Heel-Turn Face: The South Revisited

“In the short period following the war, Northerners had painted the South as a personification of meanness, folly, and utter and incurable inefficiency. The South was the despicable other in the American mind.” – Southern Scribblings

From 1979 to 1985, Americans tuned in to watch the popular show, The Dukes of Hazzard.  A sitcom centered around the Duke brothers, Bo and Luke, and their 1969 Dodge Charger, the General Lee, named for the Confederate General, the boys fought against the government of Hazzard County, led by the commissioner, Boss Hogg.

Atop the General Lee was the Rebel Flag of the Confederacy, a symbol of Southern Pride and rebellion against the corruption and greed of government.  Also known as the Southern Cross, the flag depicts a blue diagonal cross against a red background with 13 white stars depicting the 11 seceding states, along with Missouri and Kentucky.  A source of pride for Southerners, its presence in the show was unremarkable until 2020, when its existence became a triggering event following George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.  

The flag, however, maintained its rebellious status throughout the world, flown in countries from Ireland to Germany and Brazil, and was widely popular during the fall of the Soviet Union in 1988. 

In Brion McClanahan’s 2020 book, “Southern Scribblings”, McClanahan, in his 60 essays, makes the case for why Southerners should be proud of their culture, their heroes, and their symbols.  By dispelling the false history of the South, McClanahan shows why it should still matter today. From its cuisine, music, and literature, the South is everything American. 

Known by the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia, the South is mostly recognized for its agrarian origins, for its heat, and long growing season.  A common meme on the social media site X is a map of the United States split into two regions: the United States of Canada and Jesusland, the southern Bible Belt, known for its evangelical influence. 

Like the left’s heroes, most notably, George Floyd, a career criminal who died while committing several crimes, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who was known to have had a complicated relationship with women who were not his wife, not all heroes are perfect.  Two heroes of the South, Robert E. Lee and John C. Calhoun, while vilified for their slave-holding past, also advocated for the Founders' idea of a states’ rights government, over the centralized will of the majority that we loathe today. 

Commonly dubbed as neo-confederates, a pejorative name for those who continue to celebrate the South’s culture and heritage, the South, rather than advocating for a return to slavery, steadfastly promoted limited government and personal sovereignty for the states. 

As many Southerners will attest today, the Civil War was more about states' rights than slavery, defending the Jeffersonian ideals of the Founding, versus the Hamiltonian desire for a more centralized government.  Lincoln himself claimed the war was to preserve the Union.  As Thomas DiLorenzo notes in his book, “The Real Lincoln”, slavery around the world ended largely through economic emancipation, something the United States could have done without a war. 

For those who reject the idea that slavery was not the primary focus of the war do so largely as an appeal to authority, maintaining racism as the official narrative.  In the end, the primary cost of the war was the loss of the founding principle of states' rights, replaced, instead, with a robust national government. 

By 2020, two country music groups would bend to cancel culture when the Dixie Chicks and Lady Antebellum dropped their southern monikers to prove their social justice bona fides.  But, as the woke left’s star is fading, the South’s black hat era may finally be over.  And Southerners can once again proclaim, loud and proud, their pride in all things Southern.