Confederate "Heritage" Month 2019, April 30: A short but useful take on the politics of slavery, the real version and the Lost Cause version

One of the more interesting developments in US political journalism in recent years is the fact that some of the most interesting pieces on politics and popular history are to found in ... Teen Vogue!

Adam Sanchez wrote in 2017 about how the Trump Administration was then glorifying Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln and Civil War Myths, Explained 11/03/2017:

Earlier this week, Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly, stated on Fox News that Confederate General Robert E. Lee was an “honorable man” who fought “for his state” and that “the lack of an ability to compromise . . . on both sides" led to the Civil War.

In these comments, Kelly parroted one of the many Civil War myths: that the war was a dispute over states’s rights. This fable was widely promoted by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which rewrote textbooks across the South to deemphasize the “right” that Southern leaders were most concerned with: profiting from the ownership of other human beings. This “Lost Cause” myth is particularly useful for Kelly and the Trump administration because it hides the essential reason the South seceded — to preserve slavery and white supremacy — allowing Trump’s white supporters to claim that they are preserving their “heritage” rather than racial privilege. Today, the idea of Confederate “heritage” as a unifying call for the white South pits white people against people of color. [my emphasis]

This is a short article that nevertheless gives a good glimpse at the complicated politics of slavery and race through in which Abraham Lincoln operated. Sanchez also mention the exodus of slaves from their plantations after the Emancipation Proclamation, a critical event which seems to be often under-appreciated.

He summarizes the challenge of reaching a nuanced understanding of that period, "The reason this history is so often hidden or distorted is because truly understanding the causes of the Civil War, and how that war was transformed, requires a view of history that sees beyond presidents, generals, and the elites."