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The Neo-Confederate movement is a political and cultural movement based in the U.S. Southern states that is characterized by celebration of the history of the Confederate States of America (CSA) and support for the CSA's aims. Neo-Confederate issues include states rights, such as nullification (in which state laws override federal laws), the "pro-confederate" view of history, particularly regarding the American Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, and support for traditional culture, including Christianity. Some groups in the movement support outright secession, while others focus on preserving heritage. The term "Neo-Confederate" can be considered a perjorative political epithet and its application to specific groups and individuals has caused controversy.
The largest secessionist neo-confederate group is the League of the South (LOTS). It claims to seek the "well-being and independence of the Southern people." [1] (http://www.dixienet.org/) A number of small political parties also call for secession, including the Southern Party and its offshoot, the Southern Independence Party.
The term is sometimes used with much controversy for groups and individuals which do not call for secession but are otherwise "pro-confederate" or alleged to be so. For example, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), both long-standing Civil War genealogical associations, have both been called "neo-confederate" groups by some critics although neither group advocates for secession.
Anti-hate statement
The Southern Independence Party has placed an anti-hate statement on their website, in which it rejects "all racist groups" including "the Ku Klux Klan, and the NAACP", and states that there is no place in the "Southern Nation" for those who "espouse hatred of others." [2] (http://www.siptn.org/statement_on_hate.htm)
Controversies over use of the term
Use of "Neo-Confederate" as political epithet
The term "Neo-Confederate" is sometimes employed as a pejorative description, or ad hominem slur, for people who take a sympathetic view of southern history (particularly in connection with the American Civil War) and for southerners in general, even when they do not belong to or espouse the ideas of a "Neo-Confederate" organization.
People and organizations that have been referred to as "Neo-Confederate" in a disparaging manner often dispute the propriety of the term's use. One well known incident in which the term was used with much controversy happened in 1999. During a radio interview the Civil War historian James M. McPherson offended many southern heritage organizations when he associated the UDC with the neo-confederate movement and described board members of the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia as "undoubtedly neo-Confederate." He further said that the UDC and the SCV have "white supremacy" as their "thinly veiled agendas." The incident outraged members of the UDC and the SCV, who accused McPherson of unfairly attacking them. Some SCV and UDC chapters subsequently urged their members to boycott his books and engaged in letter-writing campaigns.[3] (http://users.erols.com/va-udc/mcpherson.html)
Ed Sebesta, a self-styled "Neo-Confederate watchdog", frequently uses the label "neo-confederate" as a term of disparagement for groups and politicians who exhibit openly southern viewpoints, as well as some who do not. Sebesta has accused several well known figures in politics and academia of belonging to or supporting "neo-confederate" organizations. Included are Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who he criticized for writing letters of support to confederate-related organizations such as the UDC, the SCV, and the Museum of The Confederacy.[4] (http://web.archive.org/web/20031217102929/www.templeofdemocracy.com/BillClinton.htm)[5] (http://web.archive.org/web/20021218070527/www.templeofdemocracy.com/RadioPacificaBush.htm) His tactics have been condemned by groups such as the UDC. The Virginia UDC chapter describes Sebesta as a "hater of all things Confederate" and states that his website is "especially slanderous" toward their organization [6] (http://users.erols.com/va-udc/mcpherson.html). Though these allegations have earned him a reputation among some for abusively using the term, Sebesta has been quoted as an "expert" or "researcher" on the neo-confederate movement by several media outlets on the political left such as Pacifica Radio and Salon.com.
Controversy in Identifying Neo-Confederate Groups
Given that its use sometimes has a pejorative or disparaging connotation, the application of the term "neo-confederate" to groups that do not readily fit the description of a secessionist organization is controversial. The term is commonly employed by organizations on the political left, while many of the organizations it is applied to are on the political right. There is little consensus over which groups are properly termed "Neo-Confederate" and which are not, even among the organizations that monitor them.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a controversial anti-hate group headed by Morris Dees, is the principal group watching the "neo-confederate" movement. A special report by the SPLC's Mark Potok in their magazine, Intelligence Report, describes these groups as "neo-confederate" in 2000: The League of the South, The American Renaissance, Confederate Society of America, Confederate States of America, Council of Conservative Citizens, The Edgefield Journal, Heritage Preservation Association, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the Rockford Institute, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the Southern Legal Resource Center, the Southern Military Institute, the Southern Party, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. [7] (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=460) Of those, only LOTS and the Council of Conservative Citizens are on the SPLC list of hate groups and the CofCC is identified there as "Other" rather than "Neo-Confederate" [8] (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp?T=13&m=2)
The SPLC has carried subsequent articles on the neo-confederate movement. "Lincoln Reconstructed" published in 2003 in the Inteligence Report focuses on the resurgent demonization of Abraham Lincoln in the South. The article quotes the chaplain of the SCV as giving an invocation which recalled "the last real Christian civilization on Earth." The article further mentions that the LewRockwell.com website hosts a collection of anti-Lincoln articles, which led Marcus Epstein of the Von Mises Institute to compare the SPLC's tactics to McCarthyism[9] (http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/001207.html). "Whitewashing the Confederacy" was a review that alleged that the movie Gods and Generals presented a false, pro-confederate view of history. [10] (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=47) Myles Kantor of FrontPage Magazine described the review as a "web of falsehood."[11] (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=10009)
An article in the liberal Institute for Southern Studies' magazine, Southern Exposure, uses the "neo-confederate" label for the League of the South, the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC), the UDC, the SCV, and the Museum of the Confederacy.[12] (http://www.commondreams.org/news2000/0218-04.htm)
Not everyone avoids the term. Al Benson Jr., officer of the Southern Independence Party declares, "I am part of what demagogue Morris Dees calls the 'Neo-Confederate Movement'". [13] (http://www.patriotist.com/abarch/ab20010312.htm)[14] (http://www.patriotist.com/about-benson.htm) In an article posted to the "Patriotist" weblog Benson criticizes Professor McPherson for appearing on Pacifica and for being cited repeatedly on a socialist website. Benson bemoans the bias of "social historians":
- Is it any wonder that interested Americans have no real concept of what the War of Northern Aggression was all about? With 'historians' like Sandburg, Nolan, and McPherson, you are basically getting what amounts to a Marxist version of what the war was all about. [15] (http://www.patriotist.com/abarch/ab20020708.htm)
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