Magnolias and Cornbread: An Outline of Southern History for Unreconstructed Southerners

By Leslie R. Tucker

Know your Southern history so that you can help to defend it. Our heritage is too important to leave to Yankee and Scalawag revisionist.

In America today most are proud to boast of their cultural background whether that be Irish, African, Hispanic or whatever. One of the largest segments of the American population is attacked for displaying pride in their heritage, those with Confederate ancestors. We are immediately classified as racist if we display the battle flag that the Southern soldier carried as he defended his home and family from invasion. We have made some progress in convincing others that our flag is meant to symbolize heritage not hate but we have further to go. The author is one Southerner who feels that his ancestors were like their grandfathers before them, simply fighting for their right to self government. They did nothing to be pardoned for and we do nothing wrong in being proud of them just as other Americans take pride in their ancestors. The best way to do this is to become familiar with our history. In recent years many academic historians have joined the attacks of our Confederate heritage. We must not leave our history to be told by Yankee and Scalawag revisionist historians. Everyone who feels the same way should read this outline of Southern history for Unreconstructed Southerners.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 27, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450241458

Leslie R. Tucker

Les has a Ph.D. in US Southern history. A California Okie who learned to be proud of his numerous ancestors who served the Confederate States. He has held many national and state offi ces in the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Currently teaches University history and lives in Edmond, Oklahoma.

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Preface

Today there are many people who attack not only the Confederate flag but also other symbols of the Old South. They claim they are offended. Many Southerners have surrendered to this for the sake of harmony. I am not one. I am offended by their attitude. These are symbols of my ancestors and my heritage. I feel that they are saying that my ancestors were so evil that they do not deserve to be remembered and honored. Not only am I offended by this anti-Southern bigotry, but I also believe that the North was wrong and that they were guilty of crimes against humanity. They killed my ancestors; burned their homes, farms, and towns; raped their women; and denied them the right to self-determination. I am an unreconstructed Southerner.

I am proud to be a Southerner, but I have not always felt that way. I was born in New Mexico, the son of Okies, and was then raised in California. When I started school out on the West Coast, hillbilly was my native language. By the time I started middle school, I spoke Californian fluently. I was like Jethro Bodine of the Beverly Hillbillies; my parents were rubes and hayshakers, but I was a sophisticated international playboy because I was from California. Later I got involved with genealogy. I learned that all my people came from the South. By the time of the American Revolution, all my ancestors were living below the Mason-Dixon line. I have five great-great-grandfathers who were Confederate soldiers, and when I number their brothers and nephews, I have more than a hundred who fought for the South. Some deserted, some even went to the other side, but nonetheless they were Southerners. Then I began to think about my religious upbringing, about the food I was fed, and the music I like. I was raised in a Southern colony, just like Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, and Dwight Yokum. I am a Southerner.

When I moved back to Oklahoma in 1981, I was proud to see a display of the Fourteen Flags that have flown over our state during its colorful history. Some of them seemed to be a bit of a stretch, but we accomplished our goal of having more flags than the six that Texas boasted of. In 1960, Governor Henry Bellman asked Muriel Wright for suggestions on how to represent Oklahoma at the New York World’s Fair. Muriel had been active for years in Oklahoma history; her grandfather is the one who came up with the name for our state. Muriel researched what became known as the Fourteen Flags. After the fair ended, the flags were arranged around the entrance to the state capitol building. The Fourteen Flags could also be found in the plaza of the Liberty Bank building, in front of the Myriad Convention center, and at the main plaza of the state fairgrounds. Today the poles in front of the capitol are all Oklahoma state flags. The ones at the convention center, now called the Cox Convention Center, were changed to colorful banners and then later removed altogether, and the poles at the now Chase Building are adorned with only the American or state flags. Despite attempts to change those at the fairgrounds, they still defiantly fly. These changes are the result of a direct attack on one of those flags, the Confederate flag. It matters not that all but one of the other flags, including the Stars and Stripes, also represented nations that had slavery. It is only the Confederate flag that has been singled out for removal.

