Have you heard? Texas wants to secede. But it’s not just Texas my friends, there seems to be a movement afoot for all of the old Confederacy to secede. Don’t believe it, then look at the Open Petitions page on the White House website. Yet it’s not just a movement in the old Confederacy, as you will see on the White House website. There are petitions from New York, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Oregon and even Alaska.
So maybe it’s time for something that is said in many backrooms but seldom in public…the Confederacy lost the Civil War, but it won every thing before it and has won everything after it.
Now…it’s not the fall of 1860 and we know that the old Confederacy is not going to rise again. At the same time, however, the causes of the Civil War remain. An entire section of the country is mad at the result of a presidential election.
Slavery is over, yet peonage existed from the end of Reconstruction until World War II and the misapplication of drug laws has resulted in the overrepresentation of minorities in jail/prison today.
The 14th and 15th Amendments were ratified. However, in present-day America, the Supreme Court is going to hear arguments challenging the validity of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
Groups go around talking about “state’s rights” yet never say when there is a need for federal intervention.
So what did the South lose (other than slaves)? They won how slavery and the Civil War are seen through popular culture. They won how those of African descent were seen for almost a century after the Civil War.
And now, after the re-election of the first president of color, there’s a lot of talk in the old Confederacy about secession.
Just how far have we come?
