Over the last two decades increased attention has focused on the ramifications of failing to complete an anti-biotics regimen in treating infections.  The most noteworthy example of the problem involves tuberculosis. Many patients begin their treatment and then decide at a certain moment to stop because they believe that they have been ‘cured.’  The net result of this action is that not only is the infection not eliminated but a stronger, more drug resistant variant of the infection is often produced.  Needless to say this can have catastrophic consequences.

2010 marked the 150th anniversary of the initial secession of states from the United States of America that resulted in the formation of the Confederate States of America.  2011 represents the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War.  These events are being greeted by many whites, particularly but not exclusively in the South as a moment for celebration.

The fixation on the Confederacy by white reactionaries has always been a bit curious.  The formation of the Confederacy was an act of treason.  There is no ambiguity about this.  They were repudiating the U.S. Constitution and moving to separate.  Yet many of the proponents of a pro-Confederate stance, or at least critically supportive views of the CSA, are themselves the ones who are (and have been) among the first to throw around the term “treason” when referring to progressives who criticize US foreign policy.

Yet the renewed and often sympathetic attention to the CSA is not simply curious and hypocritical but speaks to the fact that the Civil War and its tasks were never completed.  It is this point that African Americans and other progressives need to underscore.  There is a renewed battle underway over how to interpret the Civil War, the reasons for it occurring and the nature of the CSA regime.  This battle cannot be ignored.

To understand what is taking place before our eyes we must recognize that the Civil War was not from 1861-5.  It actually encompasses the period from 1859 (with John Brown’s attack on the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, with the intent of sparking an African slave insurrection) through 1877 (with the final withdrawal of Federal troops from the South and the end of Reconstruction).  It was not just a series of deadly military battles but an entire period where the future was up for grabs.  While it is absolutely true that the secession had its roots in a struggle over free trade (which the South wanted) and states’ rights, the principal source of the conflict was situated in the system of slavery.  The attempts by past and current CSA sympathizers to soft-pedal this are completely disingenuous.  Not only are there documented speeches and writings by CSA leaders as to the centrality of slavery in their treason but there also is the obvious point that if slavery were not really in question, the CSA would have freed the slaves themselves, as they desperately needed troops.

The period from 1865-1877 came to be known as Reconstruction, during which time significant efforts were undertaken in the South to achieve both Black power and power for the poor.  This was the period that many historians refer to as the attempt to correct the misdeeds and white supremacist character of the U.S. Constitution.  Yet the northern capitalist class, victors in 1865 over the Southern plantocracy, was from the very beginning ambivalent about the scope of the democratic experiment they were prepared to undertake.  To have completed the tasks of the Civil War would have meant a full expropriation of the Southern plantocracy, land redistribution in favor of the African former slaves and poor whites, and would actually have called into question Federal policy towards the Native Americans and Mexicans in the Southwest.  In other words, to have actively supported the democratic thrust of Reconstruction would, more than likely, have called into question much of the framework of the United States of America.

Despite the valiant efforts of the so-called Radical Republicans in Congress, and the courageous efforts by the freed Africans and their allies, a “counter-revolution of property” (as W. E. B. Dubois coined it) took place through the direct introduction of white supremacist terrorism and the disenfranchisement of the freed African, and ultimately of many poor whites as well. The Ku Klux Klan was only one of several white terrorist organizations that emerged during this time. Ultimately the northern capitalist class and their political allies concluded that accepting the loyalty of the Southern elite in exchange for their ability to rule the South was an acceptable ‘compromise.’  At that moment the clock was turned back and the democratic advances that had been initiated during Reconstruction were systematically undone.

The destruction of Reconstruction was accompanied by what we today would call “spin.”  There was a rewrite of what had actually taken place in order to justify the white terrorist takeover (including through armed coups) of the political reigns in the South.  The northern ruling elite was complicit in this rewrite.  The production of films such as the notorious yet historic 1915 Birth of a Nation was only one of many examples of a complete distortion of the democratic revolution of Reconstruction.  It was a desire to address this revision of history that led Dubois to write his path breaking work Black reconstruction in America in the 1930s.  This book remains a must-read for anyone trying to understand not only Reconstruction but white supremacy in the USA.

The fact that there are states that fly the Confederate flag, and political leaders who excuse the treason of the CSA should not take anyone by surprise.  Though the CSA was soundly defeated on the battlefield, the reactionary essence of the CSA was itself not defeated.  Reconstruction was the project that could have rooted out much of the white supremacist system, but that was not meant to be.  White supremacy was not only useful in preserving the slave system—which was defeated in 1865—but also useful as a means of social control over people of color and poor whites as US capitalism moved from a largely agricultural and merchant base, to an industrial and financial base.  In that sense what was operative was not the cowardice of the northern elite but rather their recognition that white supremacy needed to be reorganized, rather than eliminated, and that the Southern elite would be useful to the extent to which they accepted a subordinate position to them.

As a result the USA has been unable to come to terms with pivotal moments and actions in history where race is involved such as how to evaluate John Brown and the raid on Harper’s Ferry or the actual role of slavery as the principal cause of the Civil War.  These issues, among others, continue to emerge because they were not challenged and decisively answered from the very beginning.  Instead ambiguity was allowed to reign and with it a more fortified, occasionally subtle and always toxic white supremacist narrative and practice.

The debate over the CSA, then, is actually a debate about the future of the USA.  While there are white supremacists who call for a new secession and the creation of an openly white republic, the significance of the gloss on the CSA is not to be found there.  Rather, it is to be found in the fixation on the proto-fascist vision that was the Confederate States of America, a vision that entertains the part of white America that so desperately seeks a mythical route back to a secure racial identity as protection against the dramatic economic, political and social changes underway domestically and globally.  To borrow from the author Howard Fast in his novel Freedom Road (American History Through Literature), they wish for their uniform—their white skin—to actually amount to something in the 21st century.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president ofTransAfricaForum and co-author of, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice (University of California Press), which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA. Click here to contact Mr. Fletcher.