Every American-schooled child is taught to be proud of their heritage. We see communities celebrating Cinco de Mayo, Saint Patrick’s Day, or Kwanza. We are encouraged to be proud of the fact that we are all Americans, but we all have another heritage—a hyphenated heritage. We may be African-American, Irish-American, or simply Native American; but we are all part of the diversity that is America. There is an exception—Confederate Southern American. We are supposed to be ashamed and believe that our ancestors fought for racism and bigotry and that they had to be defeated so that the diversity that is the United States of America could come into being.

This view is wrong. I am proud to say that my ancestors have lived in the South since the first English colonies, which were in Virginia, not Massachusetts. Some of my Southern ancestors arrived more than ten thousand years before that since I am also part Cherokee and Choctaw Indian. My ancestors fought for independence in 1776, and their grandsons fought for the same cause in 1861. Some of them owned slaves, but the majority didn’t. There are those who have the absurd idea that the Confederate soldier is in the same class as the Nazi who gassed innocent civilians in Germany. Such thinking is based on a distortion of history that is nothing short of propaganda.

Recent Attacks and Interpretations

Attacks on Confederate symbols, especially the battle flag, have increased since a 1991 resolution by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). They claimed that the tyrannical evil symbolized in the Confederate Battle Flag is an abhorrence to all Americans and decent people of this country, and indeed, the world and is an odious blight upon the universe.[1] The liberal revisionist historians do not use the same language but do seem to condone the sentiment.

I cannot prove it, but I believe there are ulterior motives for this attitude. For the NAACP it is simply politics. As discrimination against blacks in America decreased, the need for the NAACP did also. Any organization must justify its existence. Since 1991, this group has called for boycotts, marches, petitions, and other actions against the Confederate battle flag. They have lost some, but for the most part, the flag and other symbols continue to disappear throughout the land.

My explanation of the liberal revisionist’s motivations is more complicated. I call it my scapegoat theory. First, the liberals like to endorse anything sponsored by the NAACP. However, they also like to think of America as the land of diversity. They tend to complain about the racism in American history, but they still like to boast of the diversity. They like to think of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as documents which foster diversity. This is a contradiction to the reality of American history, which is full of racism. How do we reconcile these facts with the dream of diversity? A simple way out is to put the sins of racism on Southerners. Since bleeding heart liberals are also concerned about the poor, they have even found a way to lift the burden of racism off of them. I am talking about the poor whites of Appalachia and the Populist and the ones like Woody Guthrie. We can’t think of them as evil. Again, the solution is simple. We blame only those Southerners who defended the Confederacy. That is why the revisionists like to try to show that the poor whites were not loyal Confederates. According to them, it was mainly the planters, the slave owners, the rich. This is very similar to the old planter conspiracy theory that helped to bring about the war in the first place. By putting the sins of racism on the Confederate battle flag, we can then sacrifice that flag to the rubbish pile of history. This is classic scapegoating.

Though many of us have fought to preserve our heritage, it seems we are losing much more than we are winning. I could fill a volume with examples. The only car banned by NASCAR was one sponsored and decorated with the Sons of Confederate Veterans logo. The voters were able to restore part of the battle flag to the Georgia state flag, and Mississippi kept theirs, but as a result, the NCAA has called for a boycott of any bowl games being played in either of those states. Theme parks from Oklahoma City’s Frontier City to Tennessee’s Dollywood have removed it. I can remember when every fair and carnival in the South, as well as other states, used to sell the battle flag. It is getting so that now many of our young do not even know what it is. There are even many examples of where the hated banner has been eliminated from battlefield paintings so that Union soldiers carrying the Stars and Stripes battle a bannerless enemy.

Us unreconstructed Southerners diminish in numbers as more and more of our own people abandon the defense of our Confederate history. Many give the subject lip service, but they have assigned priority to other issues. The NAACP and their allies have found it a successful tactic to convince the Chambers of Commerce that they are going to look like a bunch of rednecks and lose business if they display Confederate pride. Recently the Republican Southern strategy has become a major force. Richard Nixon started what is called the Southern strategy of the Republican Party. The conservative party that traditionally supported big business in the northeast has convinced Southerners that they are now the party of the social issues which they agree with, such as public prayer, opposition to gay marriage, or antiabortion. The Republican Party has embraced the agenda of the religious right, but they would never defend our Confederate heritage. I remember shortly after September 11, President Bush visited Columbus Day festivities, met with Hispanics, and even courted Muslim-Americans. I know that neither Bush nor any other high-ranking Republican would ever visit a meeting of the Sons of Confederate Veterans or United Daughters of the Confederacy. I even have serious doubts that he would attend a meeting of the Sons or Daughters of the American Revolution. One of the main reasons that the Republican Party would never be seen at any event in support of our Confederate heritage is that they are also trying to recruit more black voters, and they do not want to jeopardize this goal. They also know that the liberal media would attack them for showing support to anything Confederate. Even Southern Republicans are willing to set aside their Confederate pride if it will help them achieve the Republican agenda.

