The Extremism And Racism Of The Sons Of Confederate Veterans

“Liberty and Slavery” by Albert T. Bledsoe

The sales notice says, “Was Southern slavery at odds with true Liberty? This reprint of the 1856 classic by Albert T. Bledsoe states that Southern slavery preserved the 19th century social order by denying liberty to those as yet unprepared to make proper use of it. Presented for research purposes only.”

* The table is based on the merchandise catalogs of the SCV of which I have copies. Thus, the omission of anyone year doesn’t mean that the merchandise catalog for that year didn’t have that item.

Ku Klux Klan

The SCV likes to pass resolutions against the contemporary Ku Klux Klan, however, it has a long history of praising the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan . When United Daughters of the Confederacy General Historian S.E.F. Rose first published her enthusiastic praise for the Ku Klux Klan in 1914 it was endorsed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans at their 1914 Jacksonville convention. Such SCV venerations of the Klan are not, however, only a century old.[46]

In Vol. 1 2001 issue of the Confederate Veteran in a section titled “Classic Southern Reprints,” a video of the notorious film “Birth of a Nation,” which glorifies the Ku Klux Klan is for sale. The SCV notice for the book avoids mentioning the Ku Klux Klan stating:

… director D.W. Griffith recreates the human tragedy of the War Between the States and Reconstruction in the South after the downfall of the Confederacy. Filmed just fifty years after the end of the war, this epic motion picture takes a controversial look at the birth of Lincoln’s “new nation” out of the ashes of the Constitutional Republic.[47]

However for the Volume Three 2001 Confederate Veteran ad for the video the notice is changed to, “Relive history with this classic silent film from 1915, D.W. Griffith’s masterpiece takes a controversial look at the birth of Lincoln’s ‘new nation’ out of the ashes of the constitutional republic.”[48] The idea that this film is historical instead of shrieking negrophobia is laughableand calling it a ‘masterpiece’ is an endorsement of the film.

The Volume Two 2002 Confederate Veteran laments that “Birth of a Nation,” is “So demonized in today’s politically correct climate that it is no longer shown publicly.”[49]

It is also currently as of 5/25/2013 sold online with the comment, “his silent film masterpiece made in 1915. An epic account of The War Between the States and Reconstruction. So Politically incorrect it hasn’t been shown in years!”[50]

It is also sold in the SCV Merchandise catalogs for 2004-2005, 2005-2006, 2008-2009, 2009-2010, 2011-2012 with the comment, “An epic account of The War Between the States and Reconstruction. So Politically incorrect it hasn’t been shown in years!”[51]

The avoidance of actually mentioning that this film is about the Ku Klux Klan is typical of how the SCV promotes the Reconstruction KKK as heroes. They promote a pro-Klan work, but they at the same time keep the support off stage by not mentioning directly that the contents of what they promote is pro-Klan.

The SCV also promotes and sells books which cover multiple topics but include sections that defend the Ku Klux Klan, such as SCV member Michael Andrew Grissom’s 1988 book, “Southern by the Grace of God.” In this book, Grissom enthusiastically recommends, “The Clansman,” by Thomas Dixon as well as Dixon’s other racist screed, “The Leopard’s Spots.”

Grissom captions an illustration of a hooded Klansman on a movie poster for D.W. Griffith’s, “The Birth of a Nation”:

The original Ku Klux Klan (1866-1877) played a vital role in ridding the post-war South of brutal carpetbagger rule.

Grissom also defend several other nineteenth century Louisiana groups that were violent white supremacists, The Knights of the White Camellia and The White League. Depicting them as heroes and saviors of Louisiana,[52] Grissom writes:

With a negro police force in Shreveport who cared little for the safety of white citizens, the white men organized the Knights of the White Camellia. The Knights in Caddo parish declared “a white man’s government or no government” and made night rides, breaking up political meetings in which scalawags and carpetbaggers were instructing and inflaming the gullible freemen.[53]

Grissom particularly lauds the Ku Klux Klan:

There were three requisite conditions for Republican power in the South: the negro vote, Republican control of the national government, and federal troops. Should any one of these supports be weakened or removed, Republican rule would collapse. The southerner had little control over troops or national politics, having himself been barred from voting, so he turned his efforts to the local scene, where the secret societies began to spring up in an effort to stop negro voting and run the carpetbaggers out of the South. The romance of the period, with its night rides, daring plots of retribution, and scenes of southern women sewing costumes by date that southern men would wear by night, has best been captured in the works of Thomas Dixon. For a true sampling of the tenor of the times, it his highly recommended that the reader obtain a copy of Dixon’s 1905 classic, The Clansman, which inspired D.W. Griffith’s motion picture epic, The Birth of a Nation. The movie, which portrays the classic struggle between the carpetbag regime and the Ku Klux Klan, was so controversial that Dixon and Griffith enlisted the aid of United States Chief Justice Edward Douglas White in overcoming would-be censors. It has passed into our literature as a masterpiece of American drama, described by Woodrow Wilson, who held a White House screening of the silent movie as “history written with lightning.”[54]

The Red Shirts in South Carolina, which overthrew multiracial democracy through violent terror and established white supremacy in South Carolina are also praised by Grissom. [55]

In a short section in the book titled, “Papa and the KKK” Grissom portrays the Klan of the early 20th century as a benevolent patriotic organization that fought socialism and communism and did “benevolent work among the poor.” An example given of their patriotism was in a case of sugar rationing violation in which “they stopped the man and gave him a good beating.”[56]

When Grissom’s “Southern By the Grace of God” first came out James N. Vogler, Jr., book reviewer in the Confederate Veteran praised it enthusiastically calling it a “569-page love letter to the Southland and the author makes no bones about it,” but the review avoids any mention of the Ku Klux Klan[57] or Grissom’s denunciation of emancipation as “the idea advocated by fanatic abolitionists, of freeing the slaves.” [58] Grissom assesses Southern slavery as follows:

There was a rudimentary misconception among northerners about slavery and the negro in general. Fiercely believing that slaves, who in the mild form of slavery practiced in the South would more fittingly have been called servants, were an unhappy lot just waiting for a chance to escape, …[59]

Grissom has a chapter titled, “Reconstruction – Nightmare of the South.” Quoting Thomas Dixon, he portrays African Americans as wild ignorant irresponsible savages in a time of misrule and corruption:

In North Carolina, burned plantations had resulted in roaming bands of negro bandits. In the northeastern part of that state, the crimes perpetrated by these hoodlums were particularly atrocious. They raided the unprotected countryside, burning houses and looting with near impunity. They entered the homes of defenseless ladies, forced them to entertain at the piano, cursed them, robbed them, stripped them of their clothing, and subjected them to indignities better left unprinted. [60]

With a little prodding, the illiterate negro masses could be worked into a frenzy at most any time. [61]

Grissom defends the infamous Black Codes explaining that they were needed to get African Americans to work for wages. [62] Voting rights for African Americans, the 14th Amendment, and 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution which, respectively, made African Americans citizens and gave African Americans the right to vote are asserted by Grissom to be the cynical plans of the Republican party to manipulate ignorant African Americans. Grissom writes:

… There were nearly 4,000,000 negroes in Dixie, most of whom could neither read nor write. Most of them had no comprehension of matters beyond the boundary of the plantation, this ignorance of affairs presenting a golden opportunity to the Republicans who could instruct them how to vote. Forbid white people to vote, and Negroes could be manipulated into sending Republicans to Congress from every Southern state.[63]

Grissom refuses to recognize African Americans as citizens in the Reconstruction state constitutional conventions complaining:

Every southern state was required to rewrite its constitution in a constitutional convention of delegates chosen in a statewide election of all adult males, except those with disqualifications. This meant that many ex-Confederates could not vote, and it meant that Negroes, even though they were not citizens, could vote. [Italics in the original][64]

The SCV started selling Grissom’s book in Confederate Veteran in 2001in the “Classic Southern Reprints,” section with the notice, “Celebrates in photographs and text the enduring legacy of being a Southerner. Issues a clarion call for those who love the South to defend and maintain that heritage.”[65] It is currently sold by the SCV in online with the notice, “The essential handbook for Southerners-proudly proclaims the traditions, the culture and the values that have long distinguished the South from the rest of the nation.”[66] It was sold in the SCV Merchandise Catalogs for 2004-2005, 2005-2006, 2008-2009, 2009-2010, 2011-2012, with the same book notice.[67]

Other books sold by the SCV praise or defend the Klan. One is Mildred Rutherford’s book, “The Truths of History,” which also defends slavery. A reprint of this 1920 work is sold in the SCV Merchandise Catalog for 2004-2005, 2005-2006, 2008-2009, 2009-2010, 2011-2012.[68] The book is continues to be sold by the SCV online as of 5/25/2013.[69] It was also sold in the Confederate Veteran as a “Confederate Gift from IHQ.”[70] There are other books that defend the Reconstruction era Klan sold by the SCV.

