Theory 2 Action Podcast
Theory 2 Action Podcast
MM#381--Myths vs Reality #2: The Myth of the Lost Cause
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The Lost Cause narrative has long clouded our understanding of the American Civil War, but what if everything you thought you knew about this period was upside down especially if you grew up in the South and learned US Civil War history from its public schools?
On the MOJO Minute episode, we challenge the deeply entrenched myths that have shaped perceptions of the conflict and the Confederacy's defeat. With insights from Edward H. Bonekemper III's pivotal work, "The Myth of the Lost Cause," we expose the truth behind misleading claims like the war being about states' rights and the Confederacy's loss being due to sheer numbers. Delve into how organizations like the United Daughters of the Confederacy played a role in perpetuating these myths, embedding them into the education system and influencing countless generations.
Join us as we confront the romanticized notions that have skewed historical understanding and explore the damaging effects of the Lost Cause ideology, including the entrenchment of white supremacy and the distortion of slavery's harsh realities. We'll critique figures like Woodrow Wilson for their complicity in spreading these falsehoods and highlight the critical need for accurate historical education. By drawing on historical accounts and expert analysis, we aim to dismantle these destructive narratives and advocate for a truthful understanding of America's past, offering a fresh perspective on the progress towards equality and the rejection of flawed historical interpretations.
Key Points from the Episode:
• Examination of the origins and implications of the Lost Cause myth
• Discussion of the role played by the United Daughters of the Confederacy
• Analysis of the lasting impacts on education and public perception
• Reflection on the historical role of Woodrow Wilson in propagating the myth
• A call for truth and accurate representation of history in education
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Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, david Kaiser.
Speaker 2:Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute. Two weeks ago we talked about the myths and the realities of the rise of Christianity. So please check out our Catholic Corner. It was our last Catholic Corner in 2024 for that special episode. And then some weeks before that, late in 2024, we did a Mojo Minute special where we talked about abolishing the federal government Department of Education, sending 90% of those monies back to the states or, better yet, in fact, just keep the money in the states themselves. There's no need to transfer money back and forth only to get it mixed up and cause bureaucratic errors.
Speaker 2:And in that podcast I mentioned that part of the reason for the federalization of education was partly because of how bad our education system was implemented at the state level in the Old South in particular during Reconstruction and especially during the Jim Crow era. And the main proponent of that bad education was the myth of the lost cause. Let me repeat that the myth of the lost cause. Now, this myth was widely taught and propagated throughout the South during Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era. So on today's Mojo Minute, let's stay with this theme of myths and realities and we're going to call this myths versus realities, number two it's the false narrative and the myth of the lost cause. The lost cause on why the South lost the Civil War. So, like I said, this myth was widely taught and propagated throughout the South. That had a profound impact on, I would say, upwards of four or five generations. Many of those generations of Southerners understood the Civil War and its aftermath, or how they understood the Civil War and its aftermath. So just so we understand what this myth was, how it started, where it came from, started where it came from, the term the Lost Cause was coined by Edward Pollard in his 1866 book the Lost Cause A Southern History of the War of the Confederates. However, the ideology it represented had already begun to take shape in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. The Lost Cause narrative emerged as a way for former Confederates to cope with their defeat and to justify their pre-war way of life.
Speaker 2:Now, the Lost Cause ideology promoted several false claims. Number one that slavery was not the main cause of the Civil War. 2. That the Confederacy was defeated by superior numbers, not by superior strategy or cause. 3. That the antebellum South was a superior civilization with contented slaves. 4. That the war was fought for states' rights and not to preserve slavery.
Speaker 2:Now the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the UDC, played a crucial role in spreading this lost cause myth throughout their education in the South. They influenced textbook selection and the content in those Southern schools. They published guidelines for acceptable history textbooks, such as Mildred Lewis Rutherford's A Measuring Rod to test textbooks, and then UDC members were sometimes appointed to state textbook commissions. Now, the Lost Cause narrative had a lasting impact on the South and its education and culture for three main reasons. Between 1889 and 1969, millions millions of students in Southern public schools were exposed to this false version of history. The myth was used to justify segregation and white supremacy during the Jim Crow era and it influenced popular culture, including DW Griffith's film the Birth of a Nation, which we'll talk about later. Now the effects of the lost cause myth continue to be felt today. Many students report not learning about slavery as the cause of the Civil War. Unbelievable as it may seem, there's ongoing debates about Confederate monuments and symbols, and historians and educators are now working to correct this false narrative and teach a far more accurate version of the Civil War, of Reconstruction and of the Jim Crow era history.