A historiography is quickly growing around the issue of Confederate heritage. As far back as 1960, C. Vann Woodward addressed the Burden of Southern History; but of course, that was before the direct attacks on Southern icons. Some books defending our heritage have turned to the traditional romanticized view, such as Mike Grissom’s Southern by the Grace of God while others have taken a more radical approach, such as The South Was Right by James R. and Walter D. Kennedy. Meanwhile, the liberal revisionists have entered the fray. They like to claim objectivity and even seem to recognize that our defenders are not all Klansmen but in the end, agree it is time to furl the flag forever. This would include Tony Horwitz with Confederates in the Attic or David Goldfield in Still Fighting the Civil War, and K. Michael Prince with Rally Round the Flag, Boys!: South Carolina and the Confederate Flag. Anyone interested in preserving our heritage should read these books. Know the enemy. You may even accept that some of what they have to say is true and that they do have some good points. We must also realize the truth in what James C. Cobb said: In the century that lies ahead, dedicating so much attention to the lower right corner of the United States will be increasingly difficult to justify unless we realize that for future generations the value in studying the South’s experience may actually lie not in what seems unique about it but in what seems universal.[2] What is universal about this issue is that we need to appreciate and accept people of different cultures. White Southerners have taken great strides in understanding and accepting black Southerners. It is reasonable to expect the same. We deserve to be accepted for what we are, which means accepting what our ancestors were. Some of us still believe the words of the old song, And I don’t want no pardon for what I was and am, and I won’t be reconstructed, And I don’t give a damn.[3] Our ancestors did not do anything that they need a pardon for, and we do not need a pardon for honoring them.

This is not intended to be an essay for academia but rather for the Southern people. I have a PhD in history, and I know how to do the kind of research expected for one in that profession. I have done proper historical research; however, I sometimes feel that if history does not get to the people then something is missing. As a professional historian, I am often frustrated by the distortion of historical fact that is used to support one’s politics and philosophy of life. I have had students who have openly expressed contempt for the general education requirements that put them in my class. Nonetheless they use historical fact to support their views on contemporary issues. The problem is that they are only using what they believe to be the facts of history. We all make basic assumptions, but they should be based on fact. That is why it is critical to have a complete and accurate understanding of history. We will have differences in how to interpret historical facts, and no doubt bias will tend to creep in, but we should strive for accuracy as much as possible. When it comes to the Confederate flag, I believe that even the professionals are distorting the facts because of the liberal Northern bias that dominates intellectual America. No doubt they consider us to be the biased ones, therefore my main objective is to offer an alternative to their interpretation. Much of the liberal arrogance is based on an assumption that our alternative view is due to ignorance. It is not.

Since I am a professional historian well schooled in the liberal biased view of history, I hope to pass on my advice to the defenders of Confederate heritage. I am not presenting a complete history of the South but only an outline of history with an emphasis on those topics most relevant to the condemnation of our heritage. I will point out the liberal revisionist teachings and discuss why their view is not necessarily the only one. I want the unreconstructed to understand the viewpoint of the liberal revisionist historians so that they can better defend our position. I am not doing original historical research, and so this is an essay, not a true history. I will not use footnotes except in the case of direct quotes. I will include an appendix with bibliographical essays on the books depended on most by the liberal revisionist. I will present my conclusions, which I know some, if not most, professional historians will disagree with. Generally, their disagreement will be over my interpretation, not the facts that I present. They will say that my view is biased, but I say that theirs is. Academic historians live in a culture of liberalism, which most of them defend, but I am not writing for professional historians; I am writing the general reader. More specifically, I am writing for the unreconstructed Southerner.

