One hundred and fifty years later

The anniversary of South Carolina's secession

This is the first in a series of articles being featured on the Political Spectrum as part of Secession Week.

By Michael (Palmetto Patriot)

We are approaching the 150th anniversary of South Carolina’s declaration of independence from the United States, which took place on 20 December 1860. The mainstream media and Internet news and opinion sources offer numerous condemnations of Southerners for separating themselves from the central government in Washington, DC and for supposedly starting a military conflict with the North by firing cannons upon Fort Sumter and evicting Federal troops (without loss of life) from the tiny island in Charleston’s harbour. Above all, there is the great sin of antebellum slavery for which the South can never be completely forgiven and an attempt to forever bind the issue of secession (independence) with slavery and war.

This statist view of history more or less projects Southerners as vile, anti-American, racist, warmongers and Northerners as courageous crusaders for racial equality, social justice and the preservation of the Union. Of course, this is an interpretation that most Left-wing university professors (sorry for repeating myself), Left-leaning talking heads on television, Left-wing newspaper and magazine editors (again, more repetition – my apologies) and Federal Government leaders can fully support. It casts the central government in DC in a very positive light. In today’s politically-correct world, it very fashionably puts the Federal Government on the side of the downtrodden, enslaved Blacks. It establishes an excuse for perpetual Federal oversight of local and State affairs and forever taints localism, regionalism or (heaven forbid!) independence movements with an ugly brush. It also conveniently glorifies the Federal military (which is vital in this age of perpetual US military intervention around the entire globe).

While the statist interpretation of the conflict in the 1860s does serve the purpose of the status quo and Federal regime, it is merely one possible interpretation – and by no means one based primarily on facts. History is written by the victors, as we all know. The Romans painted the peoples of the “barbarian” European nations who lived beyond their frontiers as savages who deserved to be either conquered and brought into the Empire or utterly destroyed. British imperialists portrayed Africans, Asians and native peoples around the planet as uncivilised heathens who were fortunate to have British control over their lands. Conquering regimes throughout history have always viewed their subject peoples critically, especially if they came from a culture unlike their own, and have used the power at their disposal to spread this view as widely as possible. The United States media and centralised educational system have done a masterful job of spreading the state-sanctioned view of the 1860s throughout this vast land of hundreds of millions of people and even around the globe.

And so, Southerners and others who do not buy into the official version of history as spread in simple, black and white language by grade school history teachers and media figures have a tall mountain to climb when relating their version of what actually transpired. The US media scoffs when Southerners point out that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, just like Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee were Southern, slave-owning secessionists. When Southerners speak of the importance of issues such as the Federal tariff or States’ rights the forces of the status quo condemn this as code language for supporting slavery and racism. When Southerners point to the New England dominated slave-trade which brought the Africans to American shores we are accused of ducking the issue. Many Northerners actually gloat when we point to the US military’s “march through Georgia” and South Carolina, the torching of Atlanta, Columbia, Charleston and many other towns across the South or the vile manner in which Southern women and other civilians were treated by the conquering armies. It serves us right for having left the Union, many claim. War is hell, they remind us, as if we in all our alleged “backwardness” were not aware of this.

In light of the almost impossibly tall mountain we have to climb for our view of the conflict to receive anything like equal consideration, I have virtually abandoned any attempt to reach the vast majority of non-Southerners. Even the great majority of those Northerners who now flood the retirement colonies of Florida and the Carolinas have little to no interest in the views of the native people in the lands where they go to live out their final years and die. They hail from a progressive culture of equality, fraternity, racial harmony and centralisation. We could not possibly have anything to teach them. And I have no desire to speak any longer than is absolutely necessary with those who look down upon me for coming from a supposedly regressive land that produced Jefferson, Calhoun, Timrod, Poe, Twain, Faulkner and Mencken, to name just a few of the great geniuses who hail from Dixie.

Today, it is victory enough if we can present our side of the story to our own people. This is increasingly difficult in some respects thanks to the aggressive nationalism that has ironically taken hold in a multi-national, non-nation like the United States that is always at war on the other side of the planet against some Third World people who desperately need bombing, occupying and reconstructing in the image of our Federal masters in Washington, DC. We face an uphill battle even here in our own land in an era of Federal control over education and centralised standards that are taught to millions of school children from Maine to Mississippi and California to the Carolinas.

On the other hand, unrest and disapproval with many actions taken by the Federal regime is now common across the land, especially in the conservative South. Southern heritage groups are still strong in Dixie. In fact, a growing number of Southern independence groups are springing up again. Those brave academics who buck the Federal line are able, thanks to the Internet, to reach large numbers of Southerners (and sympathetic non-Southerners) without respect to proximity. And, I feel, history is on our side. I mean this both with regard to historical facts and to the way that our ideas are coming back around. In Northern Italy (Padania), the majority of the people back a secessionist party which has become the third largest party in Italy. These Northern Italians are tired of the Roman-controlled state and want to protect their own Celtic-rooted identity and culture. Southern Sudan is expected to vote to secede from Sudan and form its own independent country in the coming year. In Scotland, Quebec and Catalonia, secessionist movements make their voice heard in the national debate and defend the cultural, economic and political interests of their people. In fact, it is increasingly difficult to keep track of the growing number of independence movements around the planet. In this age of mass migration, intercontinental integration and centralisation, local culture and local rights mean more than ever. This is the so-called “neo-Confederate” message if such a thing exists: family, culture, tradition and autonomy matter. A cause which could not prevail on the battlefield against a far more numerous and industrialised aggressor in the 1860s is advancing world-wide at the close of 2010. The motto of the seceded South was Deo Vindice. This Latin phrase is often translated in different ways, sometimes as “God will vindicate” and other times as “With God as our champion.” Either way, this motto seems more truthful and appropriate today than ever before. From the eyes of this Southern nationalist whose family has lived in the Carolinas now for about 300 years, it is a beautiful thing to see.

God bless Dixie!