The Non-Celtic Confederacy

Pat Young

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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Every so often a thread pops up claiming that the Civil War had its origins in a deep racial divide between an Anglo-Saxon North and a Celtic South. In one thread I posted evidence that there were more Celts (Irish and Scottish) in the North than in the South.

In my readings of primary sources from the white South, I rarely encounter the idea of a Celtic South. Typically, Southern whites refer to themselves as Anglo-Saxon.

I was prompted to post this thread because I read yet another piece by Southern whites echoing the claim of being Anglo-Saxons.

http://www.confederatepastpresent.o...catid=37:the-nadir-of-race-relations&back=yes
 
Here is the 1924 preface by DS Etheridge, Commander in Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans to a speech delivered at a joint session of the SCV and UCV.


To my mind, the questions presented in this address are of vital concern not only in the South, but they equally affect and concern the Anglo-Saxon breed of Americans everywhere. Mr. Hallman sounds a warning which Americans must heed if the Anglo-Saxon is to continue to dominate the destinies of this republic. If that supremacy is lost, the republic is lost. Sooner or later, the question of a return to the fundamental principles embodied in the Constitution of the United States, and the question of purging and purifying American suffrage, will overshadow all other questions in our domestic life. For this reason, this address is not sectional but nation-wide in its significance.

I realize that the address will occupy a consider-able amount of space in your paper, but the subject is one which cannot be treated lightly or briefly. Please allow me to request you to make a special effort, if necessary, to publish the address in full.


D. S. ETHERIDGE,

Commander-in-Chief,
Sons of Confederate Veterans.


 
Here is the publishers preface to this pamphlet:


An invitation such as the foregoing, which comes from the Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veteran, could scarcely be ignored by The Manufacturers Record, it matters no how lengthy the address may be.


This address was delivered before the United Confederate Veterans, at their annual meeting in Memphis. These men, whose number is rapidly growing smaller, are the worthy sons of the worthy sires who helped found this country and establish this Government. They are the men left of the Confederate Army, who sacrificed all for honest conviction and put to the arbitrament of the sword the question of states’ rights. For years their conflict was referred to as “The Lost Cause,” but today there is a rising tide of sentiment in every section of the country and among all classes of patriotic men in behalf of states’ right, which is not a Lost Cause. This is voiced by Republican and Democratic Presidents alike. It is voiced with equal emphasis by Republican leaders as it is by Democratic leaders...

The fact that the white people of the South are almost wholly Anglo-Saxon, with the Anglo-Saxon love of home and local government developed during many centuries, has a forceful meaning for the safety of the entire country. It is worth repeating the statement we have several times made that General Grant even during his lifetime, saw the dangers which we now confront, and said to members of his family, that if this Government is to be saved, it would, in his opinion, be saved by the Anglo-Saxonism of the South.

In recognition of this fact, the Anglo-Saxonism of the North and West, united with that of the South, can be made the dominant power to free ourselves from political demagogues, to bring back the Constitution of our fathers and to safe-guard our Government.


 
Here are some excerpts from Henderson Hallman's 1924 address to the UCV and SCV:

I salute you, of the blood royal of the Anglo-Saxon race, the blood royal of our liberties and of the Constitution. I, too, am of the blood royal, the sons of a Southern soldier, born in the hills of North Carolina, of Revolutionary stock and Christian parents, but a Georgia volunteer, Company E, Fourteenth Georgia, Thomas’ brigade, Wilcox’s division, A.P. Hill’s corps – one of Stonewall Jackson’s men.

I greet you, men of the Constitution and of the Confederacy – sons and daughters of the Constitution and of the Confederacy – fellows all, of the Constitution and the Confederacy....


There is not one American who believes in **** and America for Americans who does not turn his face in blushing shame when the laws of immigration and citizenship are read from the statutes and decisions of the United States Court....


There are true Americans today, the country over, consecrated to ****, and they are as the crusaders and their name is legion. They are unbranded and unstamped as the white-caps of the sea, and as unnumbered.


Their motives are as high and pure as the skies above them, and as deep as the unfathomed depths of ocean. These are the men who will not turn a deaf ear to our pleading tonight. And we raise our voices and turn our eyes to the setting sun, for we know that there in the boundless West we have sympathy, and that those splendid people have felt a brother's quickening love for the men and women of the South since that dark day when unbridled passion put upon America's purest Anglo-Saxon stock the incubus of the black as his political equal, and estranged, for just such time as the infamy endures, the good men of the South from the good men of all sections






 
What are some articles/publications that suggest the split as a cause. I remember some that suggest that Celtic passions made for bad military decisions.
Hmm, I would have to search more threads than my snow shoveling duties today would allow. I will take a look post-Jonas.
 
The gentlemen writing above were from the 1920s. The context might be the anti immigrant hysteria that was being whipped to a peak at that time. I believe its the same year as the far stricter federal immigrant law was being passed.

While there were people of Scots-Irish descent(low land Scots Protestants who immigrated to Ulster, then to the colonies) in the south that were legendarily a combative group, they were also represented in the North as well. They were not necessarily part of the planter elite that was pounding the table for secession.

The great divide in Ireland is religious. Pat Cleburne was of Irish descent, but among the Irish he was mostly a Protestant.
 
What are some articles/publications that suggest the split as a cause. I remember some that suggest that Celtic passions made for bad military decisions.
Grady McWhiney of the League of the South was a notorious proponent of this thing.

 
Dear oh dear how rude they were back in the 1920`s coming right out and stating it was all about white people.

Today they use the code word, "southern heritage" in place of "white people".

:D
 
There seems to be a conflict between romance and reality here in that the southern states were in reality largely populated by people of Scots-Irish descent, but they (romantically) viewed themselves as being the descendants of Norman cavalier aristocracy fighting a second English Civil War against the uncouth roundheads. It's a strange kind of dissonance at work.

Of course, I don't know quite how widespread such feeling was, but quite a lot of evidence for it has come down to us. It's a strange aspect of the war: this feeling that they were just fighting an age-old conflict between irreconcilable "races".
 
There seems to be a conflict between romance and reality here in that the southern states were in reality largely populated by people of Scots-Irish descent, but they (romantically) viewed themselves as being the descendants of Norman cavalier aristocracy fighting a second English Civil War against the uncouth roundheads. It's a strange kind of dissonance at work.

Of course, I don't know quite how widespread such feeling was, but quite a lot of evidence for it has come down to us. It's a strange aspect of the war: this feeling that they were just fighting an age-old conflict between irreconcilable "races".
Is it reality that the south was "largely" populated with Scots-Irish? And how many "viewed themselves" as descendants of the cavaliers? I have read one contemporary author describing southern gentlemen as descended from English or Hugenot aristocrats(aka "cavaliers") but nothing about Irish or "celtic" identity, romantic or not.
 
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