As I do my outline of Southern history, I will consider the point of view of the four main classes of our society. The liberal revisionists are correct in their identification of these classes in Southern history. The dominant one and the one romanticized by books and movies such as Gone With the Wind is the planter class. The largest white population is the middle class or what the historians call the Yeoman farmer. Historians have labeled the lower white classes pine-barrens folk instead of a more offensive term, such as hillbilly, redneck, or peckerwood. The fourth is black Southerners who were slaves, then freedmen, and now African-American. This is why I have titled my book Magnolias and Cornbread. Southern culture is not just the planters and the romantic stuff of which movies are made, but also the toil and sweat of the Southern farmers and working class. I will try to cover the point of view of these main classes in Southern history, including black Southerners. I consider the latter important since if I can help them realize that this is their history too, maybe they will not be so determined to obliterate it. I feel a necessity to discuss the middle- and lower-class whites since the Revisionist trend is to say that they did not support the Confederacy.

Introduction

Three Main Objectives

While others are honored with various holidays and festivals, Southerners are supposed to stand by as all signs of our Confederate heritage are erased from the pages of American history. In 1996, I visited the California high school I graduated from. As we entered the auditorium, the principal, a former classmate of mine, pointed out a display of more than one hundred flags and boasted that they represented the diversity of his student body. I did not see a Confederate flag nor would I ever expect to see one. It is not just that our heritage and ancestors are ignored but that they are quite often vilified.

I have three main objectives that I hope will assist the defenders of our heritage. The professional historians have now entered the battle, and they speak with such authority that many will assume them to be correct. I am a professional historian, and so I am familiar with the current historical interpretations relevant to Southern history. With this essay, I hope to provide information that will help those who are still proud of their Southern heritage to better defend it against those who are determined to bury it.

My first objective is to inventory the relevant interpretations of the liberal revisionist historians, who I will refer to as the Librevs. I understand that they are professional historians and that we must accept the fact that they are right more often than they are wrong. They have correctly identified numerous myths and inaccuracies and, as a result, have given us a more accurate American history. I certainly have no desire to discredit their work or to give the impression that they do not know what they are talking about. However, I do not believe they are correct in the position that most have taken in wanting to deny us our past or in creating the impression that our ancestors were evil. It is important for us to understand what they have to say before we criticize them.

My second objective is to correct some of the common myths that the Dixie defenders have. If we counter professional historians with rhetoric, they will not even bother to respond. We must be able to defeat them with a factual history of not only our Southland, but also of the United States. The Librevs may not agree with us, and most of the time, we will not be able to prove them wrong, but we should be able to reduce our disagreements to opinion. Therefore it is important that our opinion be based on historically accurate facts. We should even be willing to concede when the Librevs are right for the sake of credibility while standing firm on those areas in which the professionals are wrong.

My third objective is to include the history of the black Southerner. Traditionally, Southern history has been the story of white Southerners. In the meantime, blacks have been put into the field of African-American history. At least a third of Southerners are of African ancestry, and most blacks in America have Southern ancestors. It seems to me that it is a distortion of history to separate the two. In the past, the majority of Southern whites have been racist and thus believed themselves to be superior to the blacks, but nonetheless they have lived together for centuries. Of course, I also hope to convince many blacks that Confederate heritage is part of their past too and not something they should seek to destroy. There is no denying that most of our white Southern ancestors were racist and that blacks were not treated fairly; however, there is more to the story. I also want to recognize that even though blacks were slaves, they made many contributions to Southern culture and that they deserve our respect for their contributions. If we make it clear that our heritage is the heritage of all Southerners, then it will be more difficult for the politically correct to condemn our past.

Librevs

History is written by the winners, everyone realizes this. This is why the Northerners have been portrayed as more righteous than Southerners. We have another problem in America—the liberal bias in academia. The most influential scholars come from Harvard, Yale, and other prestigious Northern universities. This has created a Northern slant with a liberal bias. Academic liberalism has become a self-justifying system. Those who step too far over the line of liberalism could never hope to be accepted into one of these institutions, and therefore their views will never be incorporated into their academia. The academic elite equate liberalism with intelligence and conservative views with ignorance. Unfortunately, this has spilled over to secondary and primary education also, and from them to the general public. Even the majority of Southern academic historians have embraced this liberalism. I cannot say if it is due to self-esteem or simply the desire to be recognized by the Northern-dominated academic elite. I also believe that this liberal bias has led many of the professionals into the ranks of the politically correct.

