Why Does the GOP Keep Forgetting About Slavery?

If you ask one thousand people on the street what they know about America's Civil War, you can bet that most folks are going to tell you something about slavery, that age-old institution where (in the case of American history before the 1860s) white folks made an entire race of people servants, keeping them from the voting booths, denying them basic civil rights, and torturing them all because of some whacked out line of thinking that suggested white people were far superior.

In fact, removing the concept of slavery from any sort of identification with the Civil War or with the Confederacy is actually kind of a big deal. It would be like forgetting to mention the concept of independence in discussions around the Revolutionary War, or forgetting to describe the peanut butter in a review about a PB&J sandwich. In other words, slavery goes part and parcel with any sort of reflection back on the Confederacy.

Unless you're a GOP governor, that is. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell made this point clear last week when he declared April "Confederate History Month," and then promptly forgot to mention the most important historical fact about the Confederacy — that it instituted, celebrated and supported enslaving scores of people. Whoops!

But for as bad as McDonnell's omission was — and it was bad — at least he had the sense to apologize. Not so with Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. Gov. Barbour took to the Sunday news programs to stand up for the Confederacy, suggesting that slavery was nothing more than a "nit" during the Confederacy, and that people who are upset about omitting slavery's history from any discussion of the Confederacy are worried about "diddly."

Diddly? A nit? Wait, are we really talking about one of the worst things that the United States has ever done? Yup, we sure are. But it gets even crazier. In addition to just calling slavery a "nit" in the history of the Confederacy, Gov. Barbour issued his own declaration celebrating what he calls the "rich history" of the Confederacy, which was then promptly circulated by a group known as the Sons of Confederate Veterans as justification for today's Tea Party activism.

According to Rev. Cecil Fayard, the spokesperson for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Gov. Haley Barbour's commemoration of the Confederacy gives today's Tea Party activists a shot of momentum, because there's much that Tea Party activists can learn from the Jefferson Davis crowd.

"The War Between the States was fought for the same reasons that the tea party movement today is voicing their opinion. And that is that you have large government that’s not listening to the people, there’s going to be heavy taxation," said Rev. Fayard.

Now, of course, there were some economic implications of the Civil War. But to suggest that the "War Between the States" was fought because of big government is pretty bizarre. I suppose it's the correct way of thinking if you don't want "big government" telling you that you can't make a whole race of people pick your cotton, while you pay them miserable wages, beat them and deny them voting rights. Curse that big government for saying such a thing!

Here's what's particularly troubling about the actions by Barbour, and also McDonnell: these two are both seen as rising stars within the Republican Party. Last week, Washington Post reporter Chris Cillizza rated the ten most influential Republicans in the entire country, and he put Haley Barbour (who is also the head of the Republican Governor's Association) as the most influential GOP member in the country. And Bob McDonnell has long been touted as the new face of the GOP, even being afforded the opportunity this year to be the GOP face responding to President Obama's State of the Union address.

Boy, if these two are the future of the GOP, then consider it a blast from the past. A dangerous past where politicians were all too eager to brush slavery under the rug, rather than deal with their country's own demons. Meanwhile, if the Tea Party movement is looking to take lessons from something historical, they'd be wise to steer clear of the Confederacy. As CNN's Roland Martin put it so well last week, honoring the political goals of the Confederacy is akin to honoring terrorism. That might be putting it in a very volatile way ... but sometimes the truth hurts.

Photo credit: antisocialtory