Ethics and Issues Surrounding the Civil War Era: Teaching Uncomfortable History
Being a history educator in 2025 feels like you are walking a tightrope with a 225-pound barbell. There is always the worry of missing certain historical content due to time constraints or putting too much and risking the students falling behind. Above all, there is always an anxiety that they may not understand the significance of our nation’s complex history and tune you out.
What I have noticed is that although this is the case for some subjects, the Civil War and Reconstruction Era is something that grips their attention. Over the summer, I taught survey courses on American history for Louisburg College. When discussing the previously mentioned era, there were distinct moments that showed me that they were listening and responding to what they were learning.
The first time was when we discussed the Secession Crisis of 1860-1861. Rather than just having students write notes from a lecture, I had them read some excerpts from the ordinances and speeches that the newly formed Confederacy wrote as justification for breaking away from the Union. They found connections to preserving slavery and secession in states like South Carolina and Mississippi.
One student even argued that South Carolina’s secession papers made a direct dig at Uncle Tom’s Cabin by quoting the ordinance’s phrase that enslaved people were being “incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection” as their evidence.[1] As historians and enthusiasts, we assume that some students already know this material. This makes their responses and comments about it even more interesting to observe. Another reason to look to younger generations for new historical interpretations, but I digress.
After we read and discussed those two documents together, I pulled one last speech out on the board for them to read: Alexander Stephens’ “Cornerstone Speech” from March 1861. As I read to them the section where the vice president of the Confederacy proclaimed their new government was formed “upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man,” it got very quiet in the classroom.[2] I let them sit with those words for a bit, then asked them what made Stephens’ speech different from the secession ordinances. After a few seconds of silence, one student raised their hand and commented, “It seems like Stephens is talking about more than just keeping slaves, almost like he believes in a dominant race ruling over the other.” This led to a whole conversation about how white supremacy was not something actively discussed until during and after the Civil War.
Later in the semester, during our conversations about Reconstruction and the rise of resistance movements, I used the 1898 Wilmington Insurrection as a case study. We follow the lead-up to what became the only successful coup d’état on United States soil, which toppled a mixed-race local government, shattered a growing black middle class, and resulted in the loss of countless lives. The consequences from 1898 were not only to local politics in the Cape Fear Region, but also how the memory of the Civil War and Reconstruction era was rapidly changing around the same time. In class, I tell my students that, after the coup in Wilmington, a surge of Confederate monuments began to be constructed and commemorated in the Tar Heel State, as well as across the South. This leads to a discussion of the monuments that once stood near their campus, a topic I have already covered for the blog.
As the class wraps up these conversations about memory, I added one last item: the legacy of the Kenan family. William R. Kenan Sr. was a Cape Fear Region native and Confederate veteran who, during the events of 1898, led a machine-gun squad through the streets that reportedly killed 30 people.[3] After he died in 1903, the family created a foundation in honor of the family name that would donate money to schools and universities that would build structures in their honor. One of those schools in 1968 would be Louisburg College, where Kenan Hall acts as a dorm residence for students today. As I say those words to my students, their voices are silent for a moment, but their faces say it all:
Shocked. Confused. Disappointed. Frustrated.
As I dismissed class for the day, some students stayed behind because they had more to ask. “Did the school know who the family was?” “Were other members of the coup rewarded for their part in the violence like Kenan?” “Would it be ok to create a petition for a name change?” While I could not get to every question immediately, we would spend a few more class days discussing the era in general.
I give these examples of teaching history that is inherently uncomfortable because the responses from the students were not what I expected. Too often, educators are told that discussing controversial topics will make students feel guilty about actions that are not their own. The reality of the situation is that history is grey, controversial, contentious, and uncomfortable. To always feel good about the events of our nation’s past is only to see half of the story. But rather than shun away from these topics, younger generations want to learn more and gain a deeper understanding. For them, to acknowledge the good, the bad, and the ugly of the past is to have a better grasp of their present day.
[1] “Avalon Project – Confederate States of America – Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union,” accessed August 19, 2025, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp.
[2] “Cornerstone Speech,” American Battlefield Trust, accessed August 19, 2025, https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/cornerstone-speech.
[3] LeRae Umfleet, A Day of Blood: The 1898 Wilmington Race Riot, Revised edition (Raleigh (N.C.): North Carolina Office of Archives and History in association with the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission, 2020), 97-98.
Thank you for your input on this topic, it should be just as thought provoking to us as it was to your students.
As someone who once had considered a career as a history teacher, this topic is one I appreciate hearing more about from educators, authors, etc.