Another book sold by the SCV and since 2006 that defends the Klan is “When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession,” by Charles Adams. It has a chapter titled, “The Ku Klux Klan,” which is a lengthy defense and justification of the Ku Klux Klan. It is first sold in the Sept./Oct. 2006 issue of the Confederate Veteran.[71] The SCV currently sells this book online.[72] It was sold in the SCV Merchandise Catalog for 2004-2005, 2005-2006, 2008-2009, 2009-2010, 2011-2012.[73]

Most notable is the SCV selling and promotion of reprints of Stanley F. Horn’s 1939 book, “Invisible Empire: The Story of the Ku Klux Klan 1866-1871.” It is a pro-Klan book with a white supremacist view of Reconstruction. The review in the Journal of Southern History notes that “There is a pro-southern and pro-Klan bias…”[74] The book review in the Journal of Negro History comments:

Hr. Horn’s account lacks objectivity. … He is able to see grave danger in a Negro walking innocently near a white woman, and yet he is able to see only amusement in a mob of white Klansmen frightening a Negro almost to death with grotesque costumes and weird threats.[75]

It is sold in the May/June 2004 Confederate Veteran with the book note comment, “Conceived in the minds of six former Confederates as a social club for their own amusement, this Klan was disbanded in 1871 after its purpose of countering post-war aggression against the Southern people by the carpetbaggers was fulfilled. Presented for research purposes.”[76] This book note is also a justification and defense of the Klan. Currently the SCV sells this book online with the same comment.[77] It was sold in the SCV Merchandise Catalog for 2004-2005, 2005-2006, 2008-2009, 2009-2010, 2011-2012 with again the same comment of the Klan being a defender of the South.[78]

Anti-Semitism

Frank Conner’s 2002 book, “The South Under Siege: 1830-2000,” is white supremacist,defends Antebellum slavery, and virulently anti-Semitic. Conner’s essay published in the SCV’s Southern Mercury, mentioned above, is drawn from his book, but with one important difference: The Southern Mercury essay has all his comments about Jews removed. In “The South Under Siege,” Conner argues that the civil rights movement is a Jewish conspiracy against the South. Compare this section with the quoted section from the Southern Mercury article:

From the Southern Mercury article:

Previously, anthropologists had routinely recorded the notable differences in IQ among the races; but at Columbia, a liberal cultural anthropologist named Franz Boas now changed all of that. He decreed that there were no differences in IQ among the races, and the only biological differences between the blacks and white were of superficial nature. The liberals swiftly made it academically suicidal to challenge Boas’ flat assertion. Meanwhile, the liberals in the media heaped special praise upon black athletes, musicians, singers, and writers – and treated them as typical of the black race. The liberals were creating a false image of the blacks in America as a highly competent people who were being held back by the prejudiced white southerners.[79]

From his book:

Until after the turn of the 20th century, anthropologists had routinely recorded genetic as well as cultural differences between races and ethnic groups – that being the whole point of anthropology. The highlighted differences among the races hand included those of intelligence. But as Kevin MacDonald points out in The Culture of Critique, a German-Jewish-immigrant named Franz Boas changed all that. At Columbia, Boas arbitrarily claimed that biological differences between races were miniscule – that environment alone shaped the behavior of the different races and ethnic groups (a la Rousseau). A number of other Jewish anthropologists swiftly adopted Boas’ position; and soon the Jews dominated the field of cultural anthropology. As MacDonald points out, by 1915 the Jews had gained control of the American Anthropological Association; and by 1926 they were chairing the anthropology departments at all of the major universities.

