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by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Yes sir, the folks of Charleston and South Carolina generally are at it again, this times spurred by the 150th anniversary of the secession of South Carolina from the federal Union and the commencement of the Civil War, which dutiful Southerners always call the War Between the States.
Some brief history
Charming though its citizens are (I know for my family landed in South Carolina in the mid-18th century), they can nonetheless be obtuse and obstinate to a degree. Take South Carolina's history, for example.
Its leading statesman, much revered and honored (though never read) is John C. Calhoun, who never met a nation-building project he didn't abhor and obstruct. He invented a silly system about how South Carolina could nullify any federal laws it didn't like and wished to ignore. It was looney (as leading to one secession after another) but Calhoun, determined, bitter, adamant, spent his lifetime inventing and then defending a system that would have wrecked the Union without doing anything useful for his state.
Calhoun's theories came to fruition in what was called the Nullification Crisis of 1832. When South Carolina (always in the vanguard of treason) rushed to seize all federal properties within its borders, President Andrew Jackson promptly called for troops and was ready, willing, and able to crush the rebellion. Given the fact that he was born in South Carolina (though North Carolina disagrees), his "takes one to know one" stance was most apropos. He was the ultimate Union man... and he knew what to do to show the people of South Carolina exactly what that meant.
Chastened, these citizens of South Carolina folded like a house of cards, their time thereafter filled by muttering, threats, connivances, and plan after hare-brained plan to try again to disrupt their own prosperity by undermining at all times and at every opportunity the federal Union. It was perverse... it was pointless... it was so South Carolina.
In 1860, when Abe Lincoln was elected president of the United States, the elite of South Carolina decided to act... and so seceded from that united union and made the state's most rash decision ever: to fight and by so fighting undermine the lifestyle they all wanted but which could never, ever survive after their war. Victory (though many South Carolinians from the best antebellum families might disagree) was never a possibility once the Union got itself focused. It took awhile, but once awakened its power was irresistible.
Was there another, better course than hazarding all on the most precarious of policies: war? Of course there was. Instead, Southern statesmen should have stayed in the Union, remaining in Congress and the Democratic Party, the highest of officials and always its least cooperative. As such they would have been an immovable presence, an irksome dilemma dislocating the Union and its vibrant Manifest Destiny for decades.
But hotter heads prevailed.
The state which had everything to keep by staying in the Union, chose the least sensible alternative of all: WAR. Once declared, one of Charleston's canniest sons, Rhett Butler, bought up all the cotton he could and ran it to London, where it ultimately rose to the amazing price of $1 a pound. Rhett was level headed; his peers were not.
And so the war came.
The state seceded.
Fort Sumter was fired on and after a valiant defense... capitulated
And bit by inexorable bit the Confederates of South Carolina were ground into the dust... with the deepest misery for all, whatever their politics.
These are the events that the organizers of Charleston's December 20, 2010 secession gala (and countless other secession commemoration events) ask us to remember with respect and even admiration. We cannot do so, we must not do so.
Organizers of the secession gala and similar events taking place now and for the next several years across the states of the Confederacy (finishing up at Appomattox Court House) need to be very clear on their appropriate mission and message.
The story of the South's and particularly South Carolina's myopic and self-destructive leaders must be told... as historical fact... for to forget is to obliterate, and this will never do. But historical fact and outlandish fictional celebrations are two very different things... as event organizers should have known.
Because they failed to insist upon an inclusionary ball, the radical Confederate apologists in the persons of some of South Carolina's most prominent citizens, not least state Senate president pro tem Glenn McConnell, took over the event. They did so with the same self-destructive energy with which their ancestors took Fort Sumter. Immediately they turned it into a fanciful, colorful paean to the state's most destructive and completely witless act. Common sense and the very truth were also prompt casualties while these high stepping folks prated about the things most calculated to disgust, infuriate, and divide: Glory, Chivalry, Darkies, and The Cause.
These organizers, keen to open their divisive event with "Dixie", the best reel ever written, overlooked or never knew one important point about this ditty: what Abraham Lincoln said about it upon returning in early April, 1865 to Washington with son Tad after visiting burning Richmond, the Confederate capital, the symbolic end of the war.
"I have always thought 'Dixie' one of the best tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted that we fairly captured it. I presented it to the Attorney General, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it is our lawful prize. I now request the band to favor me with its performance." The band played "Dixie", followed by "Yankee Doodle."
And so, even dead, Abraham Lincoln and his politics of humane inclusion trump the living Confederate dinosaurs who insist that Dixie never look away from the imaginary land they have invented. Voltaire was oh so right: "History is a pack of tricks we play upon the dead" But, of course, the gray uniformed officers with ear-splitting Rebel yells and their lavishly appointed ladies in silk crinolines know that... as did their fire-breathing ancestors from Charleston, the epicenter of treason and silliness.
About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Attend Dr. Lant's live webcast TODAY and receive 50,000 free guaranteed visitors to the website of your choice! Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Lawrence Rinke http://ActionEqualsProfit.com. Check out Mass Money Makers -> http://silver45b.massmoneym.hop.clickbank.net
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