The South Will Rise Again (Part 1)

The American South may be defined in numberless ways, depending on which of its riches, emoluments and blandishments one wishes to accentuate or hopes to appreciate. It is a place of legend and lyricism, a kingdom of deep mystery, pre-Raphaelitic beauty and ancient valor. A noble land, a fairied past, if you'll permit that last turn of phrase.

Southern Fairy

 

To my mind the South is at once:
1. The contiguous original states of the Confederacy, all situate south of the Mason-Dixon line and including Texas
2. A cultural region in which states rights, a Christian theocracy and the social ascendancy of genteel white people are all of paramount and equal importance as part of the providential furniture with which the Supreme Being has favored his children
3. A cultural region, not necessarily contiguous, for which a beneficent Creator inscribed in his own fair hand and personally handed in, a divinely authored Constitution guaranteeing his children all rights, appurtenances, tenancies, socages and villeinages, access to firearms and duty-free liquor
4. Wherever cheerleading is considered a sport
5. Wherever Bud Light is proudly served
6. Mostly Texas

I had often wondered, in my youthful studies in history and civics, to whom the idea first appeared as sound policy that the Confederate States of America should be dissuaded from living its dream, hindered in its noble experiment. Who first whispered the errant notion in Mr. Lincoln's ear? I always suspected it was one of his obstreperous cabinet - probably Stanton, secretary of war at the time of the Secession and doubtless skulking in the corridors of power slavering like a wolf for a chance of gainful employment. No matter, the Union was preserved. Ever since we have all, both North and South, lived with the unease of its forcible reunion. For every American of feeling, this fact of our history has felt worse than kissing your sister.

Now I find that I am not alone in nursing dashed and suborned hopes for the land of cotton where old times are not forgotten. Chuck Thompson, a travel writer, has traveled the South and tells all in a new book, Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession. He argues persuasively that people in the North are "sick of people like Newt Gingrich and Jeff Sessions, Eric Cantor, and Haley Barbour having an impact on [the] country."

That said, "Why shouldn’t people be allowed to live in a pseudo-theocracy if they want to? If the majority of the people in a very large part of the country wants to have the Ten Commandments emblazoned in front of their legislative houses, why shouldn’t they be allowed to do so?" Well said, and certainly food for thought. I can imagine a much happier South (a happier North, for all of that) were the South permitted, nay, encouraged, to go its own way, travel its own path, live out its future and pray at every damned high school football game under the kindly ministrations of the Ricks (Perry and Scott), Bobby Jindal et. al. Why shouldn't people be allowed to use the death penalty in cases of religious heresy, personal bankruptcy, "environmentalism" and voter fraud? Not to mention that an entire population will have been spared an onerous electoral choice between an apostate Christian or a Negro.

 Civil war reenactment - a hobby with a future?

We don't need another civil war to do this. I see it as more like the 1947 Partition of India, when India and Pakistan went their separate ways under the less-than-watchful eyes of Lord Mountbatten and the British Raj. The Muslims who wished to decamp to the new Muslim nation of Pakistan simply packed their bags and holdalls and boarded the northbound train for Lahore, while the Hindus living in the northwest packed up likewise and took the southbound liner to Delhi. Or walked. Of course, en route as the parties encountered one another, horrific sectarian slaughter occurred through no fault of the British Raj which was strictly Church of England and could do no more than permit a just and merciful God to deal as he saw fit with the bloodthirsty caravans of heathens. Thy will be done, of course.

Fortunately we are a Christian nation like the British of old (before all the Pakistanis moved to London), so everything should go smoothly in these parts. Of course, certain cultural sacrifices are inevitable. Austin, Texas will have to be sacrificed to the new republic, as will parts of Atlanta, Key West, and the Golan Heights, those liberal Jewish enclaves around Miami which sent Alan Grayson to Congress and may do so again god willing. A small cost in a utilitarian calculation, being the realization of greatest happiness for the greatest number. And of course what do we do with the Negroes (Clarence Thomas excepted), who might not want to leave at all? Maybe revised voter registration policies will sort that out in time. (Not that we anticipate Big Government will infest the New Confederacy - Antonin Scalia will be there to see to all that - but a little bit of B.G. helps when one needs real social reform.)

Naturally, the transfiguration of a Secessionist South would not end at placing the Ten Commandments on plaques at every bus stop, hack stand, massage emporium, pawn shop, army base, pool hall, faith healing temple, fairground, stock car and go-kart track, rib shack, public access golf course, snake farm, tilapia operation, bull semen parlor and discount liquor outlet in the happy new empire.

First, someone will have to dredge one of the original copies of the Confederate Constitution out of their root cellar where it has been in safekeeping in a tightly screwed jar.

 "If it ain't the Constitution then it's Aunt Euphronia."

The Constitution will require an amendment stipulating that none can run for office in the new republic unless they are a professing evangelical Christian, a true prayer warrior as the Founding Fathers intended. (Other voter registration restrictions will apply, as intimated above, but the quick reader will have noted, not without deep chagrin, that the rule restricting eligibility for office entails that Glenn Beck, a Mormon like Mr. Romney, also won't be moving to the New Confederacy.) Taxation will be rescinded. Publicly funded medical care, public transportation and public telephones will quickly come in short supply. And without the Environmental Protection Agency gumming up the works, New Secessionists will be happily lining up outside fried chicken outlets for the wave of new jobs that will materialize, all the while wondering why it's "been so goldang hot out."

The New Southern Economy (NSE)