Conner has a lot to say about Jews in his book and calls “Northern Jewish intellectuals/activists,” the South’s “dedicated and deadliest enemies.”[80]

This book is praised by Ann Rives Zappa in the SCV’s Southern Mercury, as “a masterful volume of work painstakingly researched by author Frank Conner.” Zappa mentions Conner’s chapter on the civil rights movement, stating, “Author Conner uses several Chapters of “The South Under Siege” to detail the rise of powerful black political movements and the proliferation of our enemies. He covers policies and events created by liberals through the Supreme Court and Congress during the Fifties and Sixties to keep the South in subjugation.” Zappa avoids mentioning Conner’s ideas about Jews or the IQ of African Americans in her review, demonstrating a tactic of the SCV to promote extremist ideology, but do it in a way that is not in plain view.[81]

The book is sold in the Sept./Oct. 2004 Confederate Veteran, as a “Confederate Gift from IHQ,” with a book notice stating:

This important new book by SCV member Frank Conner examines the true relations between the North and the South from 1830 to June 2000. It identifies the real history of each region, and the lies and distortions by which the Northern liberals have created totally false stereotypes of both the Northern liberal and the traditional white southerner. It tells what the North has done to the South and why the North claims to have done it, why the North really did it, and what the consequences have been. An excellent defense against the official history currently taught in the government schools.[82]

Though in the book Jews are discussed extensively, again the SCV doesn’t mention this in its ad when promoting this anti-Semitic book to its members. Again this shows how the SCV promotes prejudice under the table.

The book is sold by the SCV Online as of 5/25/2013 with the same book notice.[83] As well it is sold in the SCV Merchandise Catalog for 2004-2005, 2005-2006, 2008-2009, 2009-2010, 2011-2012, with the same book notice.[84]

Muslims

The Chaplains’ Corp of the SCV in their Chaplains’ Corps Chronicles of the Sons of Confederate Veterans explained that there was a Confederate view of Islam. In a Nov. 2006 issue is an article titled, “Confederate View of Islam,” with the introduction:

Our Confederate compatriots saw the immense paganism and evil in false religions, and Islam was one of those that they viewed in such a way.

The article consists of quotes disparaging Islam from leading Antebellum pro-slavery theologians, James Henley Thornwell, John L. Girardeau, and R.L. Dabney, who neo-Confederates identify with the Confederacy and whose theological ideas form the basis of modern neo-Confederate Christianity”[85]

In the SCV’s Southern Mercury, an article “What Thomas Jefferson Learned From the Q’uran,” by Ted Sampley holds Muslims to be dangerous enemies. Sampley opens up with the statement:

Democrat Keith Ellison is now officially the first Muslim United States Congressman. True to his pledge, he placed his hand on the Q’uran, the Muslim book of jihad, and pledged his allegiance to the United States during his ceremonial swearing-in.

The article states that Ellison “chose to use Jefferson’s Q’uran because it showed a ‘visionary like Jefferson’ believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources.” Sampley recounts the history of the 1st and 2nd Barbary Wars against some North African states which practiced piracy. Sampley recasts this war as not against the Barbary pirates but recasts it as a war against Muslims. He sarcastically concludes his article stating:

Jefferson had been right. The “medium of war” was the only way to put an end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a “visionary” wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own Muslim Holy Book.[86]

Immigration and Hispanics

The Sons of Confederate Veterans at their national convention in 2011 in Montgomery, Alabama awarded their Law and Order award to Maricopa, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio which was presented to Arpaio by the Commander of the SCV Arizona Division.[87]

This wasn’t surprising since the SCV has been developing a view on immigration over the years. In Volume 2002 issues of Confederate Veteran, Patrick Buchanan’s book, “The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil our Country and Civilization,” is sold in the “Classic Southern Reprints” section with a book notice stating, “Bursting with facts, from which the reader can draw his own conclusions. Should be required reading for every American voter.”[88]

It is in the Southern Mercury that the SCV’s agenda on immigration was communicated to the membership. Michael W. Masters’ essay, “The Tolerance Scam,” mentioned above, has an apocalyptic view of immigration. After discussing civil rights and anti-racism, Masters writes:

But there is worse yet to come. Immigration is profoundly changing the demographic face of America. Massive Third-World immigration is the cultural Marxists’ ultimate weapon in breaking the hegemony of Western culture. But, has anyone considered the nature of post-Western society, when Western people are no longer numerous to win elections?

Masters sees this leading to dictatorships and asks the reader, “Would America’s current majority feel secure living in a country ruled by the likes of Idi Amin?” His fear of non-white immigration is part of his fear of minorities, multiculturalism, and civil rights in general which he feels is going to be oppressive if not genocidal to white Southerners.[89]

Other articles in the Southern Mercury discuss immigration, quote Tom Tancredo, and one article rejects a working paper on immigration by the United Methodist Church, “To Love the Sojourner.” In one article the reader is told that “To view the ‘Immigration Profile’ of any United States Congressman, Visit http://profiles.numberusa.com.”[90] This is an advocacy group for lower immigration.

