“Rebranding rebellion is nothing new. Americans take it for granted that the war between the Confederate states and the Union was always called the Civil War, but it was not. During the war and in its aftermath, it was primarily called an “insurrection” or a “rebellion.” Its current name is a result of decades of lobbying by Confederate heritage groups and white Southerners committed to rejuvenating the South’s image and ignoring its treason and slaveholding…Conventions shifted only decades after the war, when white Southerners and their representatives in Congress collaborated to rewrite the history of the conflict. In 1899 one group pushed to expunge references to “rebellion” from historical and public discussion of the war. They preferred the misnomer “War Between the States,” freeing the Confederacy of the stigma of revolt. From 1905 to 1911, the campaign’s sympathizers in Congress moved to strike “War of the Rebellion” — the common name at the time — from legislation. “Civil War” became a compromise solution, mollifying Confederate nostalgics while being more acceptable to their opponents than “War Between the States.”
“….American society’s use of “Civil War” to rhetorically veil the slaveholders’ rebellion has consequences. After the redemption of the Confederacy, ex-Confederates and their heirs helped create a regime of anti-Black violence by instituting a legal architecture of disenfranchisement and lynching. That is what makes confronting how we refer to the Civil War a civic imperative. The danger of rhetorical abstraction lies not only in its distortion of the past but also in its pre-emptive justification for future assaults on democratic life.”
The South, which had been threatening to secede from the Union as far back as the Jackson administration (and Andy was a slaveholder), had finally had enough of Northern domination. Indeed, the slavery question was the catalyst for the Southern states finally declaring independence from the North, but to say that slavery is what the South was fighting for (Ken Burns’ “The Civil War” makes the same claim) is historically and intellectually dishonest. Nothing in either the Constitution or its mission statement, the Declaration, contained any language binding states to the United States with no way out. If the Southern states had believed that, neither document would have been passed. The idea that the U.S. was inseparable was Abe Lincoln’s idea, and going to war to embed it in our laws was probably an abuse of power and unconstitutional as well. Like all effective and great Presidents, Abe knew when the Constitution needed a little stretching for the good of the nation.
True, the Civil War wasn’t a civil war in the sense that two factions were fighting to run the government. But it wasn’t a “rebellion” either. The Confederate states had, they felt, a legal right to end their participation in the Union, and if Lincoln had let them do so in peace as the Constitution and Declaration seemed to allow (the right to vote one’s state into leaving might even be one of those “unenumerated rights”), there would not have been a war at all. It was an effort to start a new nation. “The War Between the States” captures the situation but it’s a mouthful, and to the race-obsessed like Conright, it doesn’t allow for perpetual race-baiting of the U.S., and denigration of all who fought for the Confederacy, few of whom held slaves.
However, “It Wasn’t a Civil War. It Was the Slaveholders’ Rebellion” wasn’t written to quibble about Civil War’s name, or what the name is, or what the name is called, to evoke The White Knight in “Through the Looking Glass.” Its clear purpose is to <yawn!> GET TRUMP! Otherwise, what is the one-day J-6 riot doing in an article about the Civil War? Suddenly, we get this:
“When Mr. Trump pardoned the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, he described them as victims of a “grave national injustice,” framing their release as an act of “national reconciliation.” It was a demonstration of the power clichéd tropes and evasion have to rewrite a country’s moral code, rendering treachery as justifiable as patriotism. Jan. 6 became simply “the events.” Yet Mr. Trump’s obfuscation of the insurrection could not erase the character of the rebels he sought to absolve, many of whom returned to criminal enterprises after their pardon. In February, Christopher Moynihan, who was among those who breached police barricades at the Capitol, pleaded guilty to charges associated with threatening to kill Representative Hakeem Jeffries. Enrique Tarrio was serving a 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy for his role in the insurrection when he received Mr. Trump’s pardon, only to be arrested a month later at the Capitol on charges of simple assault.These pardons operate using the same logic of rehabilitation once used for the Confederacy, even if the consequences have not registered on the same scale. In both instances, moral laundering begins by changing the label applied to rebels. Mr. Trump’s use of “national reconciliation” in his pardon helps revise the meaning of Jan. 6, reframing insurrectionists as martyrs and violent attempts to suppress American democracy as acts of patriotism.”
Over to Eric, who admires a fellow Leftist’s Orwellian skills…
“January 6. We call it by a date, which is a peculiar way to name an attempt to overturn an American election. A date tells us when something happened. It does not tell us who did it, what was attempted, or why. The better name came to me with irritating clarity: Trump’s failed election coup.
