The Cult of the Lost Cause by Brenna Valencia

2021-04-25 21:17:06 UTC

"Over the last four decades, the long tradition of white supremacy and xenophobia in the United States has become thoroughly entangled with economic transformations and sweeping demographic changes to produce a powerful sense of white embattlement and grievance."

The Original Confederate Flag

2021-04-25 23:24:39 UTC

The Confederacy originally had this flag as their flag. They did have to change their flag to Distinguish enemy and Allie. They had 13 starts to represent 13 states in the Confederacy. Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia

2021-04-25 23:37:47 UTC

“The red represents the blood of Christ. The white border represents the protection of God. The blue ‘X’ represents the Christian cross of Saint Andrew, the first disciple of Christ Jesus and patron Saint of Scotland. The 13 stars represent the 13 Southern states of succession.”- This is what todays Southern states want the meaning of the flag be. However, "To the flag’s creator William Porcher Miles, the significance of red, white, and blue was that they were “the true republican colors,”

How is this connected to the demand to remove Confederate monuments etc., in the South?

brennavalencia — 2021-04-26 04:03:22 UTC

The Cult of the Lost Cause is directly tied to the erection of many Confederate monuments in place today. The monuments that serve as a constant reminder of the South’s cession were put into place to glorify the Confederacy and glorify and justify their cause during the Civil War. Many of these monuments were put into place after the Civil War to make the crushing defeat and dismantle of their way of life more palatable to southerners. It was a way to find heroism and triumph in the face of the loss of societal structures like slavery represented. The Cult of the Lost Cause gained traction through the erection of Confederate monuments all over the United States and textbooks for schools. With this narrative, generations of southerners are indoctrinated under the Lost Cause cult by pushing this false narrative that the Civil War and the Confederates were just in their position in the conflict. Down below is a link to a comprehensive article with extensive research on the connection to the Confederate monuments in the U.S.A, their relationship to the Lost Cause, and social injustice seen in our society today.
https://www.splcenter.org/20190201/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy#findings

January 6, 2021

2021-04-26 04:36:48 UTC

“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”- Donald Trump.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand." Abraham Lincoln

Civil war battle

2021-04-26 04:37:16 UTC

“Our country demands all our strength, all our energies. To resist the powerful combination now forming against us will require every man at his place. If victorious, we will have everything to hope for in the future. If defeated, nothing will be left for us to live for.”
Robert E. Lee

brennavalencia — 2021-04-27 20:09:31 UTC

fmelendez5 — 2021-04-27 21:36:29 UTC

The Confederacy States of America
1861-1865
Led by Jefferson Davis.

fmelendez5 — 2021-04-27 21:42:55 UTC

Jefferson Davis-

The History of the Lost Cause

2021-04-27 22:53:07 UTC

Following the destructive end of the Civil War, the Confederate Army had been left in shambles with businesses, homes, and families left in ruination. To rewrite the narrative of the Lost Cause, many claiming that the war had been caused due to secession and not slavery. The confederacy had claimed to be justly protecting their constitutional rights against a tyrannical government. The issue of slavery had been addressed as a positive thing for both sides (African-Americans and whites), regarding submissive slaves had the best chance to a better life as slaves. Southerners claimed to not be protecting slavery, they were defending each state’s right to choose whether they wanted slavery. As states by Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens: “the negro is not equal to the white man. A cause filled with excuses, there had been claims that the cause of the defeat of the Confederate army was due to the advantage of resources of men and land. The amount of production from the Northern states would outweigh the South. After being defeated, many still view the Confederate leaders as heroic individuals who showed honor in their efforts. The main figure that is praised being Robert E. Lee, the representation and the symbol for the lost cause. Women would play an important role to The Lost Cause starting the UDC, where women celebrated and defended the Confederate symbols, the women would have the support of Woodrow Wilson and William Howard Taft to follow such actions.

What does the term "Lost Cause" refer to, what does it stand for?

fmaebalasuit — 2021-04-27 22:55:19 UTC

The term “Lost Cause” was first coined by Edwards Pollard who said that the confederacy wasn’t defending slavery but a state’s right to choose whether to defend slavery. This was a movement that sought to reconcile the traditional white society of the US South to the defeat of the Confederate States of America in the Civil War.

fmaebalasuit — 2021-04-27 22:59:23 UTC

The Lost Cause was a cultural myth that evolved to assist in rebuilding the ideas of the antebellum South to the public decades following the Civil War. It was a consolation during tough times to be able to attribute the loss of the Confederates to factors beyond their control. The contributors of the movement attempts to rewrite the Civil War and portrayed the Confederacy’s cause as a noble one, claiming it as a patriotic defense of the Constitution. This ideology, thus, promotes and builds on racism as it downplays and denies slavery. It misrepresented what the Civil War was about, and it removed black people from the narrative when they were essentially the central part.

