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Lee Sigel has written a column for the Daily Beast in which he prays for the South to secede again:
I will not link directly to his post as I do not want to give him any hits for his mind-bendingly foolish scribbling. As most of our faithful readers know, I am one of Lincoln’s biggest fans in the Catholic blogosphere and my sentiments for the Union in the Late Unpleasantness are quite clear, but I must say if the South did secede today the new nation would have only one problem: what to do with the hordes of Northern refugees, including me and my family, that would come flocking to live in Dixie. As far as I can see the Southern states, much more so than most of the Northern states, would be a better fit for Lincoln today:
1. They are Republican.
2. They have a patriotism much more like Lincoln’s than the blame America first attitude prevalent in too many of the power centers of the North.
3. They are pro-business as Lincoln was throughout his political career.
4. They do not believe that self government consists of breathlessly waiting for the latest edict from the Supreme Court and chanting:  Yes Masters.
5. They have not legalized gay marriage. A man like Lincoln who opposed polygamy would not have looked kindly upon that cause.
6. Lincoln had a strong faith in God, and the atheism so fashionable in certain circles of the North today he would have found repellant.
7. Lincoln was ever the friend of Catholics. He would have been appalled by the anti-Catholicism too prevalent in the North today as he was by the aptly named Know-Nothings of his time.
8. Lincoln believed with all his being in the words, “All Men are created Equal.” The identity politics common in the North today would have appalled him.
9. The appeals to racial bias, a common tactic in the Democrat party of today, as in Lincoln’s day, would have driven him from the strongholds of the Democrats in the North.
10. It is clear that the South today is the section of the country standing behind this portion of a speech by Lincoln that summed up what he believed in:
These communities, by their representatives in old Independence Hall, said
to the whole world of men: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all
men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness.” This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the
Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice
of the Creator to His creatures. [Applause.] Yes, gentlemen, to all His
creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief,
nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be
trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the
whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the
farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their
children’s children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in
other ages. Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to
breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that
when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up
the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again
to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which
their fathers began — so that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all the humane
and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man
would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the
temple of liberty was being built.
It’s laughable to read these screeds extolling the virtues of the North. I’m sort of in no-man’s land myself living below the Mason-Dixon but in what is basically Yankee territory.
I had to drive home to New York this week, and the crumbling infrastructure really just struck me. The northeast is a decaying, dying region. You head south and you see vitality and newness. Now as a conservative I appreciate older things, but not roads and trains that are decades out of date and no longer able to effectively service their communities.
On a sidenote, spending time in Connecticut I was struck by the notable absence of any non-white people. It’s funny because aren’t these the people who shout loudest about the need for diversity. Physician, heal thyself.
Sigel and his ilk want Ameritopia, to which I say, “No, thanks”.
“Lee Sigel has written a column for the Daily Beast in which he prays for the South to secede again …”
Probably the only thing on which Mr. Sigel and I might find some common ground.
😉
What Siegel’s brain-damaged wishcasting ignores is the fact that many of us Yankees would fight Siegeland tooth and nail. We’re equally repugnant to him, but it’s a cheap traffic booster to pretend it’s all in Dixie.
I had to drive home to New York this week, and the crumbling infrastructure really just struck me.
I undertake twenty hour round trips up and down I-81 several times a year. I am just not seeing it.
The northeast is a decaying, dying region.
It has lower rates of economic and demographic growth, with some spot exceptions. The twenty counties constituting metropolitan New York remain the most affluent full settlement in the United States, with the possible exception of greater Washington. Connecticut remains the most affluent state. New England and the Rustbelt could benefit from policy changes. Buffalo and some other cities really are in the process of a slow implosion, but when even Utica has seen tentative signs of stabilization in its population and relative economic position, you see that continued decay is not inevitable.
You head south and you see vitality and newness.
Actually, what you see is that Virginia suffers from even worse urban planning than that which has ruined suburban townships in Upstate New York.
