Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920

Four. A Southern Jeremiad: Lost Cause Critique of the New South

Chapter Four IN ADDITION to the ritualistic, mythological, and theological aspects of the Lost Cause, a prophetic dimension also existed. Certain ministers , the prophets of the Lost Cause, warned their brethren of the dangers in abandoning traditional Southern values and failing to meet the high standards of the Confederate past. The greatest danger to traditional values was seen as coming from the increase in commercial and industrial economic activity in the South. The New South movement urging industrialism and laissez-faire capitalism as the solutions to Southern problems became prominent in the 1880s, and that movement became the focus for the preachers' criticisms. They contrasted the materialism of the New South with the spirituality of the Confederacy and concluded that the South had declined since the Civil War. Their critique of the New South was based partly in the antebellum pro-slavery arguments of George Fitzhugh and others; while Fitzhugh had analyzed the shortcomings of the emerging Northern industrial society, the postbellum clerics fearfully warned that these shortcomings were emerging in the South. In addition, the Lost Cause critique wasbased on the Old Testament prophetic writings,and itdrew upon the secularized legacy of idealistic and moralistic Puritanism. The attitudes of the clerical Cassandras can be better understood by placing them within the context of a concept from American Puritan history. Perry Miller has suggested that, in the late 1600s, the second and third generations of Puritan ministers warned their brethren of decline from the virtues of New England's founding fathers. Economic developments had by that time created conflicts with Puritan ideology . The clergymen developed a special sermon form, the jeremiad, which dwelled upon the sins and afflictions of New Englanders and the A SOUTHERN JEREMIAD LOST CAUSE NEW SOUTH CRITIQUE OF THE 80 A SOUTHERN JEREMIAD need for repentance in order to prevent future punishment. Having succeeded in building their city on a hill, the Puritans had to face the question of their identity, to redefine their "errand into the wilderness ." The jeremiad was a ritualized public confessional, psychologically representing "purgation by incantation." In explaining this "stylized self-denunciation," Miller argued that the ministerswere the voice of a community expressing its fears about itself in a transitional period. He believed that, by confessing the society's moral and religious failures in a ritualized way, the jeremiad actually encouraged New Englanders to persist in the very economic and social activities that were being condemned. In this waythe Puritans "launched themselves on the process of Americanization." Sacvan Bercovitch has pointed out that the Puritans had changed the traditional meaning of the jeremiad, which had existed as far back as the Middle Ages. Whereas traditionally it had been "a dirge over the irrepressible agencies of common providences," in New England it was "a celebration of God's promises" for a saintly people. The Puritans' sense of their mission as a chosen people, in other words, modified the jeremiad's pessimism and bitterness.l Just as the Puritans had altered the jeremiad, so postbellum Southern clergymen adapted it to their situation. Basically the two jeremiads were similar in their concern for the question of identity, although the source of this common concern was different. Both groups were descendants of noble ancestors; however, for the New Englanders success had engendered the issue of identity, while for Southerners the problem of Confederate defeat had raised the issue. Like the Puritans, Southern Christians after the Civil War thought of themselves as a chosen people. The Confederate experience established a covenanted identity among Southerners, and it became the basis for the sense of Southern mission. Southerners believed they had fought a holy war in the Confederacy, but how does a self-defined chosen people lose a holy war? Ministers explained that this affliction was a trial from God. After the war, defeat had brought another trial: the introduction of Northern economic and social forms into the weakened, vulnerable South. Southern ministers associated with the Lost Cause warned of the dangers to traditional Confederate-Christian values from an industrial, commercial society. Like the Puritans, the Lost LOST CAUSE CRITIQUE OF THE NEW SOUTH 81 Cause prophets listed the evidence of decline from past "virtue," which was the central value of the Lost Cause religion. Because defeat of the Confederacy had challenged the very notion of a separate Southern identity, the Lost Cause jeremiadasserted the importance of this identity and the need for constant vigilance to preserve...