Six Tenets (Myths) of the Lost Cause

fmaebalasuit — 2021-04-27 23:02:10 UTC

1. Secession, not slavery, was the cost of the Civil War. Southern states seceded to protect their rights, their homes, and to throw off the shackles of a tyrannical government. To the supporters of the Lost Cause, secession was constitutional, and the Confederacy was the true successor to the American Revolution.

2. African Americans were “faithful slaves,” loyal to their masters and the Confederate cause and unprepared for the responsibilities of freedom.

Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens declared in 1861 “Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.”

fmaebalasuit — 2021-04-27 23:22:17 UTC

3. The Confederacy was defeated militarily only because of the Union’s overwhelming advantages in men and resources.

Former Confederate officer Jubal E. Early justified the Southern defeat by stating that the North “finally outproduced that exhaustion of our army and resources, and that accumulation of numbers on the other side which wrought our final disaster.” Early went on to say that the South “had been gradually worn down by combined agencies of numbers, steam-power, railroads, mechanism, and all the resources of physical science.”

fmaebalasuit — 2021-04-27 23:29:52 UTC

4. Confederate soldiers were heroic and saintly.

5. Lee himself became a symbol for the Lost Cause, and a “Cult of Lee” revered the Virginian as the ultimate Christian soldier who took up arms for his state.

fmaebalasuit — 2021-04-27 23:35:45 UTC

A photograph of the equestrian state of Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, taken in 1890 soon after it was erected

fmaebalasuit — 2021-04-27 23:41:02 UTC

6. Southern women were loyal to the Confederate cause and sanctified by the sacrifice of their loved ones. Southern women played a significant role in spreading the Lost Cause. They immediately converted their wartime soldiers’ aid organizations into memorial organizations, to commemorate their male counterparts who fell during the war.

United Daughters of Confederacy

fmaebalasuit — 2021-04-27 23:42:09 UTC

Because women were seen as inherently nonpolitical and memorializing was not seen as political, they were able to take the lead in memorializing and mythologizing the Southern cause.

Bibliography

fmaebalasuit — 2021-04-27 23:46:24 UTC

Primary sources -

Alexander Stephens C.S.A. [Between 1860 and 1870] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, .

Confederate General Jubal Early, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front. [Between 1860 and 1870, photographed later] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, .

Currier & Ives. The Lost Cause. New York: Published by Currier & Ives. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, .

Harris & Ewing, photographer. UNITED DAUGHTERS OF CONFEDERACY. KENNEDY, MRS., LUDLOW, MRS. DRURY CONWAY, McKINLEY, MRS. ROY WEEKS, ODENHEIMER, MRS. CORDELIA POWELL, RAINES, MRS. L.H. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, .

“The Lost Cause. [Poem on the Confederate States] [n. P.n. d.].” The Library of Congress. Accessed April 30, 2021. https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.24502100.

Mercié, Antonin, Sculptor. Robert E. Lee monument, Monument Avenue, Richmond, Virginia. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, .

“Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy.” Southern Poverty Law Center, February 1, 2019.
https://www.splcenter.org/20190201/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy#findings.

Secondary sources -

“The Confederacy Was Built on Slavery. How Can so Many Southern Whites Still Believe Otherwise?” The Washington Post. WP Company, November 28, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/magazine/wp/2018/11/28/feature/the-confederacy-was-built-on-slavery-how-can-so-many-southern-whites-still-believe-otherwise/.

“Confronting Civil War Revisionism: Why The South Went To War.” WallBuilders, July 5, 2017. https://wallbuilders.com/confronting-civil-war-revisionism-south-went-war/.

“The Lost Cause: Definition and Origins.” American Battlefield Trust, 25 Mar. 2021, www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/lost-cause-definition-and-origins.

Huffman, Greg. “TWISTED SOURCES: How Confederate Propaganda Ended up in the South's Schoolbooks.” Facing South. Facing South, April 10, 2019. https://www.facingsouth.org/2019/04/twisted-sources-how-confederate-propaganda-ended-souths-schoolbooks.

Janney, Caroline E. “Lost Cause, The.” Encyclopedia Virginia, 10 Apr. 1865, www.encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lost-cause-the/.

Landrieu, Mitch. “How I Learned About the ‘Cult of the Lost Cause.’” Smithsonian.com. Smithsonian Institution, March 12, 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-i-learned-about-cult-lost-cause-180968426/.

“Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy.” Southern Poverty Law Center, February 1, 2019.
https://www.splcenter.org/20190201/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy#findings.

Wills, Matthew. “Origins of the Confederate Lost Cause.” JSTOR Daily. JSTOR, July 15, 2015.
https://daily.jstor.org/origins-confederate-lost-cause/

Encyopaedia, The Editors Of. "Flag of the Confederate States of America." Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/flag-of-the-Confederate-States-of-America.

