on top of a state capitol? How would he feel if a governor issued a proclamation that honored the Indian dead but said nothing about the settlers, or left anyone with the distinct impression that, in the Indian Wars, the wrong side had won?

This is not to say that southerners shouldn't be proud of their Confederate forebears or that Indians shouldn't be proud of their ancestors. But neither one should expect there to be official endorsement of their ancestors alone or of their point of view, nor should they object when official acknowledgment of their heritage is tempered with a call to reconciliation and moving on.

Two final points, one for Gov. Gilmore and one for the Indians. The one-America theme that Gilmore endorses in his proclamation is a two-way street. He should bear it in mind when the NAACP comes knocking again and asks for racial preferences in state hiring, contracting, and university admissions. The governor has been squishy on these issues of late, which is especially troubling since he is now also chairman of the Republican National Committee. The lesson applies with even greater force to reparations.

As for the Indians, they should take a leaf from the Confederates' book when it comes to sports teams. The latter don't have their feelings hurt when a team is named the Rebels. To the contrary, they love the opportunity that it provides them to stress their proud heritage. The Indians should do likewise for the Braves and Warriors.