It was reprinted in full in the Vicksburg Herald on May 11, 1906.
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On May 10, 1906, Charles Scott, a candidate for governor who often campaigned in his Confederate uniform, gave the speech dedicating a new Confederate monument at @OleMissRebels. We’ve searched for the full text of this speech for years. On Friday night, I finally found it.
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Much of the speech, as expected, is boilerplate Lost Cause rhetoric. Scott repeatedly defends the right of secession, argues that slavery was a “mere incident” to the Confederate cause, and exalts the gallantry of Confederate soldiers and the nobility of white southern women.
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But toward the end of the speech, Scott describes what he perceived to be “the crowning glory of the Confederate soldier”: his defense of “Anglo Saxon civilization” during Reconstruction.pic.twitter.com/0mstBeawXO
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Specifically, Confederate soldiers served white supremacy by breaking the law “boldly, aggressively, and intentionally.” They “overrode the letter of the law” in order to “maintain the spirit of the law.”
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Scott asserted that former Confederate resistance to Reconstruction entitled them to the “lasting gratitude of the civilized world,” which, he suggested, was increasingly beginning to see the “race question” in the same way former Confederates did.
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This claim was bolstered by reference to a piece by Charles Francis Adams in the May 1906 Century Magazine. Adams, a descendant of the presidents, and a Union veteran, had recently returned from a trip to Africa.
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Adams’s article is one of the most blatantly racist bits of writing I’ve ever come across. And I’m an historian of slavery.pic.twitter.com/sUk2t13szl
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Seeing his own views, and the views of his audience, reflected in the pages of a national publication gave Scott cheer.
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As a result, he asserted, former Confederates’ efforts to “preserve Anglo Saxon civilization”—“this one act alone”—would ultimately ensure that “the Confederate soldier will be reverenced by the north as it is already loved by all the people of the south.”
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In the end, Scott told the crowd assembled on May 10, 1906 for the unveiling of the Confederate monument at @OleMissRebels, that former Confederates’ defense of white supremacy during Reconstruction “overshadows all [their] brilliant victories on the field of battle.”
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In other words, what was this a monument to? What did the people unveiling this monument think it stood for?
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In their eyes, Confederate soldiers’ greatest achievement did not come during the Civil War, but rather during Reconstruction, when they ensured, through force of arms, that Black people would remain subjugated.
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It is long past time to take this monument to white supremacy down, @OleMissRebels.
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Students, faculty, and staff have spoken clearly on this matter.https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/us/ole-miss-confederate-statue.html …
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I was thrilled to have the chance to write this discovery up for
@TheAtlantic. You can catch it here:https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/ole-misss-monument-white-supremacy/613255/ …Show this thread -
For those looking for the full text of Scott's speech (it's a great teaching tool!)--you can find a PDF of the newspaper it appeared in here: https://history.olemiss.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/06/The_Vicksburg_Herald_Fri__May_11__1906.pdf …
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I also went ahead and transcribed it for you, if reading grainy, teeny-tiny print isn't your thing: https://history.olemiss.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/07/Transcription-of-Scott-Speech.pdf …
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End of conversation
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