When William Faulkner wrote, "The past is never dead. It's not even past," he likely was referring to the way history seems to obsess Southerners and the South. If one needs contemporary proof of the veracity and the wisdom of those words, the state of Alabama can provide it.
Alabama still collects a property tax, written into law more than a century ago, to help care for Confederate veterans. Such levies were not unusual. Most Southern states used public funds to care for ill or aged Confederates. Both Tennessee and Georgia, for example, did so, but only Alabama among the states - North and South - is still collecting a tax so directly related to the Civil War, according to experts.
The tax, created to support the Alabama Confederate Soldiers' Home, should be a legislative relic. It is not. It remains on the books and is still collected even though the last Confederate veteran aided by the state passed away years and years ago. It still generates about $500,000 annually.
The tax once produced millions in revenue annually for the home and the services provided there, but as the number of veterans dwindled over the years, legislators used large parts of the proceeds to help underwrite the cost of other veterans' and welfare services. They never eliminated the Civil War-related tax, though.
The portion of the levy related to Confederate veterans is now earmarked for the upkeep of the state's Confederate Memorial Park, located in a rural area some distance from the nearest interstate. It is by all accounts a well-kept park. It should be. It gets regular infusions of money at a time when budget crises have significantly reduced funding for other Alabama sites dependent on legislative appropriations rather than a tax levy for operation and upkeep.
The situation is unlikely to change. Many Alabamians aren't aware of the tax - which amounts to just a few dollars a year on a home valued at $100,000 - and those who do know about it either support its continuation or realize the futility of trying to change the status quo. The last attempt to eliminate the Confederate park's earmarked funds was beaten back handily.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy led that charge, but many others joined the fray. The few legislators who publicly support elimination of a tax so directly tied to the "Lost Cause" realize the fruitlessness of an opposition campaign. The Republican majority in the Legislature is unlikely to allow the issue to reach the floor for debate.
It seems, then, that the old tax will survive and continue to support a park that contains two small cemeteries and a few foundations left from the more than 20 buildings that once occupied the site. To paraphrase Faulkner, "The tax for Confederate veterans is never dead. It's not even past." In Alabama, at least, that certainly is true.