The Second Revolution

I dated a boy from the south once.  He was majoring in History and he told me "We learn history a little different...like I bet you think you won the civil war."  He was joking, mostly.

Just the same, I was interested in going to the Confederate Museum and Jeffereson Davis' White House.  A short round man with pink skin that flushed when he spoke passionately gave us the full tour.  He was a direct descendant of a confederate soldier.  And he volunteered his Saturdays to walk people through a house that he clearly loved.  

Most of the white house has faux in it.  The grand hall way was painted to look like marble.  The cloth floor was painted to look like tile.  Even the two statues that looked like bronze were actually plaster of paris painted to look bronze.  Our guide said that this was the very height of class at the time and that no expense had been spared.  This sounded kind of faux as well but I didn't say anything.  

The upper rooms were elegant covered in maroon velvet and gas chandeliers.  Each room had been laid out as if something important had just been happening.  War maps were set out on the dinning room table, the chairs of the withdrawing room were arranged for the tete a tetes.  "Women did not approve of politics so they would withdraw to let the men drink and discuss the fate of the world"  I could just see the women in lovely gowns and the men in military uniforms milling around me, tragic and glamorous.  

In the nursery we were shown the bed that the "servant" slept in to keep watch over the kids.  Apparently those Davis kids were a "handful" one of them even joined a group of boys who would throw rocks at the "working class" kids who lived in Richmond.  "Wait!" I wanted to say, "The Davis' had servants and not slaves?  And, these "working class" kids, were they perhaps of a different ethnicity than the Davis boys?"  Slavery was completely absent from the tour.  It was only mentioned once when someone asked about the portrait of George Washington hung in the center of the room.  

"Oh yes" our guide said in heavy southern "George Washington was very much admired by the confederates.  He was the leader of the first Revolution as Davis was the leader of the second Revolution.  After all, he was a Virginian, a slave holder and a patriot"

After the tour was over, I reminded the kids of what slavery was.  It was not a "way of life" it was dehumanization of a group of people to the point that you could own them.  We should be shocked and disgusted by it.  Not because we need to make fun of things that happened in the past but because we need to constantly look at our own thoughts for prejudices.  It is the same reason why the Holocaust Museums are so important.  They show us what we can all fall to.  Removing slavery from the narrative of the civil war is not just dishonorable to the people who suffered because of it but it does us a disservice today.  If we can make slavery palatable, if we can make it an economic choice then how can we be hard on ourselves for the inequities of today?