One note worthy article in the August 2007 Southern Mercury was by Rev. Robert Slimp, a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens and who had spent years defending Apartheid in South Africa. In the article Slimp is alarmed by a new immigration bill being discussed in the U.S. Senate including Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Slimp warns readers:

It is important for Southerners to know that Senator Graham recently received a top award from La Raza at a recent national meeting of this racist organization. La Raza, which means race is Spanish, is not only in favor of allowing all Mexicans who wish to enter America to join those who are already here, but they want to eventually start a new country in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. The new country would be called Atzlan, and Aztec word for “lost territories.”

Slimp claims that immigrants don’t want to assimilate and warns:

There is no reason for this madness. We must stop granting amnesty to illegals, many of whom are criminals, drug dealers, and members of treacherous gangs ..

Slimp sees passage of an immigration bill as part of a plan to merge Mexico, Canada and the United States into single nation, the North American Union, with a Trans-Texas Corridor which is supposed to be some super highway and a proposed currency “Amero.” An organization called The Minutemen is praised.

Finally towards the end of the article Slimp urges readers:

Those of us in the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the League of the South, and other dedicated Neo-Confederates must continue to be very active and effective. We must continue the fight. We can win![91]

Immigration is a legitimate topic for discussion and has long been discussed in America. However, the SCV promotes a hysterical view of immigration and sees it part of the agenda of their organization.

The campaign against immigration in the SCV’s regular publication Confederate Veteran began in 2008 when an article by then Lt. Commander-in-Chief R. Michael Givens, who is now the SCV’s Commander-in-Chief, is upset with an article by Chris Dickey about immigration and sounds the alarm about immigration as follows:

What young Mr. Dickey is pressing is that if we would just give up our devotion to the past, we could be forgiven our sins and embraced into the world of Marxist utopia. We could destroy all borders and make one North American nation from the Arctic Circle to the Panama Canal (Now, wouldn’t that be grand). His article amounted to campaign propaganda for presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama.

In addition to this familiar attack on our culture, we must realize the opposition in the form of apathy that plaques our fellow Southrons. America has within her borders more than 20 million illegal aliens. About 700,000 to 1,000,000 more cross our borders every year. I doubt that nary a one of these adventure-seeking nomads cares one iota for our Confederate and American heritage. All of our American institutions will be diluted right before our eyes. And most Americans will sit quietly by and hardly notice.

But there is hope. There is hope as long as we have men who are committed to the Charge of the SCV. We will not be alone in this struggle, but we may be along at the vanguard of defense. [92]

The “Charge of the SCV,” is a specific text which is held up as the purpose of the SCV and Givens here is defining that purpose as opposing immigration.

Givens however, doesn’t feel threaten only by immigrants from outside the USA. Later writing as Commander-in-Chief, Givens blames the declining admiration for the Confederacy in the South on Northerners who have moved to the South explaining:

What in fact has happened to our Southland is the continued free-flow immigration from the North. It has been said ad nauseam the victors of the war write the history books. This is true, but the close proximity of the authors of liberty’s defeat had been a bigger problem for our region. Granted, many of our friends from the North are kind, God-fearing people, but they rarely share with us a respect for our ancestors.

The problem with “Northerners” Given’s explains is that they don’t have the proper view of the Civil War like the Sons of Confederate Veterans and as a consequence he writes:

Therefore, we are left with an unthinking, uneducated mass of domestic immigrates who care nothing for our traditions and have little tradition to offer of their own. I know this sounds harsh, and really I don’t mean it as an insult but more as an observation. I feel these are the factors which are chipping away – not only at our beloved Southern culture – but also at the very foundation of American liberty.[93]

Immigration from anywhere seems to be a problem with the SCV.

