Teaching the Lost Cause in South Carolina

Nikki Haley and the Republican Party are at a Crossroads on the Subject of Slavery and the Civil War.

(Source: Salon)

By now most of you have read about former South Carolina governor and Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s recent gaffe in which she ignored slavery as the primary cause of the Civil War. It happened, in of all places, in New Hampshire during a campaign stop. A day later, Haley issued a correction.

This latest flip flop is part of a long history in which Haley has attempted to navigate the choppy waters of Civil War memory. Haley was governor of South Carolina when Dylann Roof murdered nine African American churchgoers in Charleston in 2015.

While Haley never loses an opportunity to remind the nation that she signed the legislation authorizing the removal of the Confederate flag from the state house grounds in Columbia in July of that year, it would be more accurate to say that Haley simply had no more room to maneuver in or room to compromise.

Back in February I wrote a lengthy post about Haley’s difficult relationship with Confederatey symbols.

This most recent gaffe in New Hampshire is a reflection of the Republican Party’s complicated relationship with the history of slavery and the legacy of the Confederacy. Republican-controlled legislatures across the country have passed laws regulating or preventing history educatators from teaching aspects of the history of slavery, race, and white supremacy. And Republicans are blocking efforts of local communities from removing Confederate monuments.

I recently talked with historian Tim Galsworthy about how the Republican Party—the “Party of Lincoln”—has been transformed into the voice of the Lost Cause.

Only one other Republican presidential candidate has responded to Haley’s New Hampshire history lesson.

Politically, this was the right response, but it doesn’t really matter as Christie isn’t a viable candidate at this point. The more interesting question is how Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy respond. It is telling that they have not as of the writing of this post and it speaks to a problem for the Republican Party moving forward on this issue.

Haley’s fumbling over the simple question of what caused the Civil War and the quick correction suggests that Republicans need to decide whether they are going to pander to a more radical-Trumpian base that is still mired in Lost Cause mythology or a more moderate position that reflects basic historical literacy surrounding Civil War history.

The Lost Cause is a losing issue for Republicans or anyone for that matter. The writing is on the wall and has been for at least the past decade. Hundreds of Confederate monuments have been removed and even the efforts on the part of Republicans to legislate the teaching of history is evidence that conservatives have lost this fight in classrooms across the country.

Look no further than South Carolina’s most recent history standards released in 2020. Here are a few excerpts on what students learn about the history of slavery from the Alignment Guide for the teaching of U.S. History and the Constitution.

Increasingly, a libertarian American Identity was built, and rights were enjoyed by more Americans throughout this period, including gradual emancipation in the North. However, slavery remained entrenched in the South, and Native American tribes and nations were still considered foreign entities and given few rights.

Examples of perspectives to consider through secondary sources:

●      Historical interpretations regarding the relative importance of political traditions and economic motives in strengthening the national government

●      Historical interpretations on the role of slavery in the major compromises at the Constitutional Convention of 1787

●      Historical interpretations on the role of capitalism in the development of the new American nation

●      Historical interpretations on the role of America’s involvement in world affairs

During the antebellum period, sectionalism increased as the North and the South further developed different economic systems, political beliefs, and social structures. Economically, the agrarian South was transformed from an Atlantic plantation economy to a westwardly expanding cotton-based economy. Due largely to the invention of the cotton gin, slavery expanded at an incredible rate, ultimately representing the primary source of Southern wealth.

The South came to champion states’ rights, citing the 10th Amendment, regarding economic matters such as slavery and tariffs through nullification and secession. The Republican Party emerged in the 1850s, replacing the Whigs, with their platform centered on national improvements and free soil ideology.

The cotton gin led to a dramatic growth of slavery in the South and made the American South the world’s leading producer of cotton. The telegraph created a commercial network while the transportation revolution, the railroad in particular, created a more mobile society.

The federal government significantly expanded the rights of African Americans by outlawing slavery, expanding citizenship, and establishing the right to vote for African American males. But following the Compromise of 1877, they retreated from enforcing these policies, which is a focus area in Standard 3.

Thirty years later, secession resulted from the South's dedication to preserving the institution of slavery.

These are just a few of the places where slavery comes up as a topic of slavery. We can certainly quibble about the way it is framed in places as well as other subjects in the standards, but overall it is clear that the state of South Carolina expects students to learn that slavery was central to the Southern economy and was a cause of secession and war.

As much as this surprised me, I was not at all prepared to read this statement about the Lost Cause narrative.

Note: Lost Cause mythology should be taught within its proper context as an effort by former Confederates to justify the protection of slavery and secession. It is the writers’ intent that the Lost Cause mythology should not be used as the basis of a historical argument because primary source documents and modern historiography refute such claims.

Again, this was taken from the state standards in South Carolina—the birthplace of secession.

Regardless of the host of challenges that teachers face on the ground, this is an important reminder that with each generation we move further and further away from the Lost Cause and its proscriptions on the place of slavery in the history of the Confederacy and the Civil War.

Haley’s gaffe and correction is a reminder that the Republican Party is on the losing side of a history that is slowly but surely becoming more mainstream.