—
Dale Price’s remarks:
David Brooks gets quite a rap, but he offered an observation about what differentiates small towns and countryside from cities and petty metropolitan centers from large ones that I think you could likely substantiate: they differ in the modal size of the self present therein. In small towns, the self is small, and its expression contained, and that psychological factor influences its politics. New England and the Atlantic coast are distinguished by their big urban globs. The purely regional distinction is overstated by Siegel and others.
I undertake twenty hour round trips up and down I-81 several times a year. I am just not seeing it.
Have you been to New York City recently?
And perhaps I’m exaggerating, but when I’m in New York it just feels . . . old. Again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing in all situations. It’s just that my sense in travelling down south is that there’s just a bit more going on.
Actually, what you see is that Virginia suffers from even worse urban planning than that which has ruined suburban townships in Upstate New York.
Well, in the case of northern Virginia at least it’s apparent that the place was designed by someone who must have been on a serious bender.
I had to laugh at his comment about a humane immigration policy. Immigration isn’t so much a problem in the old South as it is for the West. Then I realized, the author isn’t thinking about “the South” seceding; he’s picturing the red states seceding.
So here’s my question: if the Confederate states split, who would go with them? I’m guessing that every state west of the Mississippi except for California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, and Iowa. Colorado would lean toward staying in the US, but every one of its border states would be departing. Missouri would be the key: if they were to leave along with the South, it would open up the rest of the West.
New York City and its environs are more affluent than Upstate (or than central Pennsylvania). IIRC, Downstate has a personal income per capita about 20% in excess of Upstate. It may be that capital budgeting is poorly done in New York. There are masses of obstructive veto groups in New York politics and much systematized and legally sanctioned corruption, and both are likely to interfere with the serious business of government. Upstate is poorer, but there are not so many pigs at the trough (or the pigs are less pushy, vulgar, and exhibitionistic).
I agree with you much of Alexandria has a wretched layout. I was actually thinking of the small cities in western Virginia, the ones in a line along I-81. They are quite demographically vibrant, but little or none of it you see consists of development friendly to pedestrians or does anything but damage the landscape. Applebees and car dealers and housing developments with cul-de-sacs and drainage ditches but no sidewalks or corner stores.
You want things to feel ‘old’. The cityscape should look like it was constructed in an era before development was geared to automobiles bearing human cargo.
It is of course quite hard to be sure that Lincoln would be a good fit for the modern Republican Party. Politics in general and party politics in particular along with social mores have changed quite a bit since Lincoln’s day.
That being said, I think the author forgets that what he thinks of as the “industrialized world” actually is the post-industrialized world. Further, most of those countries (with the exception of Germany) appear to be having far more problems with their economies than the United States is currently having.
I’ve seen people dismiss the regional differences by pointing out that the differences are actually urban vs. rural. There’s SOME truth to that, but this effect can also be overstated, and clear regional differences should not be dismissed or understated.
For example, one commenter not long ago pointed out that even red states have their college towns like Austin and Charlottesville. Now, undeniably, Austin and Charlottesville are more liberal than the rest of their respective states. But they are considerably LESS LIBERAL than their university-town counterparts in blue states. Austin and Charlottesville are certainly NOT Madison, Berkeley, New Haven, or Ann Arbor.
Similarly, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Richmond, Atlanta, Charlotte, etc. may be more purplish or blue than the rest of their respective states, but they are less so than their big-city counterparts such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, etc.
That should say “… but they are less so than their BLUE-STATE big-city counterparts such as …”
Jay, I’m not sure about that.
We agree that regions and population density are both strong indicators of politics. The average Utahn is to the right of the average Pennsylvanian. But I think that a Democrat would stand a better chance in some parts of Utah than in some parts of Pennsylvania.
Also, there seems to be less overlap between the parties. The most liberal Republican officeholder used to be to the left of the most conservative Democratic officeholder, but I don’t think that’s true any more. So that conservative countryside and liberal downtown really do represent different ways of thinking.
I am not dismissing regional differences, merely pointing out that some of the manifested differences have their source in other factors.
