How the South Won the Civil War, by Heather Cox Richardson
Review by Dave Gamrath
In How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America, historian Heather Cox Richardson shows how today’s divided America and crisis of democracy are just a continuation of our past.
Book Review:
I have been reading historian Heather Cox Richardson’s (HCR) daily email “Letters from an American”, which is a nice, short summary of the previous days’ political events. HCR is great at tying current affairs to American history. For this, I was excited to read her book How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America, in which she provides a review of the undemocratic views and actions that led to the Civil War, as well as the rise of “Movement Conservatism” in the 1960s, which she characterizes as “the second rise of American oligarchy…and its logical conclusion in the present moment.” This book of history tells “the story of modern America.”
The nomination of Barry Goldwater for President by Republicans in 1964 “marked the resurrection of an old political movement by a modern political party.” Americans supporting Goldwater said they were defending liberty, and called themselves “Movement Conservatives.” “A century before, their predecessors had called themselves ‘Confederates’”. Movement Conservatives claimed to be protecting America from liberals who were destroying America, taking away our freedoms through regulations, and trying to redistribute wealth from hard working white men to underserving people of color. They believe the proper order of the world, ordained by God, placed white men at the top, who were to rule over the lower hierarchies of women and minorities. Protecting the rights of women, people of color and poor Americans “would destroy it for white men.” Throughout American history, and continuing today, these Conservatives have been trying to cement their own control of American government, as well as an unequal, hierarchical American society. For them, the principle of American democracy that represents “equality and self-determination” is something to be suppressed, using violence if necessary.
The system of a world ruled by white men goes back centuries. People belonged in the station into which they were born. HCR provides the history of Europeans coming to America and quickly enacting laws that established a hierarchical society, with white, property-owning men at the top. Slaves had no rights, Native Americans were expendable, and women were the property of their husbands. Early American leaders worked hard to instill the idea in the minds of lower-class whites that they were above Blacks and Native Americans, establishing a new nation that conflated class and race, and gave power to elite whites.
The rich in America have always feared that giving the poor an equal vote would result in the poor voting for laws to take the rich’s money. In the first half of the 1800s, rich slaveholders continuously attacked “the foundations of democracy, step by step, until they took over the Democratic Party and used it to take over the country,” establishing minority rule. But in establishing this American oligarchy, they were also “strangling white Americans’ civil liberties,” which caused great angst in the North. Then along came Abe Lincoln, who “made clear to a national audience that the timbers in the oligarchic house were dropping neatly into place.” When Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election, southern states revolted and left the Union, claiming they “were defending the will of God.” The cornerstone of their new government was based on inequality.
After they lost the Civil War, southern leaders passed laws trying to effectively reestablish slavery. These were struck down by new constitutional amendments. By 1870, HCR writes that Americans had “destroyed the oligarchic threat.” But this turned out to be an illusion. New “Black Codes” and “Jim Crow” laws resurrected American oligarchy, with the repeated warnings that “enforcement of black rights meant a redistribution of wealth.”
HRC then turns to the American West, where hierarchy remained deeply ingrained. Native Americans were enslaved and massacred, Mexicans and Chinese were lynched, and citizenship was limited to “free white persons.” Women were restricted into roles as either wives, mothers or prostitutes. “To white southerners, the West beckoned.” The myth of the American West, and the cowboy, was that “hardworking men asked nothing of government but to be left alone.” By the 1890s, a few wealthy white men dominated western society. All others, including poor white men, had little opportunity, exploding the myth of the American cowboy and of the West being the land of opportunity. “Once again, freedom was hierarchical.” Inequality was firmly written into the law. Increasingly powerful Western leaders (white men!) believed that “democracy was, in fact, a perversion of government.” Newly admitted Western states voted with Southern states to kill equal rights legislation.
HCR writes that Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive policies were only possible because they were designed to privilege white men. Teddy used “the power of the federal government to protect ordinary white man’s ability to be treated according to his own merits.” In the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt arrives with his New Deal, but once again, people of color were left out. “Mortgage programs discriminated according to race. Social Security deliberately excluded domestic workers and farm workers, both fields in which black workers predominated.” FDR’s “rebirth of democracy” was effectively a reaffirmation of government-sponsored inequality in America.
Yet, a liberal consensus dominated in 1950s America. New Deal reforms were popular, as were Eisenhower’s moderate views. Movement Republicans hated both, and worked to undermine them. The Republican Party adopted a new “southern strategy,” focused on attracting whites who supported segregation. Republicans also developed a broader strategy, laid out in 1971 by Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, to “dominate media, education, politics, and the courts.” Over the next decades, this strategy was wildly successful.
With the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan as President, oligarchy again reigned supreme in America. Massive tax cuts for the wealthy, extensive deregulation, and continuous cuts to social services combined to explode America’s wealth and income gaps to levels not seen since the gilded age. Republicans worked to purge the party of all liberals and, over time, moderates as well. Claims of nonexistent voter fraud were used to enrage the base. New tools such as talk radio, Fox News and the internet allowed great swells of white Americans to be deceived that minorities and immigrants are responsible for their poor financial situation and lack of economic hope. The myth that America was under siege by “takers” was as baseless as ever, but once again, was effective towards dividing America, and in the process, ensuring the wealthy protected their riches.
In How the South Won the Civil War, HCR shows how today’s fractured America is just a continuation of what has existed throughout American history. Sadly, history really does repeat itself.
Reviewer Opinion:
Key concepts concisely captured.
Reviewer Rating of Book:
Thumb up.