Librevs have identified Southern patriotic groups such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy as defenders of that they call the Lost Cause myth. There is definitely much to the early views of Southerners that reek of filial piety; however, the liberal revisionists are too quick to reduce us to two choices—the old over-romanticized lost cause view or theirs. That is a main reason that I find it necessary to write this essay. I believe that we can accept accuracy in Southern history without sacrificing the honor and memory of our ancestors. The mothers, daughters, and widows of the Confederate soldiers sacrificed much when they literally collected their pennies to construct monuments to their sons, brothers, fathers, and sweethearts, who bravely defended their homes from foreign invaders. We should feel shame every time one of these memorials is destroyed in the name of political correctness. These people were our ancestors, our culture, and our heritage. They need not be sacrificed for the sake of historical accuracy or political correctness. I am glad that we no longer have slavery. I am glad that blacks have made considerable progress toward achieving equality. However, my white ancestors were victims of their times as much as the blacks were. In hindsight, I see that much of their thinking was wrong, but I will not hate them for it nor will I deny them the respect they deserve.

We have much to be ashamed of in our history. However, we must not be too harsh in judging those who lived by different rules. Before World War II, most Americans believed in white superiority. When most Americans of the early twentieth century saw The Birth of a Nation, they saw it as factual. Today few of us look at the world this way, and we are all better off because of the change. But I will not condemn our ancestors for being wrong about this anymore than I would condemn them because they did not know as much about math or science as we do now. I am sure that we do things today that will be considered wrong in the future. I hope we will not be held accountable for not following the moral standards of the future. We should study history to understand where we came from and how this made us what we are today. We should not study history to find someone to blame.

I will not attempt to deny that my Southern forefathers were racist, and I am certain that if I could meet them today, there would be much that I would disagree with them about. But the sin of slavery, if it could be considered a sin at a time when most of the world practiced it, cannot be put solely on the shoulders of Southerners. The Stars and Stripes defended slavery for much longer than the stars and bars. The racism that justified slavery in the South also justified the extermination of Indians throughout America. It made immigrant slums acceptable and made it easier to kill brown-skinned natives whether they be from America, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, or Philippines. This attitude was not limited to Americans as the slaughter of nonwhites occurred around the globe as Europeans conquered the world and expanded their empires. It is not even limited to Europeans as the study of almost any other culture would quickly reveal. Conquerors usually consider themselves superior to the conquered. This not only justifies their aggression but to them it explains their success.

Librev Issues

Entire philosophies can be reduced to a handful of assumptions. There are a few main topics that the Librevs take a position on that are relevant to the defense of our heritage. It is these that I will focus on in my outline of Southern history. There are six of these which I consider crucial, as well as a few lesser ones.

The first topic is the most obvious. Generally, the Librevs have agreed with those who seek to remove the Confederate flag. They understand that we look at the flag as a symbol of our heritage rather than the racist icon that some have used it for. Nonetheless, they realize that it represents something negative to many black folks, and therefore we should be willing to sacrifice this symbol for the sake of harmony and to make amends for past sins of racism. Much of their position on this is relevant to the other issues that I will be discussing.

The second topic is the question of Southern distinctiveness. They see this as related to what they call the lost cause myth. Because of this, they believe that the Confederate flag and other symbols are not part of our heritage since we did not have a heritage before the war. I do not agree with this idea. I firmly believe that the differences between the North and South are great, and in fact, I feel a greater affinity with those of the West Indies than with New Englanders. Grady McWhiney wrote about what is called the Celtic Fringe theory. To simplify, he said that the difference between North and South existed in the British Isles before the American colonies were founded. It dates back to the conflict between the Celtic population that lived there before the Roman occupation and the Anglo-Saxons who arrived in conjunction with the Romans. The Celts were pushed off to the fringes of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales while the Anglo-Saxons dominated in the South. The theory works on the assumption that the Anglo-Saxons settled in New England while the Celts settled in the southern United States. Thus, according to this theory, there were social differences from the very beginning. I believe in the Celtic fringe theory, and this theme will run throughout. In other words, I believe that the North and South were different from the start, and the differences have continued through today. We may have much in common with the North, but we are different in other ways. I also accept the theory that the South has more in common with West Indies culture than with the North.

