By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH      

    "Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, Aug., 2018)

I have been writing on the first two elements in the title above for quite some time. More recently, others have as well. Back in 2009, in the first version of BuzzFlash, I began a column on this subject with an analysis by my friend, and once and present editor, Mark Karlin (BuzzFlash, 8/25/09). It briefly and elegantly set the argument in 2009, but is also perfectly on-target (if I may use that term) for the present time:

"[I]t [the Civil War of 1861-65] may have been won by the North, but in truth the South never emotionally conceded. The Town Hall mobs, the birthers, the teabaggers, are all part of that long line of 'coded' agitators for the notions of white entitlement and 'conservative values.' Of course, this conservative viewpoint values cheap labor and unabated use of natural resources over technological and economic innovation."

A significant portion of this column is taken from previous ones of mine.

Of course, the North won on the field of battle, 1861-65.  As a result, slavery was abolished, not only in the states of the Confederacy but also in the slave states which did not join the Secession: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. Further, the Western Counties of Virginia themselves seceded from that State in 1863 (but in the process of course bequeathing to us a modern representative of that kind of "Southern spirit" [except for chattel slavery], Sen. Joe Manchin).

But then, over time did the South really lose the Civil War? Well, yes and no. The North did win on the battlefield. But I have argued that in terms of its original war aims, except for just one of them, the South did win the Civil War and then some, right down to this very day.  It is the series of events summarized just below that I am now entitling "The Second Civil War."

The South's War Aims and the First Civil War

1. The preservation of the institution of African and African-American chattel slavery and its uninhibited expansion into the Territories of the Plains, the Rocky Mountain region, and the Southwest. (California had already been established as a free state by the Compromise of 1850.)

2. The acceptance by the whole United States of the Dogma of White Supremacy on which the institution of slavery was established. Alexander Stephens was Vice-President of the Confederate States of America (CSA). Following the death of John C. Calhoun in 1850, Stephens became its principal politico-economic theoretician. At the beginning of the Civil War, Stephens has the following to say about Southern slavery. Indeed, I have posted this quote many times over the years.  For it summarizes the views of the slave-masters towards their chattel, but also echoes in the views of many white supremacists down to our own time.

"Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race. Such were, and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature's law. With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the Negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Cain, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. Our new government is founded on the opposite idea of the equality of the races. Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the Negro is not equal to the White man; that slavery --- subordination to the superior race --- is his natural condition."

Thus, according to Stephens slavery as a general institution was immoral. But for "Negroes" it was permitted, because they were considered to be "inferior beings." And indeed, to repeat, among many sectors of the population and their present political representatives, they still are. See, for example, the ever-expanding voter suppression campaigns aimed specifically at Blacks because, donchaknow, as the Republo-fascists tell us, cheating is just built into their very natures. "Evidence? Who needs evidence? We just KNOW it."

3. It was the South of course that strongly supported the theory of "States' Rights." From the onset of the Republic, one of that doctrines' outcomes was to provide for the control of the Congress, through the control of the Senate, by a minority of the national population. As well, of course there is that other provision of the original Constitutional Convention that was crafted specifically to protect the interests of the Slave States: The Electoral College. Obviously, both are playing out in major ways in current U.S. political history.

4. A major element of Southern politics was the use of the Big Lie Technique. First it was that Africans and African-Americans were inferior beings, not "human." Second it was that the Civil War, initiated by the Forces of Secession in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina on April 12, 1861, was about "Southern Freedom." Of course, that "Southern Freedom" meant the “freedom” to maintain the institution of slavery, as well to expand it into to the Western Territories, without too much in the way of limitations. Jeff Davis would make the "freedom" claim right to the very end.

The ”Second Civil War”

Extending down to the present time, is what I am now calling the "Second Civil war." It began, actually, during Reconstruction. For example, former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest was one of the founders of what became the Ku Klux Klan in 1867. Its explicit purpose was to prevent Blacks from voting. (Sound familiar?) The famous "40 Acres and a Mule" plan, issued as an order late in the War by Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, which would have transformed Southern Society from the ground (literally) up, was overturned by the (former) slave-holding President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's successor when he was assassinated. The post-Civil War period, known as Reconstruction (see Eric Foner's classic book on this one), during which major changes beyond the end of chattel slavery were supposed to occur, didn't last long.

For example, as a practical matter, concerning the everyday lives of the freed slaves was the XVth Amendment, sometime known as the Civil Rights Amendment:

"Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by ap­pro­priate legislation."

