Cleaning up the legacy of hate to advance a political cause

NYT/Jon Meacham

As the sesquicentennial of Fort Sumter approaches in 2011, the enduring problem for neo-Confederates endures: anyone who seeks an Edenic Southern past in which the war was principally about states’ rights and not slavery is searching in vain, for the Confederacy and slavery are inextricably and forever linked.

That has not, however, stopped Lost Causers who supported Mr. McDonnell’s proclamation from trying to recast the war in more respectable terms. They would like what Lincoln called our “fiery trial” to be seen in a political, not a moral, light. If the slaves are erased from the picture, then what took place between Sumter and Appomattox is not about the fate of human chattel, or a battle between good and evil. It is, instead, more of an ancestral skirmish in the Reagan revolution, a contest between big and small government.

We cannot allow the story of the emancipation of a people and the expiation of America’s original sin to become fodder for conservative politicians playing to their right-wing base. That, to say the very least, is a jump backward we do not need.

Responding to the firestorm that resulted from Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's "Confederate History Month" proclamation that honored the Southern cause in the civil War and left out any mention of slavery, Mississippi gov. (and possible 2012 Presidential candidate) Haley Barbour said:

Politico

When CNN "State of the Union" anchor Candy Crowley asked Barbour, a onetime lobbyist and former head of the RNC, if the slavery omission was a mistake, he said, "I don't think so, my legislature has made an active holiday of Confederate Memorial Day... Anyone who thinks that you have to explain that slavery is a bad thing, it goes without saying... It's sort of feeling that it's a nit, it's not significant, it's trying to make a big deal."

"A nit". Remember this in November, the Republicans consider slavery - America's original sin - "a nit".