What were the students’ reactions to learning that five slaves states remained in the Union during the war and were allowed to keep their slaves, as well as Western Virginia seceding from Virginia because the populace didn’t like secession, and being allowed to enter the Union as the slave state of West Virginia? As well, to the Federal Government not getting around to outlawing slavery until long after the war ended?
Mr. Schafer, I think you are incorrect as to your claim “the Federal Government not getting around to outlawing slavery until long after the war ended.” Didn’t the Senate pass the 13th Amendment in 1864 with the House passing the 13th Amendment on January 31, 1865? It was then up to the individual states, not the federal government, to ratify the amendment, with the necessary 3/4 of the states ratifying by December. Am I missing something?
That secession was a strategy to preserve a multi billion investment in human flesh as well as preserve a race based society seems obvious. In my teaching it’s a given, although I go over it because nobody knows nuthin’. Its more interesting to understand why and how slavery caused secession and why in 1860
We recently considered, “What ended the Civil War?” And we discovered that ending to be nebulous: maybe it ended in April 1865… maybe sometime later, with Stand Watie’s surrender, or Juneteenth. But the ending of the Civil War was overtaken by Reconstruction, which has a nebulous beginning: was it the reentry of parts of Louisiana into the United States system of government? Or the establishment of the first Freedmen’s Camps in 1862?
But the Coup of Wilmington, tragic as it was, was not “part of the Civil War Era.” The Civil War was a success, won by the North, and resulted in the nixing of the “Right of Secession” and the ending of American slavery. The program that followed – Reconstruction – was NOT a success. Much of the angst and dissatisfaction that exists to the present day is result of the Failure of Reconstruction, which came to an end in 1877 instead of continuing efforts to achieve noble goals. 1898 was the start of America’s Expansionist Era; most Americans were preoccupied with the War against Spain, and probably considered the events in Wilmington (if they heard of “Wilmington” at all) to be “just another KKK action that no one seemed able to stop.” For this researcher, the November 1898 Coup of Wilmington was indicative of the Failure of Reconstruction, and THAT is where blame should be assigned.
Hey Mike,
A few counterpoints, if you don’t mind. Firstly, Reconstruction did not fail, but rather it was abandoned. To consider something a failure, it would have to be tried and not work. Reconstruction, for a brief period, accomplished its goals of enfranchising African Americans politically and enabling them to prosper socially and financially. Reconstruction ended because politicians and the people chose not to continue the work forward anymore.
Second, you are correct that the Wilmington 1898 Insurrection happened beyond the technical scope of how we view Reconstruction. But if we look closely at the situation, the city before the coup was the prime example of what Reconstruction was supposed to look like without the white backlash. The fact that a biracial local government and a growing black middle class survived decades longer after the pullout of federal troops in 1876 is impressive in itself. It’s not really until the dawn of the next century that we get the increase of Jim Crow laws being advocated in new state constitutional conventions.
Lastly, you claim that the rest of the United States was too preoccupied with the Spanish-American War to care, and some might have shrugged it off. While I can not say that no one at the time thought this, I will say that the perpetrators of this violent act were worried. Letters, diaries, and memoirs from men who led the charge for a white supremacist government in Wilmington had to quickly spread the word to mobs killing and raiding African-Americans that political officials were off limits. The fear was that if the violence were severe enough, the federal government would be compelled to intervene. This was why militias like the one William Kenan led were used as a face to show the outside world that they had it “under control.”
I know this is all a mouthful, but I felt obligated to have this conversation to facilitate varied interpretations.
-Sam
Sam, Thank-You for taking the time to respond to my post…
The ECW post of 27 July 2024 “Echoes of Reconstruction: the Dunning School Explains the End of Democracy in Mississippi” by Patrick Young is worth a read. In the report it is revealed: “[Reconstruction] came to an end as result of the Compromise of 1877 …ended the occupation of the South and returned the region to its ‘natural order.’” One could be forgiven for reading this and assuming, “It took a while, but after the termination of Reconstruction, Wilmington North Carolina was eventually returned to its natural order.” Unfortunately HOW that compromise came about, and why, are not fully explained in Patrick Young’s report… So the Tiffin Ohio Tribune of 5 April 1877 p.4 cols.1-3 and “The 1876 Presidential Election of 1876 & Compromise of 1877” at online site socialstudieshelp.com were consulted:
In 1876 Rutherford B. Hayes (Rep) and Samuel Tilden (Dem) were contestants in arguably the most disputed Presidential Election in American history. The preliminary result indicated Tilden had won, with 200,000 more popular votes; but with 184 electoral votes, Tilden was one vote short of the 185 votes required to win. A Commission was assembled in January 1877 to determine “where twenty contested electoral votes” should be awarded… and back-room negotiations conducted by Representative Charles Foster of Ohio and Stanley Matthews, a Lawyer and crony of R.B. Hayes versus “unnamed Southern representatives” resulted in the disputed electoral college votes being awarded to Hayes, giving him 185 to Tilden’s 184.
