America's fifty governors, in their capacity to create joy among their fixated constituents, declare commemorative days, weeks and months all the time. Several states have officially declared Dec. 7th as Pearl Harbor Day. In Illinois, September is Spinal Chord Injury Awareness Month. February is Sweet Potato Month in North Carolina and Fresh Tomato Month in Florida. State legislatures waste countless hours entertaining motions to declare Fluke Fishing Week, Kleptomaniac Awareness Month (Watch your wallet!) or, in places like Alaska, Don't Marry Your Sister Week. Governors sign this drivel to the great joy of the purveyors or fans of whatever is being proclaimed or honored.
If you take him at his word, the newly minted governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, was only trying to promote tourism and respect for the brave soldiers of the Commonwealth when he re-instituted Confederate History Month. Unfortunately, rather than appellations from the Sons of the Confederacy, Governor McDonnell has received a shower of righteous manure from every corner of America. It seems that in his desire to paint the Rebellion of thirteen southern states as the glorious response to Union tyranny, he omitted one teeny tiny aspect of the conflict, namely, the 400 year bondage of millions of black Africans. Slavery may have been an unpleasant, even inconvenient aspect of the Civil War but it is difficult to ignore.
The cynics among us might believe that this wholly unnecessary proclamation was issued entirely to remind Governor McDonnell's conservative base that, in spite of the ethnic circumstance of the current President, Virginia is still the good-ol-boy, red-neck, gun-loving backwater that it was before all those liberals in Fairfax County (Washington's tony suburb) started turning this red state purple. McDonnell has stopped short of declaring Jeff Davis' birthday a state holiday or adding the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy to the state flag but the message of this re-invigoration of honor for the rebellion is unmistakable: Virginia may look progressive and intelligent but we're still as backward as any Mississippi town sheriff.
Governor McDonnell's ham-handed attempt to paint Virginians as shoeless rubes notwithstanding, there remains the delicate issue of how to promote a healthy respect for the actors in the Civil War without glorifying their cause. How do you praise the character of Robert E. Lee and JEB Steuart without justifying the reason for the secession and subsequent conflict? Is it even possible to respect the courage and loyalty shown by thousands of fallen southern soldiers, most of whom never owned a slave? The rules for the conduct of the vanquished in the land of the victorious seem vague. It does, however, appear easy to determine when the rules are broken.
Although Civil War battles were fought from California to Florida to Pennsylvania, most of what Americans know of the Civil War took place in Virginia. The Confederacy established its Capital in Richmond. The first and last major land battles were fought there. Bull Run, Fredericksburg, the Wilderness, Petersburg, and The Crater all happened in The Old Dominion. Even Gettysburg and Antietam took place less than a hour's drive from the Potomac. Virginia was doing just fine as a tourist destination for Civil War enthusiasts before Governor McDonnell decided that, once again, the old wounds should be opened. In point of fact, Virginia was a reluctant partner in the rebellion. Virginia didn't actually secede until after Ft. Sumter and even then the Western counties remained loyal; hence the admission of West Virginia to the Union in June 1863. Virginia doesn't require a new Bill of Secession in order to persuade a few tourists to stop on their way down I-95 toward South of the Border.
Virginia was doing just fine as the neutral epicenter of a tragic episode in American history. The National Park Service maintains several of the battlefields without fanfare or flag-waving. The gift shops sell memorabilia from both sides. The heroism of Stonewall Jackson and the ineptitude of George McClellan are represented as equal parts of the history of America from 1861 -1865. No one needed to be reminded that there are still ignorant knotheads who harbor resentment over the war's outcome. No one with an IQ in two digits ever uttered the phrase "The South Will Rise Again".
There is nothing more sinister in American politics than pandering to the evil angels of our nature cloaked in the high-minded innocence of a well-intentioned mistake. Governor McDonnell knew exactly whose ass he was kissing when he issued his proclamation on Confederacy Month and it wasn't the hot dog vendor at the Bull Run Battlefield. McDonnell was reminding Virginians and the rest of the South that the days of Democratic Governors and blue state flirtations are over. Virginia is a Southern State, with all the racist, backward, tea-party assumptions that entails. Virginia may have elected the first black governor in 1990 but damn it, it's still the capital of the Confederacy...and we're not just whisltin' Dixie.
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