My response to a Yankee gentleman who decried by siding with "neo-Confederates" and wondered why I did so as I was (reasonably) intelligent. Below is my response written in 2012.
Val
Eric,
I have given considerable thought to your query on my "neo-Confederate" contacts. If I put in everything, you would have an essay and I'm sure your curiosity does not extend to that degree so I will try to keep it short.
The South was right and I am not alone in that belief. Hear the considered opinion of Lord Acton—a giant of his and any other time. Acton in a letter to Robert E. Lee, said:
"I saw in States' rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy…. Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization, and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo."
After over ten years of research, I now know that what I revered for most of my life was an illusion and that our present national condition is the consequence of more than 150 years in which the original vision of most—but not all—of the Founders has been replaced by a central tyranny which at least used to pay "lip service" to the will of the people. My conclusions are summed up by Professor Jay Hoar, an historian from Maine (not Mississippi) who said:
"The worst fears of those Boys in Gray are now a fact of American life—a Federal government completely out of control."
Of course, I have been assured that Hoar's opinions are suspect because he spent time in the South. But if Hoar had lived on the moon, that would not change the fact that he is correct. Our "no-longer-federal" government is completely out of control and cares nothing for anyone's consent, much less that of "the governed."
And finally, I must bring forth the words of Ulysses Grant who said,
"The questions which have heretofore divided the sentiment of the people of the two sections—slavery and state's rights, or the right of a state to secede from the Union—they (Southern men) regard as having been settled forever by the highest tribunal—arms—that man can resort to."
And with that unchallenged sentiment, I realized that we no longer have any law but the law of the jungle—the survival of the strongest. Antonin Scalia—a conservative—said the same thing when asked about the constitutionality of secession. Grant and Scalia were not talking about what was called after the war "the abitrement of the sword," that is, acceptance of a military defeat by such men as John Mosby and Robert E. Lee, but the actual belief that triumph in arms somehow bestowed legitimacy upon one side of an issue! If right is determined by might, then Hitler wasn't "wrong," he was merely bested in war! Had he won, his adherents would have every moral "right" to build the same type of monuments to him that we have built to another tyrant and war criminal, Abraham Lincoln! As well, if we accept Grant's and Scalia's premise, then we are then forced to agree with another well respected conservative, John Bolton, who said that the United States government killed many Southern civilians during the Civil (sic) War without due process and it was the right thing to do! I reject that philosophy which apparently is now—and has been—the philosophy of this country for at least 150 years (ask the American Indian)! If the right is determined by the strong rather than by the law, then why bother with the law except as a subterfuge to hide that fact from the ignorant and the naïve?
I stand with those whom you call "neo-Confederates" because they are waging an admittedly losing battle to preserve their history, their symbols and their way of life—Christian Western civilization and I would prefer to die with the righteous than live with the Spirit of the Age. They cannot win because the tide of history is against them but for those who think that their loss means nothing to "America," I assure you, the symbols, history and heritage of the "The United States" will soon follow the symbols, history and heritage of The Confederate States. The latter can no more be allowed to remain in our Brave New World than the former. Already we see American—not Confederate—flags being censored in our schools lest they "offend" our Third World "guests"—invited or otherwise.
I am almost 72; my husband is almost 75 (as noted, this was written in 2012). we are already "dead" in the eyes of Obamacare as is my handicapped son who is just another expensive "useless eater." My daughter and her husband have no problem with the current regime—and by that I mean all of them and not just one political party. Indeed, I echo the sentiments of Patrick Buchanan who stated that the two parties are merely two wings on the same bird of prey. I have no grandchildren, nor will I have any so I am not overcome with angst about the future. It is sad to see the end of "the Great Experiment," but actually it ended before it really began. The seeds of its destruction were sown at its birth. Patrick Henry was right when he declared that the Constitution was nothing but a plan for the installation of a tyrannous central government despite every effort to prevent that from happening (bye-bye Bill of Rights!). Benjamin Franklin was right when he said that when the Congress discovered it could use the People's money to buy elected office in perpetuity the Republic was dead. Today, we are merely seeing these warnings played out. The final death blow was struck in 1865. We are only now coming to the last dying gasps.
Valerie Protopapas