For a long time there were denials that “anything of substance” had been discussed by Foster and Matthews. “We never put anything in writing” and “No deals were made to swing the decision in favor of President Hayes,” they claimed.
And then it was discovered that a deal HAD been made, which was subsequently called the Foster- Matthews Agreement. The individual components of the agreement: 1) Federal troops in the South since the end of the Civil War would be removed; 2) “Home Rule” would be restored to Southern jurisdictions; 3) There would be an increase of funding for Southern infrastructure projects; 4) With the removal of Federal troops (which combatted the KKK and enforced Federal voting laws) the Black empowerment element of Reconstruction would come to an end.
Cheers
Mike Maxwell
It’s very sad that a biased and uninformed person is actually teaching the tired mantra that the South seceded over slavery. If that had been the case, Confederates would have returned to the Union the instant the Corwin Amendment was approved by Congress and sent to the States for ratification, with a guarantee of final signature by Lincoln. Instead, the Confederate Constitution was approved 4 days later and included the exact same verbiage found in the Corwin Amendment, guaranteeing domestic institutions as a States’ right, as it had been when Northern States emancipated their slaves, i.e, it did not “make slavery permanent”, it put into the hands of the States as to whether slavery would exist or not, a very different interpretation. I see reference to secession statements and a photo of Alexander Stephens and a discussion of the Wilmington riot, which tells me immediately that the far greater breadth of this seminal event is completely ouside his scope. Suggested reading: “The Frontier Against Slavery”, Berwanger, “Disowning Slavery”, Melish, “Empire of Cotton”, Beckert. That’s a brief start on putting racism in 19th/20th century US in perspective.
I think the only sad thing here, really, is the tired mantra that the war was NOT about slavery. Any other interpretation willfully ignores the states’ Articles of Secession, the Cornerstone speech, the provision in the Confederate constitution protecting slavery, and a host of other sources. And trotting out the Corwin Amendment as a realistic solution–as opposed to one more concession to the Southern slave power–seems, at best, to be a flawed understanding of events or, at worst, an intentional misinterpretation of them.
Slavery’s centrality as the main cause of the war is well documented, and fortunately, Sam is responsible enough to rely on primary documents rather than tall-tale romance so that students can see for themselves.
Here’s a convenient link for anyone who’d like one:
https://emergingcivilwar.com/2019/01/22/primary-sources-slavery-as-the-cause-of-the-civil-war/
No one said that slavery wasn’t an issue of the antebellum period, in various ways. But the War itself was not about slavery; Lincoln himself said that, clearly in person and in print, but then moved on in 1863 to slavery when interest in the War clearly began to flag and enlistments in Northern States fell off – he chastised Ohio for not sending the troops promised him at the beginning of the War. If you persist in ignoring the state of the US Treasury, 1857-1860/61, and the relationship of tariff income – averaging 89% of Treasure receipts until 1857/8 – to cotton exports, then you are sadly unaware of the economic truths of this history, and their role in the short and long term post-War history of the entire country – not just the South – with consequences persisting to this day. To clarify a complex topic briefly, the sale of cotton exports securitized the purchase of the majority of imports – the only other way to make a purchase was with gold/silver (specie) on hand. Given that the $amount of imports far exceeded specie on hand, cotton exports were financing c. 80% of imports generating tariff income that went directly to the Treasury. Your pop quiz for today is to name the three things that happened in 1857 that affected Treasury receipts, necessitating borrowing a 3-year average of $24.3 million per year to complete payment for a 3-year average of $80.9 million in Federal expenses, up from an average of $60 million over the previous eight years, or from $47 million in 1849-50 to $69.0 million in 1856-57. Things were not looking good in general, and then the guarantor of tariff revenue decided to secede. The alternative to tariff income was a general income tax, not a popular idea at all and one not implemented post-War until 1913. In the spirit of reconciliation, your clue for the three things is that one of them involved a ship. Another recommendation if you can find it is “The Republican Party and Black America”, Richard B. Sherman, UVA Press, 1973. At some point, we can delve into relevant comments on Abolitionism, Stephens and his cornerstone, other, but that’s not a ECW comments section topic.