The third topic has been a big question in American history since 1860—the cause of the war. They still argue that the Civil War was fought over slavery, and of course, this is a big part of the reason they agree with the view that the flag is a symbol of slavery. This interpretation is largely based on a book by David Potter, although there are others. In his book, Potter traced the growing sectional crises after the Mexican War, saw that most issues revolved around slavery, and then concluded that the war was fought over slavery. The Librevs think this is a brilliant and conclusive argument. The key here is in the way the question is posed. If we ask the question Was the war fought to free the slaves? then the answer would be no. If we ask Did slavery cause the war? then the answer would be yes. I can recall seeing Potter’s argument in the Confederate Military History written by a Southerner way back in the 1890s. The author did not do as extensive a job but still reached the obvious conclusion that the conflict came about because of slavery. I can only say that those leading the fight for the North said they were not fighting to free the slaves and that 75 percent of those in the South did not own any slaves. I cannot believe that the average Southerner would have fought so long and hard so that the rich guys could keep their slaves. I do believe that the rich slave owners caused secession, but once Lincoln invaded the South, it was a different issue. It seems to be important to the Librevs to insist that the war was over slavery; they find this critical if we are to buy into their belief that Confederate symbols are bad.

The fourth topic is an attitude that Northerners are morally superior as well as intellectually and culturally. It is true that the North has supported reform more than the South throughout American history. However, Northern liberals seem to have developed an attitude of self-righteousness, which suggest that they are not quite as open-minded as they claim to be. There is an element in America today that fosters an image of the liberal Northerner as charitable toward minorities and that conservatives, especially Southern conservatives, are stingy. Southerners do tend to be more resistant to change, and they do have a strong work ethic, but that does not mean they are morally bankrupt. Southern morality is based on their strong religious views. These are not generally accepted by liberal society as legitimate and are even condemned for not being politically correct. The Librevs believe Northern humanist morality to be superior to Southern religious morality.

The fifth topic is the nature of Reconstruction. Since they see the war as a war to end slavery and that they think of Northerners as morally superior, then the logical conclusion would be that Northerners were the good guys during Reconstruction. This is a big part of what they call the lost cause myth. They claim that it was during the Reconstruction years that Southerners developed their Southern identity but that their objective as redeemers was to establish their cast society where the whites would continue to dominate over blacks and that the freedmen would end up back in the cotton fields. They recognize that some cases of Yankee corruption can be documented, but for the most part, the invaders were simply trying to insure the equality of the African-Americans. According to them, the main objective of the Ku Klux Klan was to intimidate the freedmen into submission and that the scallywags were hapless Southerners who wanted to join the carpetbaggers but ended up targets themselves. I do believe that some of the carpetbaggers such as the young school teachers, wanted to contribute in helping the freedmen in making the difficult transition from slavery to freedom. However, the main motivation of the Republicans was to guarantee the future of their political party, which gained victory in 1860 with less that 40 percent of the American population.

When it comes to the sixth topic of slavery, there are a number of subtopics the Librevs like to pursue. Some are relevant to the flag controversy and some are not. The number one relevant issue is the question of whether the slavery system was harsh or benign. There seems to be an unspoken assumption that most unreconstructed Southerners still defend slavery, or at least the system their ancestors had, with statements such as our family treated their slaves well. I know I have grown up with these kinds of sayings and admit the Librevs are right to attack this view. I believe that the majority of the slaves did not hate their masters and that many of the owners did have a paternalistic attitude toward their slaves. I am also sure that some were beaten, raped, mutilated, and even killed by cruel masters. It is hard to determine how many fit into each category, and in all probability, most fell in varying degrees in between. I also believe that regardless of how benign the experience was that the vast majority, if not all, would have preferred their freedom over slavery. They may have faced new challenges as freedmen, but most people prefer difficult freedom over a gilded cage. We Southerners need to shed the