As the nation begins to mark 150 years since the start of the Civil War, news reports mention that commemorations will be taking place to celebrate secession by the states of the former Confederacy, including a parade in Montgomery, Ala., replete with a mock swearing-in of Jefferson Davis and, in Charleston, S.C., a “secession ball” now criticized by Mayor Joseph P. Riley.
Like Baker Institute fellow Joe Barnes wrote in a previous post, “I have little patience with the romance of the ‘lost cause.'” The states right argument, in the context of the Civil War, was plainly tied to an economic system of chattel slavery and forced labor that characterized the Southern states from colonial days through the antebellum period. (Less publicized is how slavery also benefited trading interests in the pre-war North.)
There is, perhaps, no better illustration of this fact than the U.S. Coast Survey maps. In an insightful narrative for the New York Times, Professor Susan Schulten of the University of Denver describes how these maps, which starkly illuminate the extent of slavery in the South, were used by President Abraham Lincoln and the Union government in their strategic planning and, yes, propaganda effort during the war.
Texas, of course, seceded from the Union over the protestations of one Governor Sam Houston. Swimming against the tide, he said:
“To secede from the Union and set up another government would cause war. If you go to war with the United States, you will never conquer her, as she has the money and the men. If she does not whip you by guns, powder and steel, she will starve you to death. It will take the flower of the country — the young men.”
Sam Houston was undoubtedly right. Those who might question the human toll of the war need look no further than Professor Drew Gilpin Faust’s 2008 book, “The Republic of Suffering.” According to Faust, who is also president of Harvard University, the estimated 2 percent who died, or 620,000, would be equivalent to 6 million today.
Even 150 years later, the human cost of the conflict cannot be forgotten. Nor can a cause that ultimately defended the enslavement of human beings be sanitized as those who would celebrate secession might wish.
There is another way that the sesquicentennial of the Civil War might be marked. I would suggest visiting, as I have, “the only Museum dedicated primarily to preserving the legacy and honor of the African-American soldier, in the United States of America” — the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — located right here in Houston.
Matthew E. Chen is policy assistant to the founding director of the Baker Institute. A descendant of South Carolinian veterans of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, he holds a B.A. in history from Rice University and a Master of International Affairs degree with honors from The Australian National University.