“If at First You Don’t Secede”

Abstract

Drawing on a broad range of sources—including film, historiography, iconography, literature, television, and built memorials—Stephen J. Whitfield's essay “'If at First You Don't Secede': War and Remembrance” assesses why the Civil War continues to be a historical leitmotif for white southerners—a lens through which they continue to define themselves and their place in the American experience. For them the internecine mid-nineteenth century war remains inescapable it lingers in “the sheer tenacity of Southern white consciousness. “Whitfield considers the “Southern white mentality” premised on the inferiority of persons of African descent.