Speaker 2:Edward H Bonekemper III. Say that fast five times, edward H Bonekemper III. Mr Bonekemper III, I know you were razzed when you were in elementary school, I just know it. But Mr Bonekemper III did write a very good book and that's our book of the day. And the title of that book is the Myth of the Lost Cause why the South fought the Civil War and why the North won. The book gives us a comprehensive examination and refutation of the lost cause narrative that emerged after the American Civil War, and the book addresses several key aspects of this myth. Bonecapper explains how Confederate officers began crafting the Lost Cause narrative immediately after their defeat at Appomattox, because it aimed to ennoble the South's sacrifice and defeat. And in fact, let's go to the book for our first pull quote. It's a long one, so stay with me on this one.
Speaker 2:Winners write the history of wars, so it is said. Confederate Major General Patrick Claiborne agreed. Surrender means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy, that our youth will be trained by northern school teachers, will learn from northern school books their version of the war, and will be impressed by all the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors and our maimed veteran as fit subjects for derision. It did not work out that way. To the contrary, a Cotillier of disappointed Southerners, aided by many other conveniently forgetful and purposefully misleading comrades, spent three decades after the Civil War creating the myth of the Lost Cause. They nurtured a public memory of the Confederacy that placed their wartime sacrifice and shattering defeat in the best possible light. They formed the Southern Historical Society in 1868 and 1869 and published wait for it 52 volumes of papers dealing with almost exclusively their Civil War experiences and memories. The society, which some say should have been called the Confederate Historical Society, and its published papers, became the chief means of propagating the myth of the lost cause.
Speaker 2:Lost cause, the myth is a collection of fictions and lies and competent myths that purport to explain why much of the South seceded from the Union and why the Confederacy lost the Civil War. It is important to understand, because that myth came to dominate the historiography of the Civil War for most of the next 150 years, that Alan Nolan commented that the purpose of the legend was to hide the Southerners' tragic and self-destructive mistake. The victim of the lost cause legend has been history, for which the legend has been substituted in the national memory. As early as 1871, the former slave Frederick Douglass expressed his concern about the revival of secessionism in the South, describing the spirit of secession as a quote deeply rooted, devoutly cherished sentiment, inseparably identified with that quote lost cause, which the half measures of the government towards the traitors has helped to cultivate and to strengthen. Very powerful words from the former slave and great American Frederick Douglas. Again, he was speaking in 1871, just some six years after the end of the U? S civil war.
Speaker 2:Now, another key aspect of this lost cause myth was this that slavery was the central cause. Bonekemper argues that slavery, not states' rights, was the primary cause of secession in the Confederacy's creation. He examines various historical documents, including secession resolutions, to support this claim, documents including secession resolutions to support this claim. Let's go back to the book. By 1860, southerners had convinced themselves that slavery, far from being an evil practice, benefited both master and slave. This position was a far cry from the one that prevailed in the days of the American Revolution and its immediate aftermath, when abolition and malumission enjoyed popularity and resulted in the gradual abolishment of slavery. In many northern states. The myth holds that slavery was Bible-sanctioned, benevolent and a boon to all involved in it. Later on we read quote the mass exodus of slaves to union lines during the war, exposed the myth of loyalty and contentment. And then, for my generation, here's the truth fully exposed that this myth came from the pit of hell and was and is a lie. Check this out, especially if you've seen the movie the gone, especially if you've seen the movie gone with the wind. Listen up Margaret Mitchell captured the mint julep school of antebellum Southern history, happy, indolent and ignorant slaves, protected by their kind benevolent masters, in her novel Gone with the Wind, published in 1936.
Speaker 2:And the epic film version of 1939 engraved it on the popular imagination. On the popular imagination, this picture was first painted by antebellum Southerners. Quote seeing the tide of history turning against them, southerners went on the offensive. Their peculiar institution morphed from a necessary evil to a positive good, a practical and moral necessity and the will of Almighty God, from a necessary evil to a positive good. In the will of God, mano Mano, sheve this myth that the lost cause was and frankly is evil. We have to seek the truth about our history, can't continue to tell ourselves lies, can't continue to sweep it under the rug, because that doesn't help anyone.
