Parker column: May 10: Lost in obscurity, tangled in misunderstanding

North Carolina’s General Statues recognize today, May 10, as "Confederate Memorial Day."

A holiday once celebrated with parades, picnics, speeches, and fireworks has fallen into obscurity. During the war, North Carolina supplied one of every five Confederate soldiers and suffered one in every four combat deaths. Now this state ignores soldiers who fought, bled and died in her service.

We ignore their sacrifice because national mythology has equated everything Confederate with "racism." According to this myth, the evil South fought to keep its slaves while the good, pure and free Union fought to liberate the slaves.

That history supports neither of those claims is irrelevant.

Can we allow Abraham Lincoln to speak for himself?

By the time Lincoln took office, seven states had seceded from the Union. North Carolina and Virginia were not in that number.

In his inaugural address on March 4, 1861, Lincoln said:

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Please remember: not all slave states left the Union.

Shortly after becoming President in March 1861, Lincoln signed and forwarded for ratification a proposed 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That amendment read: "No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."

Pro-Union sentiments were strong in both North Carolina and Virginia – until Lincoln contacted their governors and demanded that they raised troops to fight against states that had seceded. North Carolina and Virginia were not willing to remain in the Union if doing so meant sending soldiers to fight other southerners.

Lincoln’s actions as President contradicted his words – again delivered in his first inaugural address. He followed the statement I quoted earlier with these words:

"Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:

"Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes."

Yet, before long, soldiers wearing blue uniforms invaded. The Confederacy fought to repel invading armies and defend against what Lincoln himself defined as "the gravest of crimes."

On August 22, 1862, Lincoln sent a letter to noted newspaper publisher Horace Greeley. He wrote: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."

The tens of thousands of North Carolinians who fought for the Confederacy did not put their lives on the line in defense of slavery. They fought to repel invaders who attacked the Confederate states. These soldiers understood the threat of an increasingly centralized government.

If you read letters by southern soldiers of the period, you would come to understand they thought they were fighting a second war for independence. They bled, died, and suffered for principles they held dear.

Their memory deserves to be honored, especially today.

Mike Parker is a columnist for The Free Press. You can reach him at mparker16@suddenlink.net or in care of this newspaper.