There is very little overlap between the political parties in federal politics. Six or seven years ago, the National Journal rank-ordered all 435 members of the House of Representatives according to their scores on a synthetic index. They sorted fairly neatly into piles of Republicans and Democrats. IIRC, the interstitial zone had about six members in it, all from New England and Georgia. In 1965, about 30% of the Congressional Republican caucus cast a ballot for Medicaid and Medicare. IIRC, Obamacare got 1 Republican ballot. There were, IIRC, fewer than 30 members of Congress whose votes were uncertain, all but about 5 were Democrats.
Austin and Charlottesville are certainly NOT Madison, Berkeley, New Haven, or Ann Arbor.
Similarly, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Richmond, Atlanta, Charlotte, etc. may be more purplish or blue than the rest of their respective states, but they are less so than their big-city counterparts such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, etc.
Just wish to point out that the appropriate frame of reference is that which captures the central city and all of the tract development in a given metropolitan settlement. Berkeley is a fragment of the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose conurbation. The analogue to Berkeley is not “Austin”, but a bohemian neighborhood in Austin with 30,000 people in it. The Census Bureau continues to classify Ann Arbor as the core of its own metropolis in Washtenaw County, Michigan, but it is just cheek-by-jowl with metropolitan Detroit. The City of Detroit is an administrative unit which covers the slums of a metropolis which is 5x its size (as well fragments of passable neighborhoods). One also needs to recall that municipal annexation has persisted to this day in some parts of the South and central cities are likely to have a much larger (and less eccentric) fragment of the whole than is the case in New York, where municipal annexation disappeared in 1924 or in New Jersey (where metropolitan settlements are so fragmented there cannot be said to be any core cities).
Pinky, try going to Mass in Austin (lefty central in Texas) and then in Syracuse (Upstate average). Definitely a different sensibility and understanding of decorum.
Lincoln didn’t start the civil war to free the slaves. He started the civil war because he didn’t want to lose the cotton industry.
Rubbish. The North could have had plenty of cotton at market prices by agreeing to the destruction of the Union. Free trade was one of the carrots dangled before the North by the Confederate government if the North would agree to Confederate independence. The Confederacy was created and went to war to protect slavery as indicated by Jefferson Davis in his first address to the Confederate congress:
“In the meantime, under the mild and genial climate of the Southern States and the increasing care and attention for the well-being and comfort of the laboring class, dictated alike by interest and humanity, the African slaves had augmented in number from about 600,000, at the date of the adoption of the constitutional compact, to upward of 4,000,000. In moral and social condition they had been elevated from brutal savages into docile, intelligent, and civilized agricultural laborers, and supplied not only with bodily comforts but with careful religious instruction. Under the supervision of a superior race their labor had been so directed as not only to allow a gradual and marked amelioration of their own condition, but to convert hundreds of thousands of square miles of wilderness into cultivated lands covered with a prosperous people; towns and cities had sprung into existence, and had rapidly increased in wealth and population under the social system of the South; the white population of the Southern slaveholding States had augmented form about 1,250,000 at the date of the adoption of the Constitution to more than 8,500,000 in 1860; and the productions of the South in cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco, for the full development and continuance of which the labor of African slaves was and is indispensable, had swollen to an amount which formed nearly three-fourths of the exports of the whole United States and had become absolutely necessary to the wants of civilized man. With interests of such overwhelming magnitude imperiled, the people of the Southern States were driven by the conduct of the North to the adoption of some course of action to avert the danger with which they were openly menaced. With this view the Legislatures of the several States invited the people to select delegates to conventions to be held for the purpose of determining for themselves what measures were best adapted to meet so alarming a crisis in their history. Here it may be proper to observe that from a period as early as 1798 there had existed in all of the States of the Union a party almost uniterruptedly in the majority based upon the creed that each State was, in the last resort, the sole judge as well of its wrongs as of the mode and measure of redress. Indeed, it is obvious that under the law of nations this principle is an axiom as applied to the relations of independent sovereign States, such as those which had united themselves under the constitutional compact. The Democratic party of the United States repeated, in its successful canvass in 1856, the declaration made in numerous previous political contests, that it would “faithfully abide by and uphold the principles laid down in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798, and in the report of Mr. Madison to the Virginia Legislature in 1799; and that it adopts those principles as constituting one of the main foundations of its political creed.” The principles thus emphatically announced embrace that to which I have already averted– the right of each State to judge of and redress the wrongs of which it complains. These principles were maintained by overwhelming majorities of the people in all the States of the Union at different elections, especially in the elections of Mr. Jefferson in 1805, Mr. Madison in 1809, and Mr. Pierce in 1852. In the exercise of a right so ancient, so well-established, and so necessary for self-preservation, the people of the Confederate States, in their conventions, determined that the wrongs which they had suffered and the evils with which they were menaced required that they should revoke the delegation of powers to the Federal Government which they had ratified in their several conventions. They consequently passed ordinances resuming all their rights as sovereign and independent States and dissolved their connection with the other States of the Union.”
