Professor Emeritus of History Dan Feller, a scholar with special attention to Jacksonian politics and the coming of the Civil War, wrote for The Conversation on a proclamation issued in February by two Tennessee state senators. The proclamation commemorates April 2023 as Confederate History Month and encourages “all Tennesseans to increase their knowledge of this momentous era in the history of this State.”
The proclamation’s wording closely follows that of a proclamation issued by Virginia’s Gov. Robert McDonnell in 2010, with one striking exception. McDonnell’s proclamation in final form included a paragraph, inserted after protests to an earlier version, stating that “it is important for all Virginians to understand that the institution of slavery led to this war.”
In addition to that omission, the proclamation overlooks the fact that Tennessee’s role in the Confederacy was uniquely conflicted. Some 50,000 Tennesseans, white and Black, spurned the Confederacy and fought for the United States – more than from any other Confederate state.
Read Feller’s full article on The Conversation.
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