In the last days of the Grant Administration Congress did indeed pass "appropriate legislation," sometimes referred to as the first civil rights act. The Supreme Court (surprise, surprise) declared it unconstitutional in 1883. Actually, it was as a result of the Deal of 1877 that put a Republican, Rutherford B. Hayes, in the White House in return for his promise to withdraw Federal troops from the former Confederacy that Reconstruction came to a formal end. The beginning of “The Second Civil War” can be traced to that event.

This concept goes beyond my earlier references, and that of others, to, covering the period from 1877 onwards as that of "The South Won the Civil War." Rather the time since then can be seen as one in which the War has in fact been continued, not with guns, but with laws and a wide variety of segregationist institutions:  In the South, it ranged (and still ranges) from "Jim Crow" (named after a character in a Black minstrel show --- logic” don’t ask), to the prevention of Blacks voting, to "no blacks allowed," to “separate but equal,” to lynching. Indeed, in what I am now calling The Second Civil War (for major elements of the poltico-economy have continued to fight against it) major elements still survive, and indeed thrive, in many parts of the country.

Just look at the data on Black education, employment, home ownership, annual income, the residuals of “red-lining” which took place everywhere due to Federal policies, and so on and so forth. And rights that had been granted, starting with Brown v. Board of Education (1954), have been gradually taken away (see "Shelby," 2013). And of course, most importantly we once again have one of the two leading parties running on racism.

The “Third Civil War”

In my formulation, our benighted country is entering the start of its Third Civil War. But it not over the issue of the status of Blacks (and other “non-whites”) in our political economy.  This one is of course over the matter of the bodily autonomy of women when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth. I have written regularly on this issue as well. As is well-known, we have an impending Supreme Court decision which will apparently reverse the famous "Roe v. Wade" decision (oh you know those Republican devotees of "stare decisis" ---- when it suits them [see Scalia, Heller, and the 2nd Amendment]), which gave women the "right to choose" whether, if pregnant, up to a certain time, they could freely choose to terminate the pregnancy.

The drive to re-criminalize abortion is based entirely on the totally religious notion that life begins at the moment of conception and that therefore any abortion amounts to murder.  (See the repetitive claims of the anti-abortion-rights rights forces which makes that clear over-and-over again.)  Well, many of us do not believe that life begins then, but rather, for example as in Roe v. Wade, it begins at the time of viability-outside-the-womb.  But further, our position (religious with some folk, non-religious with atheists like me) is that it is un-Constitutional (see the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment) to establish this doctrine with the force of law at any level of government.

The repeal of Roe and the subsequent enactment (some immediately, as is well-known) of total abortion bans will begin the political process in certain states. Then, although he is being somewhat cagey about it (so what else is new[?]) Mitch McConnell does seem to be making it clear that if the Republo-fascists take control of both Houses of Congress, with a Republo-fascist President he will get a national abortion ban law through the Congress. Then of course this Supreme Court would up-hold it against any legal challenges to come.  This is what we face folks. The suppression by the law, of the rights (and in this case also the beliefs, religious as well as non-religious) of a very significant sector of the population (in this case, slightly more than half).

The first Civil War was fought over the issue of chattel slavery and indeed states' rights --- that is the rights of states to maintain the institution of chattel slavery through the force of law. The Second has been fought over the matter of how much of the suppression/repression of Blacks, short of chattel slavery, could be maintained by the force of law as well as of custom. The Third, which I see coming, will be over the repression of the civil ---- and religious --- rights of women, and indeed the men to whom they are related. Indeed, there will be more thoughts forthcoming on this one.

     -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steven Jonas, MD, MPH, MS is a Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine at StonyBrookMedicine (NY) and author/co-author/editor/co-editor of over 35 books.  In addition to being a contributor to BuzzFlash.com, he is a “Trusted Author” for OpEdNews.com , and an occasional contributor to Reader Supported News/Writing for Godot; and From The G-Man.  His own political website, stevenjonaspolitics.com, is an archive of the political columns he has published since 2004.  He was also a triathlete (36 seasons, 256 multi-sport races), retiring after the 2018 season.

In 1996 he published a ‘future history’ of the United States entitled The 15% Solution: How the Republican Religious Right Took Control of the U.S., 1981-2022: A Futuristic Novel (Third Version published by Trepper & Katz Impact Books, Punto Press Publishing, 2013, Brewster, NY), and available on Amazon.  In that projection, in 2004 a Constitutional Amendment totally banning abortion was enacted (https://www.opednews.com/articles/Justice-Alito-Abortion-Ri-by-Steven-Jonas-Abortion_Abortion-Laws_Abortion-Without-Exceptions_Justice-220505-164.html).

He has a distribution list for his columns.  If you would like to be added to it, please send him an email at sjtpj@aol.com.