A Tennessee Democrat deftly called out the realities of the Civil War in a state house hearing Tuesday, forcing a Confederate enthusiast to truly consider the legacies he is fighting so hard to protect. Remember, by certain people in certain parts of the United States, the Civil War is framed as a war with heroes on both sides. These soldiers, certain people maintain, were fighting nobly against each other over issues that had absolutely nothing to do with the abolition of chattel slavery. The Confederate flag honors the “lost cause” of that battle, and statues of those soldiers supposedly do the same.
That framing is all wrong, of course. The Confederacy wanted to continue the horrific practice of enslaving human beings—and its soldiers were willing to die for it. Yet, in certain parts of the United States, Confederate battle flags still fly high. In Mississippi, the state flag prominently features the Southern Cross. Hundreds and hundreds of statues of key Confederate figures still abound in the South’s public spaces and most were erected in the 1900s, not in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, as a Jim Crow intimidation tactic. No matter when these statues were placed—on college campuses, in parks, and on government property—it’s undeniable that to honor the Confederacy is to honor secession. To honor the Confederacy is to honor treason. To honor the Confederacy is to honor the greatest scourge in this nation’s history.