“Not because January 6 and the Civil War are comparable in scale. They are not. But the same rule of historical naming applies to both: a useful name should identify the action, the responsible actor, and the purpose…
“The riot…was not the whole event. It was the violent climax of a larger effort by a defeated President to remain in office: pressure on election officials, fake electors, attempts to enlist the Justice Department in invented fraud claims, demands placed upon the vice president, and a final effort to stop Congress from certifying the lawful winner.
“Calling all of that “January 6” is like naming a bank robbery for the Tuesday on which the gunmen arrived. “Trump’s failed election coup” is uglier. It is also more useful. It identifies the central actor, the objective, and the outcome. Trump attempted to overturn an election he lost and retain the presidency. He failed….”
This is an ongoing test of just how stupid and ignorant the American public is. The Axis has been trying to make a one day riot of a bunch of fools and drunks armed with sticks and bear spray the twin of the storming of the Bastille from January 7 on. Democrats held rigged hearings to establish the false narrative. Elected Senators and pundits who expected to be taken seriously compared the debacle to Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and the Holocaust without giggling.
Both Conright and Gubelman discredit themselves, and , sadly, so does my friend by endorsing their dishonesty. The Times essay calls the riot an “insurrection” and the rioters “insurrectionists.” Even the lawfare-obsessed Biden Justice Department didn’t have the chutzpah to make that charge, because it wasn’t an insurrection. The riot was, like so much of the George Floyd rioting (which was far more extensive, violent and destructive) a protest demonstrations that got out of hand. Nor could a credible argument be constructed that President Trump engineered such an idiotic mess.
Gubelman calls the riot part of a coup attempt. Give us a break. Trump is eccentric and impulsive, but at the dumbest moment of his life he wouldn’t think he could stage a “coup” by having people in funny hats storm the Capitol. What attempted coup tries to work through the courts? The “pressure on elected officials” claim has been discredited. The radical legal theory (given to Trump by a respected lawyer who was too creative for his own good) that a Vice-President could halt the election certification process went nowhere, and ideas aren’t crimes. There was a solid (and Democratic Party) precedent for the alternate electors, who would not be “fake” if a state’s voting results were determined to have designated the wrong winner. But my favorite, I think, is “Calling all of that “January 6” is like naming a bank robbery for the Tuesday on which the gunmen arrived.”
Or, perhaps, naming the most deadly foreign attack on U.S. citizens after the date on which it took place.
A President who believes that a national election has been materially affected by fraud and election tempering has an obligation under his oath of office to try to address what would be a massive attack on our constitutional government. Trump did m(and does) believe that. He went about his duty the wrong way, it was futile, and I believe the best course for the nation was to concede anyway, because if the Axis did steal the election—and it may have—it was a fete accompli (and more of a coup than anything Trump did.)
The resistance, Democrats, progressives and the Trump Deranged, however, have little but Trump hate to run on in November. The effort to keep the J-6 riot in the news is just part of that desperation.
Ethics Alarms 
“The Axis has been trying to make a one day riot of a bunch of fools and drunks armed with sticks and bear spray the twin of the storming of the Bastille from January 7 on.”
I’m still trying to decide whether the current situation has more in common with the Reign of Terror in France or the Cultural Revolution in China. There are similarities to both.
For now, I’m going with France, mostly to make myself feel better. For one thing, fewer people died there. For another, one of the principal communications organs of the current left is called Jacobin. These dumb fucks are so arrogant and committed that they cheerfully forget what happened to the real Jacobins – and what happened after they were shortened by 12 or 14 inches.,
I think a comparison with what happened in France is fair especially if you consider the class warfare that’s been plugged into USA’s politics and really come to a head since 2008. Remember; no matter how much the rich pay in taxes they are never paying their fair share, corporations are evil, corporations are stealing the American dream, employers are robbing employees of their human right to a living wage, homeownership is white supremacy, etc, etc…
P.S. Jonathan Turley talks a lot about the Jacobin’s in his books “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution” and “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage”.
when I saw this meme, I agreed that War Between the States is most accurate.
but, if we pick Civil War to designate an event that is fine. It may not be accurate, but it is the term we adopted, fine.
my one quibble: Lincoln’s war against the South was not unconstitutional. When they declared independence in 1776, the U.S. said they assumed the rights of other nations including the rights to declare war and conclude peace.
I believe confederate documents said the same thing.
so, even if the South had the right to secede, the Union had the right to re-conquer it.
-Jut
Yes, but only after it was a sovereign nation first, and Lincoln never recognized that!
Bastardize: change (something) in such a way as to lower its quality or value, typically by adding new elements.