Speaker 2:Here is just one selection from our book to explain the reality of slavery. Selection from our book to explain the reality of slavery. Frederick Law Olmsted was dismayed by what he saw in Mississippi. The stupid, plodding, machine-like manner in which they labor is painful to witness. This was especially true with the Ho Gangs. One of them numbered nearly 200 hands moving across the field in parallel lines with a considerable degree of precision. I repeatedly rode through the lines at a canter without producing the smallest change or interruption in the dogged action of the laborers or causing one of them, so far as I could see, to lift an eye from the ground. I think it told a more painful story than any I have ever heard of the cruelty of slavery. During harvesting season on sugar plantations, slaves worked 16 to 18-hour days, seven days a week. Sun stroke killed many slaves ever worked on all types of plantations. Their harsh working conditions and minimal food and clothing, abominable housing, lack of freedom to move about and the vulnerability to sale and family dispersion led many slaves, not surprisingly, to become what Stamp called troublesome property.
Speaker 2:Here's another selection about the state of slavery in the antebellum South. The more one studies antebellum slavery, the clearer it becomes that quote. Holding millions of African people in bondage required a virtual police state and the Southern society came to tolerate and even honor a military social climate that accepted violence as necessity. Southern slave patrols and militias provided the South with a head start on the military preparation for the Civil War. Now we will need to further study slavery as the original sin of our country, because it is a most important part of our history and needs to be told. It needs to be told in trutheds, to be told in truth, not in excess one way or the other, but in what it actually was, what happened, and this book starts that process. We have to call out the myth of the lost cause as bad history. Bonekemper helps us to do this because, as he argues correctly, the Lost Cause myth has distorted the historical imagination of Americans for over some 150 years. This book is sorely needed to be read. It's been praised for its thorough debunking of the Lost Cause falsehoods, though Bonekemper has also faced criticism from those who adhere to this Lost Cause narrative still still to this day, unbelievable as it may seem.
Speaker 2:Now, if you are a student of history, you might remember our most racist president of the United States, woodrow Wilson. And your next logical question is well, was President Wilson? If he was the most racist, was he a subscriber to this false theory, this myth of the lost cause? Yes, we can in fact say he was. Woodrow Wilson was indeed a prominent proponent of the lost cause myth.
Speaker 2:In both his academic life and as a politician, wilson played a significant role in promoting and legitimizing this false narrative about the Civil War and its aftermath. As a scholar, wilson actively promoted this ideology in his historical writings. His book the History of the American People included sympathetic portrayals of slavery in the Confederacy. Wilson's work was even used as source material for the notoriously racist film Birth of a Nation source material for the notoriously racist film Birth of a Nation. In his academic works, wilson presented slavery as a benevolent institution, describing slave owners as acting responsibly and dutifully toward their indolent slaves. Again, woodrow Wilson was our most racist US president. Some say Andrew Jackson was, but in my view Wilson is far and ahead of Jackson on his racist views. In fact, during his presidency Woodrow Wilson promoted in what is considered the apex of the lost cause influence in mainstream American politics. He promoted this throughout his presidency. He endorsed and lent credibility to this racist historical revisionism, especially the idea that the Civil War was not primarily about slavery, continued to make speeches or writings about that. His actions and words contributed to the resurgence of the Klu Klux Klan in the 1910s and the entrenchment of harsh Jim Crow laws throughout the South.
Speaker 2:All of this was a severe setback for our country. Now, so far we have looked at the myth of the lost cause and how bad it was and for telling of our own American history, which is part of education. We have to talk about that history in a truthful manner. We have to search for the truth. We have to challenge and debunk some of these myths, especially this false myth of history. We've shared a great book where we can start to do that. We've dug even deeper into that myth to say that slavery was very, very evil and only finally are we getting to the truth about how it was not such a moral institution and how indeed it was the cause of the Civil War, the primary cause we talked about our racist, most racist president Woodrow Wilson.
Speaker 2:So in today's Mojo Minute, let us learn our history, not from romantic notions or stories and, frankly, from bad history. We have to learn history without sanitizing it. We have to learn of our American past that is not all gleaming and perfect and without fault. This notion of the lost cause narrative, which romanticizes the Confederacy and downplays the role of slavery, needs to be, and is starting finally to be, debunked. Thank God for Bone Kemper's book and many others like it. Let us learn from history, not by shying away from the real facts, but by acknowledging them squarely and then recognizing our progress as Western nations including us, the United States that were instrumental in eliminating slavery and promoting equality of human beings. That equality took far too long to learn and absorb because of this very myth of the lost cause. Let us today call out the bad history when we see it and let us, as always, keep fighting the good fight for truth in our history.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this Theory to Action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.