http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/jdmess.html
NeoConfederates who seek to deny that the war was all about slavery merely make themselves look absurd.
Lincoln didn’t start the civil war
You should have stopped right there. That would have been entirely accurate.
Siegel’s compendium (traditional Christian morals, family values, and personal responsibility) of civil and moral “goods” that he calls “evils” IMHO is simply warmed-over pabulum for your base, liberal ignoramus.
Plus, the listed, All-American virtues (that he calls evils) pertain to most of “fly over” country, not just the South. And, large numbers of Christians mourning and weeping the lib valleys of tears would also lose big-time.
Finally, his secession proposal likely would be win-win for the South and lose-lose for dysfunctional, liberal (I repeat myself) economic, cultural and moral slag heaps, e.g., CA and NY.
Again, I don’t want to downplay the differences between conservative rural countryside and liberal downtown. That is a key factor at play here. I acknowledge that rural Ohio is FAR more conservative and traditional-value-oriented than Cleveland, Columbus, and Toledo. But my point is that there are still regional differences that make the South a more conservative place than the North that go beyond mere rural vs. urban classifications.
My argument is that conservative rural areas in the South are more conservative than conservative rural areas in the North. And that liberal urban areas in the South are more conservative than liberal urban areas in the North. And that liberal college towns in the South are still more conservative than liberal college towns in the North.
One piece of anecdotal evidence from personal experience. I live in a small-to-midsize town of about 15,000 people in North-Central Ohio completely surrounded by rural areas. This county is one of the (if not THE) most conservative in Northern Ohio, and is fairly solidly Republican. The people here support traditional values. They are church-going folks. They consider themselves to be conservative, and they are.
BUT … this place is considerably LESS conservative than similar small town/rural locales that I’ve lived in in Texas and Virginia. Part of the reason is that the people here tend to be more open to government regulation – certainly of the economy and business (especially with regard to labor issues), and tend to support more moderate politicians than the Virgil Goodes and Ralph Halls that were elected from my previous congressional districts in Virginia and Texas.
I was going to comment that such an amicable splitup of the States would leave the North without soldiers. That view matched my experience in the Navy, one in which most shipmates were from Pennsylvania to Florida.
Turns out though that, if you give the “enlightened” North, California, things are about matched. Such a split would give Texas as the South’s largest supplier of service members and California as the North’s. Florida would be the South’s second and New York would be the North’s second.
I think, in the balance of things, there are still more potential recruits in the South than in the proposed North. The big weight tipping the scales against the North would be the rejection of traditional values, without which no fighting force stands a chance, for men and women will only risk so much for a paycheck alone.
Jay: the Midwest was settled predominantly by Catholics and Lutherans, whose faith is highly structured and institutionalized and emphasizes one’s duties toward others, while the South was settled by adherents of more individualistic Protestant churches that placed greater emphasis on self-reliance and on faith as a highly personal and individual action. Hence, Southerners would tend to be more wary of government, labor unions, and other institutions simply because their culture teaches them not to rely on anyone but themselves or their immediate kin or neighbors. (Of course this is all a very broad generalization and there are numerous exceptions.)
“if the Confederate states split, who would go with them?”
Probably much of the intermountain West, as Pinky states. I also believe that the southern half, or possibly two-thirds of Illinois (below I-72 or I-74) would attempt to do likewise. If Missouri and/or Indiana went South (as I suspect they would) it would likely tip central/southern Illinois toward doing the same.