I visited a wonderful museum in Mississippi that had the secession letters from the those states up on the wall. Highlighted on each letter were statements directly stating, and thus indicating, that slavery was THE mitigating factor in the decision to leave the Union. All else is essentially diversion and/or a distant secondary cause. And, part of the Lost Cause dogma. As for the Union states that were permitted to continue in the business of slaving this was equally abhorrent and sadly part of the never-ending ugliness of politics.
I’m glad that you enjoyed that museum. I live in Vicksburg and was delighted to see that museum open. For too long people here have preached the southern apologist story. Charles puts those secession ordinances, Mississippi’s Statement of Causes, and the Stephens speech on the wall as you walk into the exhibits and almost requires visitors to read them. We get a lot of riverboat tourists, and they are mostly glad to see something so clear. Charles is a great amateur historian, the in depth conversations I’ve had with him are enlightening. If you come to Vicksburg take time to go through the museum on Washington Street.
That is the museum I was talking about. I should have mentioned it specifically. Charles is amazing and I went back a second time during our stay in Vicksburg. That museum is a must see for all who visit Vicksburg.
That’s a fantastic museum.
I recommend “The Frontier Against Slavery”, Berwanger, “Disowning Slavery”, Melish, and “Empire of Cotton”, Beckert. All PhD level works, well documented and a foundational part of any discussion of the Civil War.
Hey Sam, I have done a similar exercise with my own classes regarding the exploration of secession documents. Sometimes I do it in a written essay, sometimes it is in class together. But I agree with you that you cannot really understand the Confederacy and the secession movements without reading their declarations.
Excellent piece, Sam.
Mr. Flowers,
You may find the documents regarding the secession of Texas useful in your discussion.
https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html
Tim Gibson
Thoughtful and well-presented.
This exchange is a great teaching moment for “Ethics and Issues” … the author clearly understands the ethical prime directive (Star Trek reference) for historians: make arguments based on primary references … which in this case are crystal clear in the rebel VEEP’s cornerstone speech and countless other secession documents … his detractor, however, follows no such ethical code and references no primary resources … instead, we see illogical and worn-out arguments created from whole cloth … just because you read a lot of history doesn’t make you a historian.
Thanks for this thoughtful and provocative post. I’ll leave to others the historical arguments per se, but my own experience–I seem to have had ancestors on both sides and possibly of different colors–tells me the following:
1. As a teacher of English, creative writing, and professional education (retiring in 2011 after forty years), I never had the above issues in my job description. Lucky me, right?
2. Maybe not so lucky: English literature, as taught in most public school, is a bit of everything, one of which is cultural history. You can’t teach it (well) without reading from the great African-American writers like Frederick Douglass to Zora Neal Hurston, Maya Angelou, Rita Dove, and beyond. And the C.W. itself generated a good bit of literature. And how are we to interpret the class-based, but race-conscious substrata under Kate Chopin’s Awakening? Luckily (or not), I could probe by acting as a devil’s advocate or even ask for What-Ifs like these: What if Walt Whitman, a poet and war reporter, had written a vignette to go in his Drum Taps collection, about an action involving the U.S. Colored Troops. Or write a postwar scene between Frederick Douglass and Robert E. Lee. Or what if Stephen Crane had lived long enough for a sequel to Red Badge? Write a scene in which The Youth Henry, an old veteran now, observes and reports on the trench-warfare horrors of WWI, or begins to teach in an integrated school. Write part of a spinoff of Their Eyes Were Watching God in which Tea Cake does survive and maybe goes on to the life of a civil rights activist or doesn’t. Write it from his point of view, or write a song composed by…. OK, you get the idea. Somebody should write a book about this.
3. As part of my ed. “backgrounds” course (in the 1990s), I had to deal with the cultural development of American education. You can’t avoid history there, but you could deal with it in generalities, trends, and so on, that address class, but don’t directly address race. At least that was not then explicitly in the curriculum. BUT I could differentiate and allow individuals or groups to get into those subjects. I could facilitate, which is my preferred stance anyhow.
4. My one recommendation, I guess, is that whatever we do, we must model reason, openness, fairness, curiosity, and imagination. There can be “no rank in the room” in those discussions. We are all learners.
5. Look at original sources, always.
6. Look for ways to use empirical evidence: E.g. Do searches on Google’s utility for occurrences over time in the public domain of certain terminology in certain contexts. I’m too old for this now, but many of us are not. There are dissertations to be found here. Language always matters!