Lost Cause of the Confederacy
E22696
The Lost Cause of the Confederacy is a post–Civil War ideological movement that romanticizes the Confederate cause, downplays slavery’s central role, and portrays the South’s defeat as honorable and inevitable.
Aliases (3)
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
historical myth
→
ideology → interpretive tradition → |
| associatedWith |
Confederate States of America
→
Confederate battle flag → Confederate memorial days → Confederate monuments → |
| centeredOn |
American South
→
|
| claims |
Confederacy fought for constitutional liberty
→
Confederacy fought for self-government → |
| contestedBy |
modern historians
→
|
| continuesToInfluence |
debates over Confederate symbols
→
public memory in the United States → |
| criticizedFor |
distorting causes of the Civil War
→
erasing experiences of enslaved people → promoting historical revisionism → |
| downplays |
brutality of slavery
→
slavery’s central role in causing the Civil War → |
| emergedAfter |
American Civil War
→
|
| emergedIn |
late 19th century
→
|
| emphasizes |
Southern honor
→
heroism of Confederate soldiers → military skill of Confederate generals → states’ rights as cause of the Civil War → |
| hasAlternativeName |
Lost Cause
→
|
| idealizes |
antebellum South
→
|
| influenced |
Southern public memory of the Civil War
→
popular culture depictions of the Civil War → school textbooks in the American South → |
| influencedBy |
Confederate veterans’ organizations
→
United Confederate Veterans → United Daughters of the Confederacy → former Confederate leaders → |
| justifies |
secession
→
|
| linkedTo |
Civil War reconciliationist narratives
→
Southern identity politics → |
| minimizes |
racism in the Confederacy
→
|
| portrays |
Confederate cause as noble
→
Confederate defeat as honorable → Confederate defeat as inevitable → slavery as benign or paternalistic → |
| promotedBy |
Southern white elites
→
heritage organizations → monument-building campaigns → |
| romanticizes |
plantation life
→
|
| supports |
white supremacist narratives
→
|
| usedTo |
legitimize Jim Crow segregation
→
oppose Reconstruction policies → |
Referenced by (6)
| Subject (surface form when different) | Predicate |
|---|---|
|
Lost Cause ideology
→
Lost Cause of the Confederacy ("Lost Cause") → |
hasAlternativeName |
|
Confederate monuments
("Lost Cause movement")
→
|
associatedWithMovement |
|
Confederate States of America
→
|
legacyTopic |
|
United Daughters of the Confederacy
→
|
notableIdeology |
|
Monument Avenue Historic District
("Lost Cause of the Confederacy (historical association)")
→
|
theme |