More Waving Of The Bloody Shirt

For those of you who are too young to remember Reconstruction and its aftermath, “waving the bloody shirt” refers to the anti-Southern demagogy Northern Republicans would employ in the latter part of the 19th Century whenever it appeared the Democrats (the party of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion”) were gaining. The “bloody shirt” referred, of course, to the sacrifices of the Union in the Civil War.

A good example is this bit from Robert Ingersoll, a Union officer and post-war orator of some note:

Every man that denied Union prisoners even the worm-eaten crust of famine, and when some poor emaciated Union patriot, driven to insanity by famine, saw in an insane dream the face of his mother, and she beckoned him and he followed, hoping to press her lips once again against his fevered face, and when he stepped one step beyond the dead line the wretch that put the bullet through his loving, throbbing heart was and is a Democrat.

Never mind that, according to War Department figures, 13% of the Confederate prisoners in Union prisons died, compared to 8% of the Union prisoners in Confederate prisons. “Waving the bloody shirt” was effective, and it continues to this day from time to time, with only the names of the parties changed.

A good example appears today as an OpEd in today’sWashington Post by David Moats, editorial page editor of the Rutland Herald in Rutland, Vermont. Moats asks, “if someone is to challenge the present Republican marriage of religious fundamentalism and rapacious capitalism, from where should we expect that challenge to come?” Why, New England, where else?

New Englanders in the 19th century served as a check on the excesses of their southern cousins, providing the most zealous and determined voices in opposition to slavery. In the eyes of many Americans today, the southern strain of American politics, represented by George W. Bush, is begging to be checked.

And what, Moats asks, “does that strain consist of?” His answer:

It is characterized, first of all, by hostility toward government, expressed through tax cuts designed, as it is said, to “starve the beast,” crippling the functions of government and allowing private business to scoop up the pieces.

It is characterized by extreme deference to the wealthy and by unconcern for the withering of civil culture and the public sphere. The public schools are failing? Send your kids to private schools, and here’s some public money to help. Public libraries are starved of funds? Try Amazon.com.

It is characterized by the conflation of religion and politics. According to this view, the Ten Commandments are part of our public charter and gay marriage is an oxymoron.

And who is the ideal standard bearer in this crusade against “the southern strain”?

It should come as no surprise that the most insistent voice in opposition to that vision should come from a New Englander with family ties to Wall Street. Howard Dean has labored in politics to make government work; bringing health care coverage to Vermont children has been one of his signal accomplishments. In signing Vermont’s civil union law, he honored the wall between church and state. At the same time, he has always been aware of the need to keep Wall Street happy by making sure government’s fiscal house is in order.

Well, that’s nice. It must be comforting to see a far-away region as the source of all that is evil in contemporary life. True, such a picture leaves out all those midwest and western Republicans in what Evan Thomas of Newsweek has just quaintly referred to as “Red State, Fly-Over America,” but what the heck. When you’re splashing blood on the shirt it doesn’t always go on in neat, even patterns.