“I also believe that the southern half, or possibly two-thirds of Illinois (below I-72 or I-74) would attempt to do likewise. If Missouri and/or Indiana went South (as I suspect they would) it would likely tip central/southern Illinois toward doing the same.”
Agreed Elaine.
Parts of southern Ohio would also probably “go South” in such a break-up scenario.
This exercise becomes a bit more complicated if the states themselves break up. Presumably, parts of Vermont would “go south” in that scenario, making their attending legislative sessions challenging.
That is also the issue with the army. If you look at an election map that goes county by county-large swaths of even California would go to the New Confederacy leaving what would amount to city-states along the coast as parts of the Democratic People’s Republic. Actually, land wise, the vast majority of the USA would be “the South” and the new People’s Republic would be city-states and a few medium sized tracts of land.
This is exactly why cities pose a threat to traditional morals and values in a society. While sin is certainly found everywhere, no where else does is come in a pot for men to marinate in. Cities also foster groupthink and the basest provincialism much more than less urban areas. I know there is the stereotype of the country bumpkins asking (more like telling) an outsider, “You ain’t from around here, is ya?” but in my experience, that pales in comparison to the folks who act as if there is nothing but blank space past their bourough or suburb or block.
Where else can you “rabble rouse” than the city? I was in St. Louis before His Wun-ness’ first coronation and I remember the black guy proclaiming on the news he was voting for John McCain, or whomever the “black man” is. Good job, urban America! Vote tribe/group/province uber alles!
Lastly, I think the “chattering classes” and folks like them know that ultimately they are teats to a boar. Worst case senario, like the electric grid going completely out or something like that and all of a sudden people who know how to actually work and produce are the richest of all. Professional activists, pundits and wonks, diversity advisers etc. are lefting fighting tooth and nail over garbage in their metropolis-turn-necropolis. Even without TEOTWAWKI, even wholesome and good leisure work is wholly dependent upon productive work. All the more so for BS gigs like women’s study chairs at the local U.
I’m always fascinated by these questions of how could have / will the US split up. I found this article and map about how US currency travels within certain regions, a decent proxy for how areas are connected. Pertaining to this conversation, I was surprised how the East Coast of the US is one economic unit, from roughly New York to Mississippi.
As far as I can see, there are three circulation zones on the East Coast, not one.
I think if you take a second look at that map of currency circulation you will see that it demarcates a five-state region comprehending Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, the northern two-thirds of Georgia, and New Orleans and parts of Louisiana tributary to it; that Tennessee is an identifiable subregion thereof, and that the borders with the Florida-South Georgia region and the Texas – Louisiana region are porous.
Again, New England is a distinctly separate zone of currency circulation.
The main zone of circulation on the East Coast has several subzones – one for the Carolinas, two small zones comprehending fragments of Virginia, one for the Baltimore-Washington corridor, and one for the New York-Philadelphia corridor and adjacent areas in the Hudson Valley, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania.
And then, courtesy of Strange Maps, we have The United Countries of Baseball:
ink.com/strange-maps/160-the-united-countries-of-baseball
While some of the fan base boundaries leave a bit to be desired (the White Sox territory, for example, is way too big; outside of the Chicago metro area, most Illinoisans are either Cubs or Cards fans), it would be interesting to speculate upon which side each fan base would take.
My guess is that the Red Sox, Yankees, Phillies, Mets, Orioles, Tigers, Cubs, White Sox, Twins, Mariners, As, Giants, Dodgers, and Angels would side with the New North, while the Reds, Braves, Rays, Marlins, Cardinals, Royals, Astros, Rangers and Diamondbacks and would side with the South. I am not sure which side the Nationals, Pirates, Indians, Brewers, Rockies or Padres would end up joining, though.
Lee Siegel is a blithering idiot. If Siegel wants this so much, Siegel can move to Western Europe and go look for a job.
“many of us Yankees would fight Siegeland tooth and nail. ” -Dale Price
If you break that a little differently it becomes Siege Land – how appropriate!