On The Confederacy And Cookie Jars

Someone I follow on Twitter asked the question yesterday, "Is there anything good to be said about the Confederacy?" I'm loathe to judge people from a different time and place by my own, modern values, but I'd still respond: "Practically nothing." The thing was a total failure even by it's own standards.

There's an old story about a boy who wanted some cookies out of a jar with a narrow neck. If he reached in and grabbed one, he could get it without much trouble. If he grabbed a bunch, he wouldn't be able to pull his hand out of the jar. The boy was a greedy idiot, so he refused to let go of his fistful of cookies and ended up starving to death. His parents then sued the manufacturers of both the jar and the cookies. They got a big settlement, ended up divorcing and all of their money went to divorce lawyers. The boy's body was never buried. It lays, to this day, in the kitchen, as a mute testimony against the sin of greed.

I think I got off track there.

Anywho, the moral of the story is that if you're willing to accept a partial win, you can sometimes get more than if you demand everything. That was the Confederacy.

I've read the non-slavery justifications for secession and they're all a fistful of cookies. The best of the lot is Raphael Semmes' Memoirs of Service Afloat, During the War Between the States. He's an excellent writer and gives cogent arguments in favor of secession, none having to do with slavery. His biggest complaint is that since the North had more people and votes, it set up a tariff regimen and a federal budget wherein the South paid the taxes, but the North got all the money.

That's true enough. However, as I understand it, the North demanded the 3/5 compromise, where slaves were only counted as 3/5 of a person, to limit Southern votes in the Electoral College. If slaves were 5/5 of a person, then the South would wield a great deal of power.

Semmes' problem is solved by freeing the slaves. As soon as they're free, the South gets those votes and can dictate taxes and spending to the North.

Similarly, the Civil War was a war of attrition. Lee and Jackson understood this while the Confederate politicians were mostly delusional about it. The North had more infantry, so they won. If the Confederacy had made emancipation contingent on military service, they could have put a million or so blacks under arms and whupped the Yankees. Some of their leadership even suggested this, but were shouted down.

They wanted a fistful of cookies when they could have had one with ease.

Finally, slavery = socialism. Intellectually, there's not much to choose between Jefferson Davis and Elizabeth Warren. You go to work, slave/prole, and I'll distribute what you produce. Socialism and slavery both fail because there's no point in working hard if you don't get the benefits.

So, no, there's not much good that can be said about the Confederacy, even if you leave out the moral horrors of slavery. Yes, I have five Confederate military leaders' portraits between my garage and office. I admire those men, but even they could see the massive flaws in their country.

This person will soon be dead, their unburied body rotting in the kitchen, while a cookie company goes bankrupt, their parents divorce and lawyers drive exotic cars.

Let that be a lesson to you.