Mintz, Steven. "The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History." Historical Context: Was Slavery the Engine of American Economic Growth? | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Accessed April 30, 2021. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teaching-resource/historical-context-was-slavery-engine-american-economic-growth.

USCIS. Civil War. https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/lesson-plans/Civil_War_handouts.pdf.

Link to data compiled by the SPLC- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_mizq736HQY327r-RlSJSCCRChKdGM7P6Us5PNYMGPo/edit?usp=sharing

Boyle, Kevin, and James Grossman. "A Starting Point: Teaching the January 6 Insurrection." Perspective on History. Accessed April 30, 2021. https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2021/a-starting-point-teaching-the-january-6-insurrection.

BBC. "US Election 2020: What Are Trump's and Biden's Policies?" US Election 2020: What Are Trump's and Biden's Policies? October 18, 2020. Accessed April 30, 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54507550.

Ames, Mark, and Mark AmesMark Ames Is Senior Editor at NSFWCORP and Author of the Book Going Postal: Rage. "The 1 Percent's Doctrine for the 99 Percent." Truthout. March 26, 2012. Accessed April 30, 2021. https://truthout.org/articles/the-1-doctrine-for-the-99/.

"Flag of the Confederate States of America." Encyclopædia Britannica. Accessed April 30, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/topic/flag-of-the-Confederate-States-of-America.

Graham, Renée. "Triumph and Infamy: Two Views of January 6 - The Boston Globe." BostonGlobe.com. January 07, 2021. Accessed April 30, 2021. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/07/opinion/triumph-infamy-two-views-january-6/.

"NBC PROJECTIONS: Trump Wins North Carolina, Biden Takes Georgia." Https://www.witn.com. November 16, 2020. Accessed April 30, 2021. https://www.witn.com/2020/11/13/nbc-projections-trump-wins-north-carolina-biden-takes-georgia/.

"Quotes." Confederate Colonel. July 25, 2013. Accessed April 30, 2021. http://www.confederatecolonel.com/resources/quotes/.

"States' Rights." American Battlefield Trust. March 26, 2021. Accessed April 30, 2021. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/states-rights

BBC. "US Election 2020: What Are Trump's and Biden's Policies?" US Election 2020: What Are Trump's and Biden's Policies? October 18, 2020. Accessed April 30, 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54507550.

"US Election 2020: What Are Trump's and Biden's Policies?" BBC News. October 18, 2020. Accessed April 30, 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54507550.

fmelendez5 — 2021-04-28 15:43:06 UTC

In the 2020 elections, the two candidates had two completely different policies'. The main policies that the nation had their concerns were gun control, the economy
"When it came to the economy, Donald Trump promised to produce 10 million jobs in 10 months.
Joseph Biden promised to tax family earning $400,000 or more."

President Trump has an expansive interpretation of the US constitution's Second Amendment protections giving Americans the right to bear arms.

He did propose tightening background checks on gun buyers after a string of mass shootings in 2019, but nothing came of the plan and no further legislation has been put forward.

"Joseph Biden has proposed banning assault weapons, universal background checks, limiting the number of guns a person can purchase to one per month, and making it easier to sue negligent gun manufacturers and sellers."

Fear

fmelendez5 — 2021-04-29 16:44:36 UTC

Throughout history there has always been a fear of change. A fear of certain rights will be taken away. When that fear is targeted most time there will be reactions of taking back what "is there's" no matter what.

Quote:

2021-04-29 19:02:31 UTC

“If we cannot justify the South in the act of Secession, we will go down in History [sic] solely as a brave, impulsive but rash people who attempted in an illegal manner to overthrow the Union for our Country.”- Former Confederate general

fmelendez5 — 2021-04-29 22:36:09 UTC

The Confederates had a boom of economy wealth with they help of slavery. "They grew cotton, tobacco, corn, sugar, and rice. Most slaves lived on big plantations. Many Southerners wanted slavery. "-USCIS.
With the help of free labor, the South was producing these products to all around the world. The industry was booming and they were scared to let go of the major reason why they were booming.
"As late as the 1850s, the slave system in the United States was expanding and slave owners were confident about the future."-Glider Lehrman

fmelendez5 — 2021-04-30 05:40:49 UTC

"The South wanted strong states’ rights. States’ rights means the states decide their government. The South wanted to separate from the United States. The South made a new country, “The Confederate States of America."”

Many Americans didn't want to accept the election results. They claimed that there were voter fraud. They were unwilling to accept the truth of losing their normal. Their Democracy was threaten and "changed."

fmelendez5 — 2021-04-30 06:08:12 UTC

With the results, of the Electoral College there was big surprise that Georgia went blue. This was part of a Southern Lost Cause state. Many others flipped to blue as well with the election voter results. Many people argued that there was fraud in the elections. They defended this argument with many votes were taken in by people that weren't registered.