Red Shirts and Reconstruction

The Red Shirts were a white supremacist group that terrorized the supporters of multi-racial democracy in South Carolina and through these tactics won the election of 1876 in South Carolina. Since 2004 the SCV has sold books which represent the Red Shirts as heroes and the overthrow of South Carolina’s multiracial democracy and the establishment of a white supremacist regime as a great accomplishment. The SCV sold “Hampton and His Red Shirts” by Alfred B . Williams as a “Confederate Gift from IHQ” in their May/June 2004 Confederate Veteran. The book note states, “This book is a fascinating chronicle of how the people of South Carolina, let [sic] by former Confederate General Wade Hampton and his famous Red Shirts, rose up to free themselves from the intolerable and dangerous conditions of the Reconstruction period.”[94] The SCV currently sells this book online.[95]

The SCV sells online “Ousting the Carpetbaggers,” by Henry T. Thompson, another book glorifying the Red Shirts.[96]

Both of these books were sold in the SCV Merchandise catalogs of 2004-2005, 2005-2006, 2008-2009, 2009-2010, 2011-2012.[97]

Gays

SCV chaplains in the SCV Chaplain Corps use the terms ‘sodomites’ and ‘sodomy’ when referring to and condemning gays. H. Rondel Rumburg, past Chaplain-in-Chief of the SCV, in the March 2007 issue of the Chaplain’s Corps Chronicles of the Sons of Confederate Veterans condemns those who would support historical apologies by the State of Virginia for past wrongs stating that “these same people need to confess their own offenses to God and to the people they have mislead,” among the things Rumburg considers offenses, is that of being, “guilty of protecting sodomites, thus spreading AIDS.”[98] In another article in Sept. 2009 issue of the Chaplain’s Corp Chronicles Rumburg laments that after the Civil War “Deconstructionists” worked to bring humanism to the South which he claims has had disastrous results, among other things such as “an enthroning of sodomy as a preferred lifestyle.”[99]

Former Chaplain-in-Chief Alister C. Anderson gave the Invocation delivered at the Confederate Evangelistic Sesquicentennial Service on February 25, 2012 which was reprinted in the April 2012 issue of the Chaplain’s Corp Chronicles. In it he enthusiastically praises “Southern ancestors” that they were “manly men who preached about ‘tough love’ and who would not condone the ministry and preaching of non-Biblical, cheesy, whinny, quiche-eating, effete, effeminate pastors who were afraid of their own shadow,” which presumably is a criticism of contemporary pastors. Further, Anderson worries, “O Lord Jesus Christ, could the radical, despotic, contempt for women, Jihadist Muslim critique of our supposedly Judeo-Christian civilization be true?,” and “O Lord, are we a narcissistic, selfish, self-centered, spectator-oriented, voyeuristic pornographic culture that is possessed with the desire for elicit [sic] sexual activity, fornication, and sodomy?”[100]

In the Sept./Oct. 2009 Confederate Veteran Chaplain-in-Chief Cecil A. Fayard, Jr., in the Chaplain’s Comments section asserts that America is in trouble. Fayard says is that America has become immoral, “We have sown immorality,” he writes and “We live in a very loose society, a wicked nation morally. All types of unspeakable and deplorable acts are being committed by deviant men and women.” Fayard also states as a sign that America is in trouble that “One school curriculum in America teaches acceptance of homosexuality in the first grade…”[101]

The SCV is an organization that is entirely hostile to any rights for gays and Lesbians.

Abolitionism Denounced as Anti-Christian Heresy and the Civil War as a Holy War

Neo-Confederates see the Civil War not as a conflict over slavery but instead a Holy War between an Orthodox Christian South with a Christian army and a heretical North. Unitarians and Transcendentalists are held to be special enemies of the South. Abolitionism in particular is held by neo-Confederates to be one of these heretical ideas against what they feel is the Christian orthodox view that the Bible does defend slavery.[102]

This idea has been presented in the Confederate Veteran more than once, but the “Chaplain’s Comments,” columns by Chaplain-in-Chief Mark W. Evans in the issues of the Confederate Veteran in 2010 and later show that this Confederate Christian ideology is current in the SCV.

In the Nov./Dec. 2010 Confederate Veteran “Chaplain’s Comments” column, Evans states that, “Our Southern ancestors had reverence for the Bible and believed what it said. Because of this God-given knowledge, they remained steadfast in orthodox Christianity.” This he contrasts to the “North” which he states, “Erroneous theories flowing from the Northeast were especially troublesome. One wave of heretical teaching followed another, striking at the vitals of orthodox Christianity.” In particular, Transcendentalism is singled out by Evans, who also asserts that Abolitionists were heretics whose “godless enthusiasm reached a pinnacle when they demanded the immediate elimination of slavery.”

