And yes, the category is "Race and Identity," not "News."
Confederacy Month Wins Early Support
Va. Senate Debate Looms; Black Caucus Troubled
By Chris L. Jenkins and Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, February 4, 2004; Page B01
RICHMOND, Feb. 3 -- A resolution that would designate April as Confederate History Month received preliminary approval from the Virginia Senate on Tuesday, reopening a debate over how the Old Dominion should remember its legacy as a slave-holding state that seceded from the Union.
The measure sidesteps Gov. Mark R. Warner's refusals to officially recognize Confederate commemorations. Instead, state heritage groups are seeking support from the General Assembly, hoping that legislators will pass a resolution similar to the Confederate History Month proclamations issued by past governors.
"The reason why I've introduced this is because this is our history and we need to come to terms with it," said Sen. Charles R. Hawkins (R-Pittsylvania), the chief sponsor of the measure that he said would honor the legacy of the thousands of Confederate soldiers who died during the Civil War. "History is history. This is part of all of our backgrounds, and there's no need in running from it," he added.
Senate Joint Resolution 96 was approved by the chamber's Rules Committee last week by a vote of 11 to 3. A full debate in the Senate is scheduled for Wednesday. Because it is a resolution, it does not require the signature of Warner, a Democrat, if it passes both the Republican-controlled House and Senate.
A majority of the 16-member Legislative Black Caucus has "very strong concerns" about the resolution, said Del. Dwight Clinton Jones (D-Richmond), the group's chairman.
"I just think it's time we put the Confederacy behind us," said Sen. Benjamin J. Lambert III (D-Richmond), a member of the caucus. "These are the folks, this is the history, that had my forefathers in chains."
Hawkins's resolution is another salvo in a long debate about how the state should acknowledge the Confederacy's role in its history, beginning with former governor L. Douglas Wilder (D), who signed a similar proclamation in 1990. Then in the late 1990s, former governor George Allen (R) issued a Confederate History Month proclamation, calling the Civil War "a four-year struggle for independence and sovereign rights." It was observed during April, the month in which the Civil War essentially began with the Confederates' attack on Fort Sumter, S.C., and ended with the Army of Northern Virginia's surrender at Appomattox. The declaration made no mention of slavery, angering many civil rights groups.
James S. Gilmore III (R), who succeeded Allen, modified the decree in 1998 by adding a condemnation of slavery. Later, he dropped references to Confederate History Month, instead designating April as "Virginia's Month for Remembrance of the Sacrifices and Honor of All Virginians Who Served in the Civil War." In 2002, Warner decided not to offer a proclamation, saying that it was a "lightning rod" that would not help bridge divisions between whites and blacks in Virginia.
The Hawkins resolution's supporters said Tuesday that the measure does not honor slaveholders, only those who fought for what they believed was a noble cause.
"This has nothing to do with trying to celebrate slavery. Most of those who fought in the war were not slaveholders," said Brandon Dorsey, a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans' executive committee. "What we want is the state to recognize the sacrifices of our ancestors."
Several civil rights groups, long opposed to creating statewide commemorations of the Confederacy, said they continued to be concerned about the efforts of heritage groups to receive endorsements from the state on the issue.
"It seems like, to us, that there are enough schools, bridges and other private monuments such that the state does not need an official Confederate History Month," said Salim Khalfani, director of the Virginia NAACP. "It goes without saying that we are opposed to this resolution."
Posted by P6 at February 4, 2004 01:10 PM
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Comments
What should be done is an honest Confederate History Month, where Virginians acknowledge that the first three hundred years of Virginia's colonial history was built on the backs of slaves. Jamestown would never have existed if not for the contributions of slaves working the plantations.
I mean, we have to recognize the sacrifices of our ancestors. Especially if those ancestors didn't have a say in how much they had to sacrifice.
Posted by Raznor at February 5, 2004 12:27 AMThe problem is, it won't be a recognition of the realities of slavery, or anything like that. It will be a celebration and nostaligic display of affection for a culture built on the back of brutality.
Posted by P6 at February 5, 2004 12:39 AMYou're completely right, of course. But I'm still saying what should be done. Not what will be done without hogtying every white in this country and slapping them repeatedly saying, "This country would not exist without slavery. Accept the fact your where you are thanks to past injustices." But then that plan isn't practical.
Posted by Raznor at February 5, 2004 11:56 PMNot what will be done without hogtying every white in this country and slapping them repeatedly saying, "This country would not exist without slavery.
Ouch ouch ouch! Goddammit, honey, you know I don't do S&M counterfactuals!
Seriously, is there a parallel universe where this opinion can be tested? If the Americas had been colonized without access to slavery, as New Zealand was, would that obviate your statement?
Posted by James R MacLean at February 6, 2004 04:02 AMThere is, shall we say, more than a bit of hyperbole in what Raznor wrote…something I try to avoid (usually successfully), since racially informed opinions are ALWAYS contentious.
We all know there are white folks who need that slap, those that don't (maybe even one or two in a position to slap me). In the middle are a vast number of people who really would rather the whole race issue would go away. These folks also need slapping—not as punishment but to wake them up.
Posted by P6 at February 6, 2004 06:29 AMReally, I do understand and appreciate the sense of what Raznor was saying. It's profoundly frustrating to how many European Americans seem trapped in a fictionalized version of history in which the emiseration of scores of millions of non-white humans means nothing. It's really so exasperating--it's really difficult for me to express it temperately.
