Wednesday, August 16, 2006

ALLEN, WEBB, THE M-WORD, AND THE C-WORD   [Byron York]

In all the controversy over George Allen's use of the M-word, commentators and news reports are bringing up the senator's alleged fondness for all things Confederate.  That's not surprising, but it's useful to remember that the Confederate issue, stirred up a few months by a long New Republic article, mostly disappeared after the Richmond Times-Dispatch, looking into why Democrat James Webb had not criticized Allen over the New Republic piece, reported that Webb himself has expressed deep reverence for the Confederacy.   In May, the Times-Dispatch published an article , "Webb speech praised Confederate army; In 1990, the Senate hopeful spoke of forebears' sacrifices," that discussed a speech Webb gave at the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery on June 3, 1990.  The entire text of the speech is available at Webb's website, and it is worth reading.  Here are some excerpts:

This is by no means my first visit to this spot.

The Confederate Memorial has had a special place in my life for many years. During the bitter turbulence of the early and mid 1970's I used to come here quite often. I had recently left the Marine Corps and was struggling to come to grips with my service in Vietnam, and with the misperceptions that seemed rampant about the people with whom I had served and what, exactly we had attempted to accomplish. And there were many, many times that I found myself drawn to this deeply inspiring memorial, to contemplate the sacrifices of others, several of whom were my ancestors, whose enormous suffering and collective gallantry are to this day still misunderstood by most Americans…

I am not here to apologize for why they fought, although modern historians might contemplate that there truly were different perceptions in the North and South about those reasons, and that most Southern soldiers viewed the driving issue to be sovereignty rather than slavery. In 1860 fewer than five percent of the people in the South owned slaves, and fewer than twenty percent were involved with slavery in any capacity. Love of the Union was palpably stronger in the South than in the North before the war — just as overt patriotism is today — but it was tempered by a strong belief that state sovereignty existed prior to the Constitution, and that it had never been surrendered. Nor had Abraham Lincoln ended slavery in Kentucky and Missouri when those border states did not secede. Perhaps all of us might reread the writings of Alexander Stephens, a brilliant attorney who opposed secession but then became Vice President of the Confederacy, making a convincing legal argument that the constitutional compact was terminable…

And so those of us who carry in our veins the living legacy of those times have also inherited a special burden. These men, like all soldiers, made painful choices and often paid for their loyalty with their lives. It is up to us to ensure that this ever-changing nation remembers the complexity of the issues they faced, and the incredible conditions under which they performed their duty, as they understood it…

I am compelled today to remember a number of ancestors who lie in graves far away from Arlington. Two died fighting for the Confederacy — one in Virginia and the other in a prisoner camp in Illinois, after having been captured in Tennessee. Another served three years in the Virginia cavalry and survived, naming the next child to spring from his loins Robert E. Lee Webb, a name that my grandfather also held and which has passed along in bits and pieces through many others, such as my cousin, Roger Lee Webb, present today, and my son, James Robert, also present…

08/16 08:35 AMShare