Evans quotes James Henley Thornwell, an Antebellum pro-slavery theologian from South Carolina, regarding abolitionism:

The parties in this conflict are not merely abolitionists and slave holders – they are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, Jacobins on the one side and the friends of regulated order and regulated freedom on the other. In one world, the world is the battleground – Christianity and atheism the combatants and the progress of humanity is at stake.

Benjamin Morgan Palmer, another pro-slavery theologian of New Orleans pro-secession speech of 1860 is also quoted by Evans:

The abolitionist spirit is undeniably atheistic … To the South is assigned the high position of defending before all nations the cause of all religion and of all truth.

In the conclusion of his column Evans states, “Now, almost 150 years later, ungodly thinking has taken our land to the brink of destruction,” representing this conflict as continuing to the present day.[103]

Evans advocates that ideas of Confederate Christianity are applicable to the present and that the membership of the Sons of Confederate Veterans should act as a ‘religious right’ organization in present day politics. In a 2011 Chaplain’s Comments” column eulogizing Confederate leaders Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson and Robert E. Lee as Christian warriors, Evans states:

Such Christian warriors were not bigoted racists and traitors. They were God-fearing defenders of their homes, their Constitutional liberties, their biblical convictions, and their right to self-government. As Sons of Confederate Veterans, we maintain and defend our heritage. The principles motivating our ancestors came from the Bible. We need the same teachings spread through our land today. Our country is in danger from Marxism, humanism, atheism, secularism and other anti-Christian movements.[104]

In another column in the March/April 2013 Confederate Veteran Evans discusses Robert L. Dabney, another pro-slavery nineteenth century theologian. “History has proven the correctness of the foresight of our ancestors,” Evans explains, “Now, some 150 years later, the land faces another crisis which is beyond the Southland and includes the entire country.” Again the theological idea of the Civil War and the Confederacy are seen as applicable to present day politics.[105]

This idea of the current SCV being a political Christian organization to fight “culture wars” and Confederate heritage as being applicable to present day politics is not new with Evans. Alister C. Anderson as Chaplain-in-Chief in a 1999 Confederate Veteran “Chaplain’s Comments” column stated:

My brother compatriots I ask you to remember we are soldiers in the Army of God and are organized along the military lines of our soldier ancestors. We are called to discipline ourselves so that we can train and teach our posterity about the true history and moral foundation of our ancestors’ lives. I ask you to remember that the spiritual discipline within our brotherhood is essential for the success of our mission and in a larger sense is crucial for the survival of our Republic in these dreadfully immoral times.[106]

In a 2003 article, the SCV’s Frank Conner calls for the SCV to instruct the membership on what Confederate heritage is, namely, a pre-civil rights Old South ideology, so they can be advocates for it.[107] What is key here is that Confederate heritage is being defined not as just remembering the historical Confederacy, but a whole ideological system of politics, religion, and culture of the Old South before emancipation and before civil rights. In a more ominous follow-up article in 2004 in Southern Mercury, Conner proposes to reorganize the SCV to fight “culture wars,” and explains his training plan.

The first training program will teach each SCV member what his Confederate heritage is: the Protestant-based conservative belief system, and the set of values and way of life resulting from it, which were the essence of the Old South …”

Conner’s second proposed training program is to “teach each SCV member about the ideological (culture) war that various groups of Northern liberals have been waging against the South ever since the 1830s.”

Conner asserts that if his plan is followed, “it would stand a good chance of defeating our liberal and black activist enemies in the culture war that they have been waging so devastatingly against us and our heritage until now.” [108]

The SCV isn’t just a history interest group, it is instead mobilizing and planning on being an “Army of God” for a reactionary culture war agenda that is against civil rights, pluralism, racial equality, denounces Abolitionism as being heretical and anti-Christian, and defends Antebellum slavery as being justified by an orthodox Christian understanding of the Bible. It is an organization at war with American values.

Post Script: Defaming White Southerners

In the ideology and arguments of the SCV there is an indirect and subtle defamation of white Southerners by assuming that all white Southerners, except those who they call ‘scalawags,’ their term for those they consider traitors to the South, are what their idea of a white Southerner is, which is some type of bigot and someone who identifies with the Confederacy. White Southerners, like any people, are a complex group, and are far from homogenous. Many do not want to go back to 1920 and see the restoration of Jim Crow. The assumption made by the SCV that they represent the opinions of this population is defamatory, as the definition of what is a Southerner is evolving and is less and less is to be automatically assumed to be white, but instead a member of a multiracial society in the Sunbelt states.