A counterfactual is where one speculates about what would have happened if a historical event had happened differently, e.g, if the D-Day Invasion had been a fiasco or if [somehow] the huge project of European colonial expansion and development had occurred without slavery. A number of economists have purported to test counterfactuals like this, and made a real splash.
The contention was that the USA could not have industrialized at all in the absence of slavery--actually, reviving an argument by now-forgotten economist Nassau Senior. (Senior argued that all profit came from the "last hour worked", so if the House of Commons were to reduce the working day to 12 hours, profit would cease and so too would economic activity. Senior is historically important beause he authored the virulently antilabor legislation "Poor Laws", 1834). Likewise, if the Europeans and their colonists in North America had lacked access to slavery-generated capital, it has since been argued, the transatlantic economy would have lacked sufficient capital (or appropriate markets) to industrialize. This PDF sums up the debate pretty well.
Posted by James R MacLean at February 6, 2004 02:43 PMMy object to the "slavery enabled industrialization" (thereby creating the tools, markets, and labor displacement to colonize North America) is that
(a) it ignores the damage to European & North American society [rule of law] caused by the acceptance of such a wantonly immoral system as slavery. Economic criminality has high rates of return on the capital it utilizes, but the anomy and mistrust, to say nothing of underconsumption by the toilers, more than offsets this; and
(b) the effect of the argument--employed by the radical left and libertarian right--is to imply that development per se requires abuse of human rights. The left uses this as a reproach for capitalist development, although stakhanovite Stalinist development is worse and still stands on the "shoulders" (accumulated capital) of capitalism. The libertarian right uses this notion to make the case that human welfare in the long run is enhanced if economic liberty takes priority over human rights and freedom to organize.
Your humble commentator is opposed to both groups; economic liberty should promote personal freedom and vice versa. A true market economy is one in which participants are free in all senses of the term. The repression of freedom for development will leave one with neither.
Posted by James R MacLean at February 6, 2004 02:55 PMYou make a good point, James, but although America could have industrialized or modernized without slavery, it did modernize and industrialize with slavery. The fact that the seeming majority of the White population do not accept that this is a major part of our national history is frustrating to the point that I want to bitch slap someone.
Posted by Raznor at February 6, 2004 03:32 PMThat's pretty much where I was going to go, but tighter. We gonna dump the counterfactuals (and I'm famous for rejecting all alternate realities other than science fiction) we should dump them all.
"Slavery enabled industrialization" doesn't damage the rule of law when the rule of law is what established slavery. Underconsumption by the toilers happened, yet didn't seem to slow the USofA's economic development.
I am seriously NOT arguing against your ideals, James. It's just patently obvious that economic development does not require EVERYONE have personal freedom.
I am seriously NOT arguing against your ideals, James. It's just patently obvious that economic development does not require EVERYONE have personal freedom.
Far be it from me to deny that. Perhaps it was an error of mine, when trying to trim my too-too lengthy posting, to delete the reference to Capitalism & Slavery by Eric Williams (1944). If you've never read it, I recommend it as the premier analysis of slavery as an enabler of the sort of capitalism which emerged.
I draw a sharp distinction between capitalism and the free market. You can have capitalism under a huge range of distorting effects; freedom is not, as you say, a necessary or sufficient condition. There are many different kinds of capitalism, in which incentive structures are different. American capitalism has tended to be debt-driven in many ways, and early on became very resourceful in developing technologies of rolling over debt.
"Slavery enabled industrialization" doesn't damage the rule of law when the rule of law is what established slavery. Underconsumption by the toilers happened, yet didn't seem to slow the USofA's economic development.
This is as far as I want to go with my counterargument: (a) human error can permit anything; but eventually the inherent contradictions are insufferable. So--slavery and a transparent state are irreconcilable because unfree labor can be used to suppress free labor. (b) the USA did industrialize in large measure because of historical conditions favoring access to capital markets. Also, it must be remembered that the USA is a big place, there are huge numbers of different types of injustices everywhere, and industry flourished in areas where slavery did not. Had the USA been obligated to industrialize in capital markets like today's, with gigantic interest rates and many borrowers, I don't think we would have made it. Brazil never developed significant domestic capital markets; it abolished slavery in 1889, while Argentina's capital markets collapsed under the weight of radical populism.
So I think it's clear that America might have developed faster (and in a more wholesome fashion) or it might have developed more slowly, if there had been no slavery. Arguably, if there were no slavery, labor would be too scarce, industry would not develop, and people would not bother to immigrate in large numbers to a nonexistent economy. I doubt that. But while yes, it is undeniable that capitalism did in fact devour the expropriated labor of toiling Africans, I remain far from convinced that it had to be that way.
Posted by James R MacLean at February 6, 2004 06:55 PMI draw a sharp distinction between capitalism and the free market. You can have capitalism under a huge range of distorting effects; freedom is not, as you say, a necessary or sufficient condition. There are many different kinds of capitalism, in which incentive structures are different. American capitalism has tended to be debt-driven in many ways, and early on became very resourceful in developing technologies of rolling over debt.
See, that's why you're the official Prometheus 6 Economic Advisor.
I'll see if I can locate "Capitalism and Slavery."
Posted by P6 at February 6, 2004 08:14 PM