A Confederate Without Monuments

An interesting counterexample: a favored deputy of Robert E. Lee's who is largely uncelebrated in statuary. Why?
Senator William Mahone was one of the most maligned political leaders in post-Civil War America. He was also one of the most capable. Compared to the Roman traitor Cataline (by Virginia Democrats), to Moses (by African American congressman John Mercer Langston), and to Napoleon (by himself), Mahone organized and led the most successful interracial political alliance in the post-emancipation South. Mahone’s Readjuster Party, an independent coalition of black and white Republicans and white Democrats that was named for its policy of downwardly “readjusting” Virginia’s state debt, governed the state from 1879 to 1883.

During this period, a Readjuster governor occupied the statehouse, two Readjusters represented Virginia in the United States Senate, and Readjusters represented six of Virginia’s ten congressional districts. Under Mahone’s leadership, his coalition controlled the state legislature and the courts, and held and distributed the state’s many coveted federal offices. A black-majority party, the Readjusters legitimated and promoted African American citizenship and political power by supporting black suffrage, office-holding, and jury service. To a degree previously unseen in Virginia, and unmatched anywhere else in the nineteenth-century South, the Readjusters became an institutional force for the protection and advancement of black rights and interests....

The Readjusters lost power in 1883 through a Democratic campaign of violence, electoral fraud, and appeals to white solidarity. While Democrats suppressed progressive politics in the state, other groups of elite white Virginians worked fast to eradicate the memory of Virginia’s experiment in interracial democracy.
Like the United Irishmen's union of Protestant and Catholic in 1798, it's one of history's tragic missed opportunities.

8 comments:

douglas said...

Well, the obvious suspicion (which could of course be totally wrong) is that since many of the statues didn't go up until around 1915-20, he was forgotten, or as the Klan was making a bit of a resurgence then, disfavored. Just throwing that out there.

Were I a Virginia legislator, I'd consider proposing a memorial to the man right about now. What a great lesson it would be.

Grim said...

Take a look at the years again. The bulk happens before the Klan is reformed in 1915. Mostly they were put up by women's groups like the UDC. The narrative about them being chiefly racist is unlikely given that the real bulk predates the increased racial tension of 1915-1919 by several years. It's the old soldiers dying off that drives the monument building more than anything.

douglas said...

Ah, sorry- I saw the old soldiers dying off as being around that time, but I guess the belly of that curve would be earlier a bit- 5-10 years?

Grim said...

Yeah. If you were 21 in 1860, you were 61 in 1900 and 71 in 1910 and 76 in 1915. Mortality rates at that time suggest a bulge of honors for dying or recently deceased Civil War vets just when you see it, rather than a few years later after the Klan reforms. But it wasn't the Klan anyway; it was the daughters and granddaughters of soldiers.

Eric Blair said...

True enough. Was just in Laurel Hill cemetery today, and by chance saw General Meade's grave "He did his work bravely and is now at rest" and I noticed there are little GAR flag holders with little US flags by a lot of the graves, but a little Confederate flag (not the stars and bars, but the other one) in it's own Confederate Veteran holder caught my eye by one grave, which turned out to be one LTC Frank Reynolds (39th NC Trps). Apparently General Pemberton is buried there too, although I did not see his grave today.


Eric Blair said...

Ah, you can see Reynold's marker here:

http://callmetaphy.blogspot.com/2011/11/thank-you-for-your-service.html

It occurs to me now looking at this, that this is a modern grave marker, that some one had made to replace a crumbling original.

douglas said...

Those are neat pix, Mr. Blair.

I especially like the ones of two sides of a pillar with the man's arms and kit hung up- no more to be put to use. Nicely done.

Ymar Sakar said...

They didn't miss an opportunity, it was intentionally aborted by Lucifer's Own. They can't have that in their strongholds,

Lee was also ostracized and secluded and cut off from influence, by the slave lords who wanted to use his reputation as the war leader, but didn't want him actually having enough influence to determine political decisions for the public. A great case of the Japanese version of an Emperor who had no political powers.