Has anyone else noticed this pattern I’ve observed…
The 21st century political left, especially hive minded progressives, have been bastardizing as many things as they possibly can across our society and culture and each and every time they do it, it’s somehow related to another effort to demonize the political right,
EVERY… DAMN… TIME!
Not one of these bastardized changes or rewriting of history that these hive minds come up with demonizes the political left and benefits the political right. It’s as if there’s a hidden group of hard left Orwellian social engineering psychologists (aka immoral totalitarians) hanging out in a dark room somewhere fabricating a pile of social engineering bastardizations out of thin air to release one at a time to create yet another anti-conservative narrative. Then they use these faux bastardizations a social cudgel to try and shift core political, social, and cultural opinions. Each of the left’s bastardizations is them playing the long game to completely undermine the politics, society, and core culture of the United States of America. The want to destroy the USA and that makes them an enemy of the people.
In this new chapter of totalitarian psychological social engineering from the political left, we again see that they’re correlating that which cannot logically be correlated for the sole purpose of demonizing conservatives with some kind of fabricated evil causation to gin up more hate against the political right. As soon as the public starts to calm down a little from the last fabricated bastardization, these anti-American, anti-Constitution morally bankrupt totalitarians release a new fabricated bastardization.
Correlation ≠ Causation!
The sad thing is that ignorant biased morons from the political left will parrot this new faux narrative as if it’s fact, just like they’ve done with all the other faux narratives that the political left has fabricated over the last 10+ years.
Anyone that swallows the left’s fabricate narratives, like this one, is a moron.
“The War of the Democrats Secession”
I wonder if Lincoln would’ve let the South secede peacefully if they hadn’t assaulted Fort Sumter. Yes they were antsy about Union still being stationed there, but even putting aside the cause for which the South seceded, it seems to me they gave up whatever moral high ground they had by firing the first shot.
fair point.
one that I typically make.
tge fact that the South fired first is what lawyers call “bad facts.”
at the same time, I believe Lincoln handed back Union forts to the Confederate states in which they were located.
Fort Sumter, however, guarded the very important port city of Charleston. Not only did the Union not give up Fort Sumter, it wanted to keep collecting tariffs on goods coming into Charleston.
add in one more fun fact: South Carolina wanted to withdraw from the Union decades earlier over tariff policy.
I don’t know if Lincoln refused to hand back Fort Sumter because he was desperate for tariff revenue, or if he did it because he knew that was the bait needed for the Confederates to start the war
as I have said: if the South went to war for slavery, the North went to war for taxes.
-Jut
And principle.
The South went to war on principle?
Yes, they thought the North was not abiding by its obligations under the Constitution. Granted, many of those obligations had to do with slavery but the South claimed it was not getting what had been agreed to.
Is that what you meant by principle?
-Jut
No, I followed your “the North went to war for taxes” with “And principle.” I was referring to the North. The principle was as Lincoln framed it in the Gettysburg Address.
The war has been known in the south as the “War for Southern Independence”, a pretty accurate description, but not a favored one for those like your friend. As you say, a “rebellion” usually implies one faction is trying to take over control of an entire country from the one in power.
It’s my understanding that the reason no southern soldier or leader, not even Jefferson Davis (who wanted a trial), was ever prosecuted and tried for treason, was the fear that their claim that they were no longer part of the US before the war would be upheld, and legally validate the right of secession.
Yes, the two anti-Trump activists who wrote about the Civil War as a cheap back door to attack the President never bothered to mention that Lincoln pardoned all the Confederate leaders, officers and soldiers…funny, no one has ever condemned Lincoln for that, and it was a whole lot more generous than Trump pardoning J-6 rioters who had been tried and imprisoned.
Some guy in Mississippi once wrote “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
People sometimes tack on “In the south…” to the front of the quote.
Yay! A William Faulkner quote! A little Light shone on the topic in August!
“Anyone that swallows the left’s fabricate narratives, like this one, is a moron.”
Or a graduate of public and private schools in the last twenty years or so.
Rebellion is fair for the civil war.
Insurrection isn’t.
Secession/war of independence is most accurate.
Civil war is more accurate than insurrection but less than the others.
War between the states is sort of accurate.
Correct, they were not trying to overthrow the government in Washington.
As a kid, “The War Between the States” always struck me as the more dignified, serious name for the Civil War. It’s redolent of the tragic internecine aspect of the War. “Brother against Brother” seems to have been expunged from the vernacular. Having descended from a family living for generations in what became the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, formerly simply part of Virginia, I heard about and saw photos and weapons of ancestors who literally took sides and arms against each other.
It is amazing these same people have nothing to say about this riot.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/31/trump-flees-to-bunker-as-protests-over-george-floyd-rage-outside-white-house