Dominic Sandbrook

And if you're a white Southerner who supported the Confederacy, this is an absolute nightmare for you.

And they made no secret of their desire that they would roll this back and destroy it.

As one Democrat newspaper put it, these constitutions and governments will last just as long as the bayonets which ushered them into being shall keep them in existence and not one day longer.

In other words, the white southerners say, sure, you've won this, you know, you won the battle, but we will defeat you.

We will roll this back and undo all this and regain our former supremacy.

By extra constitutional means.

If necessary, right?

And they think they are, I mean, they think, don't forget, that they are fighting in defense of their constitutional liberties and their constitutional privileges and whatnot.

And they would say, well, you know, if we have to sometimes use extra constitutional means to defend the constitution,

then so be it.

That's what they would say.

And they have two weapons above all, right?

The first weapon is very simply time.

So if you're a white Democrat, a white ex-Confederate, you say to yourself, I will never give up.

This is absolutely existential for me.

This is central to my way of life and my sense of myself and the reason I'm on earth.

So it matters more to them than it does to the unionists, ultimately.

Of course.

If you live in Connecticut or Ohio or whatever, ultimately, you don't really care what's going on in Georgia or in Mississippi.

So over time, you will lose interest.