Confederate Heritage Month: What My Confederate Forebears Taught Me

Written By D. Jonathan White

In September 1936, August Landmesser was in a crowd at a Hamburg, Germany shipyard as Adolf Hitler visited. Everyone in the crowd rendered the Nazi salute, except Landmesser. Landmesser had been a party member, but then he married a Jewish woman, and the scales fell from his eye, so to speak. He paid dearly for this defiance. Sent to a concentration camp (twice), he was eventually conscripted into the Wehrmacht and was killed in action in 1944. His wife was sent to a concentration camp, where she was killed.

Landmesser’s story illustrates that dissent is possible, even in the face of peer pressure. Today, we honor his defiance in the face of evil. He shows that not everybody succumbed to Nazi pressure to conform, dissent was possible, even if painful for the dissenter.

In a similar fashion, Virginia showed that political dissent in the face of evil was possible, even if, like Landmesser, it would be painful for the Commonwealth. On April 4, 1861, the Convention of the people of Virginia voted down secession by a two to one majority. Virginia was trying to craft a compromise that would bring the seceded states back into the Union. The same time, Lincoln sent a military expedition that included thousands of soldiers and sailors and hundreds of cannons to Ft. Sumter. Before this force could land, Confederate forces subdued Ft. Sumter, giving Lincoln the war he needed. Lincoln refused to recognize the independence of the Confederate States and called for troops to invade and overthrow by military force the elected state governments of the states from South Carolina to Texas. By the terms of the Constitution, President Lincoln had committed treason. Many northern states gleefully joined Lincoln in his treason. When the telegram arrived in Richmond, however, the moderate Unionists in the convention and indeed the governor could not believe it was real. Governor John Letcher wondered if some “mischievous person” had taken control of the telegraph and sent the message as a spoof. When mail arrived confirming the reality of the telegram, moderate Unionism collapsed. This act was antidemocratic, unconstitutional, and violent.

On April 17, Virginia’s August Landmesser moment had arrived. The Virginia Convention voted again on secession, and this time, secession won by a two to one majority. The proximate cause of Virginia’s secession was the change in the nature of the Union, from a voluntary association of sovereign states to a consolidated empire not controlled by the Constitution. The people of Virginia then voted in a plebiscite on May 23 endorsing secession 125,950 to 20,373.

Virginia, like August Landmesser, when presented with the demand by the majority to take part in evil, declined. Landmesser paid a steep price for his defiance. Virginia did as well.

I am proud to be a Virginian, proud of Virginia’s stand. When Lincoln and the northern majority were screeching that everyone join them in their illegal, unconstitutional, and violent attack on the states they themselves said were still in the Union, the Old Dominion said, “No. We will not support that effort. In fact, we will not even remain in a Union where such an evil policy is possible. Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina joined Virginia in their opposition, setting an example of doing right in the face of evil, cost what it may. Tens of thousands of Virginians died to defend Virginia’s right to be governed as her people wanted. The state was wrecked in the imperialistic war that the Union waged. Virginia, having lost the war for independence, was summarily kicked out of the Union by northern Republicans, and Virginians denied the right to vote. Virginia and the other Confederate States set an example for future generations that defiance was possible, even when painful. We can all be thankful for their example.