Slim Majority of Americans Support Preserving Confederate 'Lost Cause' History

[Alben Barkley]

“Preserving the legacy and history of the Confederacy” could be interpreted to mean you just want the history to be remembered and continued to be taught, even if you think the legacy was negative.

Horribly worded question. I would have said yes too and I despise what the Confederacy stood for and definitely not do believe in the “Lost Cause” mythology or that they should be honored as heroes.

I’m also shocked the South was only a bit more likely to say yes than the nation as a whole.Maybe because of all the black people there, who were the ones least likely to say yes, but even then it was a quarter. I doubt a quarter of black Americans believe in the “Lost Cause.”

[Alben Barkley]

My 8th Grade US History Teacher, in suposdely liberal California, said the Civil War was about states's rights, not slavery and had the confederate flag up.


And he went to a public university for his undergrad, San Diego State.

I’ve noticed a lot of history teachers can be weirdos. Wehraboos and such too.

The Lost Cause mythology was the default historiography of the Civil War for most of the 20th century, even outside of the South.

Honestly this is fairly impressive, given the vague poll wording and the fact that taking down statues tends to be unpopular. Tbh, I don't really get people who want to keep Confederate statues up; they generally are artistically dull and were typically erected as part of the instantiation of Jim Crow. Nothing appealing about them!

The fact that this is true yet Lincoln was also lionized, even in the South eventually as they continued to vote firmly against his party, has always struck me as an odd bit of doublethink. I guess people preferred to think of the Civil War as a tragic “many fine people on both sides” situation rather than accept that many of their fellow countrymen were willing to kill them to protect an evil institution.

[Alben Barkley]

My 8th Grade US History Teacher, in suposdely liberal California, said the Civil War was about states's rights, not slavery and had the confederate flag up.


And he went to a public university for his undergrad, San Diego State.

I’ve noticed a lot of history teachers can be weirdos. Wehraboos and such too.

The Lost Cause mythology was the default historiography of the Civil War for most of the 20th century, even outside of the South.

Honestly this is fairly impressive, given the vague poll wording and the fact that taking down statues tends to be unpopular. Tbh, I don't really get people who want to keep Confederate statues up; they generally are artistically dull and were typically erected as part of the instantiation of Jim Crow. Nothing appealing about them!

The fact that this is true yet Lincoln was also lionized, even in the South eventually as they continued to vote firmly against his party, has always struck me as an odd bit of doublethink. I guess people preferred to think of the Civil War as a tragic “many fine people on both sides” situation rather than accept that many of their fellow countrymen were willing to kill them to protect an evil institution.

I don't think this view is obviously false.  Yes, slavery itself was definitely "evil."  But that's not how most Southern whites saw it at the time--they were living in a culture that had become highly dependent on it and, as a reaction against increasing criticism, had become very self-righteous and strident in defending it.  There was virtually no counter to this in the South by the time of the Civil War.  That's quite different from the world neo-Nazis rioting in the early 21st century have lived in. 

Additionally, I find the "were willing to kill them" misleading.  It sounds like those who fought for the Union were sitting around their dinner tables or sleeping in their beds while Confederates walked up and shot them.  This was a war. In war people on each side try to kill or wound those on the other (although in this case, those on the Union side were doing so for morally much better reasons than those on the Confederate side).

I have little tolerance for the "Lost Cause" apologia.  But it shouldn't be replaced by a blanket demonization of everyone who fought for or otherwise supported the Confederacy.  Such an approach is itself inaccurate.

I’m aware that the average Confederate soldier was not necessarily bad or believed he was fighting for slavery. After all my relatives fought for them. I was exaggerating a bit to make the point that it was easier to pretend both sides were more or less equally noble and flawed on the whole when that wasn’t the case. And also wasn’t how it was seen in the years immediately following the war.