Virginia’s Confederate History
Last month was Confederate History Month in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This commemoration was met with resistance by some who are unaware of Virginia’s history. Virginians should have been free to celebrate this occasion without apology for slavery, indeed with only the slightest mention of slavery. The roots of the dispute between Virginia and the North are much older than the dispute that divided the United States over slavery.
Virginia and Massachusetts were the two largest states at the time of American Independence, and both had legal slavery. But the similarities end there. Massachusetts was in the heart of New England. Virginia was a southern state but was similar in some ways to its neighbors to the North in Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey, and even to southeastern New York.