Several years ago the world recoiled in disgust when the
Taliban blew up the statues of Buddha carved into an Afghan mountainside. More
recently the press bemoaned the fact that ISIS was engaging in the systematic destruction of ancient artwork and architecture in Iraq and Syria. When vandals
destroyed the piece of “art” known as “Piss Christ,” (a crucifix submerged in
urine), the act was decried in the press. In our enlightened age we cannot
tolerate those intolerant souls who want to do away with artwork that they find
offensive—except when the enlightened and tolerant are offended by the artwork.
Then it is okay to tear it down. For years now the enlightened and tolerant
have been militantly seeking to eradicate crosses, Nativity scenes, and
displays of the Ten Commandments. In Gainesville right now, there is a move
afoot to tear down “Old Joe,” the 112-year-old statute of a Confederate enlisted
man. “Old Joe” is probably not on a par with the mountainside Buddhas for
artistic merit, but he’s miles ahead of “Piss Christ.”
Ironically, “Old Joe” is looked upon as a symbol of slavery,
when he symbolizes men who were secondary victims of slavery. What do I mean by
that? The majority of the rank-and-file enlisted men of the Confederate Army were
not slave owners but were poor dirt farmers fighting a war to preserve an
institution that kept them in poverty just as surely as it kept Blacks in
chains. Anyone familiar with Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America knows that he saw the antebellum South as an
impoverished backwater compared to the North. What was the root cause of such
poverty in the South? Slavery. The South was like Rome at the time of Julius
Caesar. All the good land was gobbled up in the Latifundia, huge plantations worked by gangs of slaves, and the Latifundia reduced the free peasant
farmers to abject poverty. That was the
first way that “Old Joe” was a victim of slavery.
The moneybags who owned the plantations started the war to
preserve slavery, and then they called on “Old Joe” to fight it. So thousands
of “Old Joes” marched off to war and died in order that the plantation owners
could maintain the status quo—which meant “Old Joe” was fighting to keep
himself near the bottom of the social pyramid. If it wasn’t clear at the
beginning of the war, it was clear at the end, when the Confederacy instituted
a draft and granted exemptions to anyone who owned 20 or more slaves. I’ve been
doing some reading in the 70+ volume compilation of the records of the Union
and Confederate Armies, and I’ve noticed that after the Confederate draft was
inaugurated, desertions from the Confederate Army skyrocketed.
“Old Joe” can’t seem
to catch a break from anyone. Before the Civil War he was kept in poverty by
slavery. During the Civil War he was exploited as cannon fodder by the
slave-owning class. Today he is reviled by the enlightened and tolerant because
he “symbolizes” slavery, an institution that victimized him. You may ask, “Well,
if he didn’t intend to defend slavery, why did he fight?” In the PBS
documentary Ken Burns’ Civil War, Shelby Foote gives one “Old Joe’s”
explanation. A bedraggled Confederate who had been captured by Union soldiers, was
asked by his captors, “You’re not rich. You don’t own any slaves. Why are you fighting us?” he replied, “Because
you’re down here.” Probably not the most profound analysis, but very few “Old
Joe’s” were well-educated.
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