What does lost cause mean

Thus, many Southerners set to work to remember the Confederate cause in a positive light. There are six main parts of the Lost Cause myth, the first and most important of which is that secession had little or nothing to do with the institution of slavery. Southern states seceded to protect their rights, their homes, and to throw off the shackles of a tyrannical government. To the proponents of the Lost Cause, secession was constitutional, and the Confederacy was the natural heir to the American Revolution.

Because secession was constitutional, those who fought for the Confederacy were not traitors. Northerners, specifically Northern abolitionists, caused the war with their fiery rhetoric and agitating, even though slavery was on its way to gradually dying a natural death.

They also argued secession was a way to preserve the Southern agrarian way of life in the face of encroaching Northern industrialism.

Second, slavery was portrayed as a positive good; submissive, happy, and faithful slaves were better off in the system of chattel slavery which offered them protection. Confederate Vice President Alexander H. The Confederate Army was less defeated than overwhelmed, as their lesser resources. Former Confederate officer Jubal A. Fourth, Confederate soldiers are portrayed as heroic, gallant, and saintly.

Even after the surrender, they retained their honor. Image credits. Word of the Day have a heart of gold. Blog Outsets and onsets! Read More. November 08, To top. English Intermediate Examples. Sign up for free and get access to exclusive content:. Free word lists and quizzes from Cambridge. Tools to create your own word lists and quizzes. Word lists shared by our community of dictionary fans. Sign up now or Log in. Definitions Clear explanations of natural written and spoken English.

Click on the arrows to change the translation direction. In addition to lionizing Lee and dismissing Longstreet, Early argued that the war was more important in Virginia than in other theaters.

In two pivotal events shaped the way the Lost Cause would evolve in the coming decades. First, after five years of military occupation, on January 26, , the commonwealth of Virginia was readmitted to the United States of America and American troops were withdrawn from the state. Second, and most important, the death of Robert E.

After a period of depressed interest, the veterans in Virginia and other Southern states began to organize their own associations. Other camps soon organized throughout the state, including the Matthew F. Maury Camp Fredericksburg, and the A. Hill Camp Petersburg, ca. Their goals were to perpetuate the memories of their fallen comrades and to care for those who were permanently disabled in the service. The Lee Camp joined the UCV the following year; by , camps had joined; by , camps claimed membership.

The group would meet each year at an annual meeting that coincided with the United Confederate Veterans. By the turn of the century, the Confederate Veteran served as the mouthpiece of the Lost Cause. Established in by Sumner Archibald Cunningham, it proved to be an early contributor to the success of the UCV, and by was an official organ of that group and its various allies, including the UDC.

Aimed at a mass audience, the monthly magazine featured articles on the war, monument dedications , textbook campaigns, and obituaries of veterans and devoted extensive space to the various Confederate organizations.

By the end of the s, circulation peaked at more than 20, The magazine remained a staple of the Lost Cause until it was discontinued in This view of the Civil War and the extolment of the Lost Cause did not come without protest. Many Unionists , Northern veterans, and African Americans were bitterly opposed to glorifying the Confederacy and soft-pedaling slavery.

Most famously, the former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass denounced a reconciliation that seemed to exclude those who had been most wronged. Loyal men are building homes for rebel soldiers, but where is the home for Union veterans, builded by rebel hands …? Perhaps the most widely consumed and powerful cultural product that succeeded in satiating this hunger and mending these wounds was D. When The Birth of a Nation was first released, it was met with an immediate and controversial reception.

Despite some success—a mass demonstration in Boston and the temporary banning of the film in a few states and cities—the sometimes overlapping messages of The Birth of a Nation and the Lost Cause were absorbed, for the most part unquestioningly, into American culture. Until the middle of the twentieth century, and even longer in Virginia, textbooks presented a picture of the Civil War and race relations that owed much to Gone with the Wind.

Gallagher has shown how the battle flag began to proliferate in art depicting Civil War battles only as it gained status as a retroactive political and social symbol. It was not until the latter part of the twentieth century that the national conversation began to catch up to the complications of this symbol, especially where race is concerned.

In Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War , the journalist Tony Horwitz convincingly demonstrated the various ways in which the Civil War continues to be controversial, both socially and politically. The academy, meanwhile, has mostly turned against the Lost Cause, working to deconstruct its myths and create a more inclusive history.

The things that were done during the Civil War have not been forgotten, of course, but we now see them through a veil. We have elevated the entire conflict to the realm where it is no longer explosive. It is a part of American legend, a part of American history, a part, if you will, of American romance.

It moves men mightily, to this day, but it does not move them in the direction of picking up their guns and going at it again. A hopeless undertaking, as in Trying to get him to quit smoking is a lost cause.

In the s this expression was widely used to describe the Confederacy. New Word List Word List. Save This Word! We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms. Origin of lost cause First recorded in —