A Profession Bound by Truth
“And the lonely voice of youth cries, ‘What is truth?’” — Johnny Cash
I quote the great narrator and philosopher to ask, what is truth and what is it worth? This is the ethical dilemma thrust upon historic sites and their interpretive staffs as they become the next great battlefield of an ongoing culture war. The choices are simple: either sanitize the past and scrub away the blemishes of a long, incredible, inspiring, but complicated, and often uncomfortable, past or shut the doors.
Doctors swear oaths to do no harm. American politicians and military personnel swear to uphold the rule of law and defend the Constitution of the United States. Law enforcement officers pledge to protect and serve their communities. Historians, either in the classroom or in the field of public history, swear no oath, but like these other public servants, hold a sacred duty. Regardless of the area of concentration or field of study, historians are tasked with the responsibility for protecting, interpreting, and preserving the past. Above all, historians are bound to the truth.
Underpaid and under-appreciated, digital media historians, published authors, park rangers, and tour guides do their duty to tell the story of long-ago generations and the times in which those people lived with honesty and empathy. The fact of the matter is that these stories of the past can make us uncomfortable. Civil War sites and museums are no different.
Whether you walk through a tour of an antebellum home where a family lived and died and where slavery existed, or trek across battlefields where the fate of the nation was decided, you should in some way be uncomfortable. When we accept that our history is a difficult and complex one, one full of brilliance, and full of tragedy, we come nearer to understanding our past. It is, though, a complicated journey to embark upon.
It should not be controversial to say the following:
“Slavery was an awful, horrendous institution.”
Or
“The American Civil War was fought over slavery.”
Yet, as history is thrown once again into a struggle in a raging culture war, this type of language is likely to land some interpreters in hot water. Historians today must decide to concede to a certain ideology or hold steadfast to honest interpretation of facts, data, and source material.
If saying slavery was bad is controversial, how does one address it? How does one put a “positive spin” on the slave-trade system? If you cannot say that the American Civil War was fought because of slavery, did the soldiers just magically appear and kill one another because it was a Wednesday afternoon and they had the day off? I know this sounds flippant, and perhaps it should.
Honest interpretation pulls no punches and spares no detail. These interpretive efforts are not intended to shame or humiliate any one party over another. Rather, by telling an inclusive story, our historic sites come closer to the truth of the events in which we study. “Sound historical practice depends upon meticulous research,” according to the American Association of State and Local History in a statement about recent political interference at National Park Service sites and Smithsonian museums. This pushback is not new. Recently, museums and museum specialists have come under fire for reporting those difficult truths.[1]
As of late accusations of “woke” ideology or “political correctness” have been hurled at historians and preservationists engaged in telling the story of our past. Much of the furor centers around discussions of slavery, race, and equality and how these topics are presented within the larger canvas of American history. There are more than enough stories about the politicization of the field and how government interference threatens to dismantle the incredible progress made in public history. Rather than quote articles and executive orders at nauseam, I want to share my own experience:
In 2023, while an interpreter for The Battle of Franklin Trust, I gave a 90-minute extended house and grounds tour to four men and their wives from across the country. Two couples were from Indiana, and the other two hailed from Florida.
As we sat on the porch at Carnton, I began by asking the group why they were interested in taking the tour and what they hoped to gain. One man, after a moment’s pause, chimed in and said, “I just don’t want to hear about slavery the whole time.” The others nodded and showed their approval. As an interpreter of a historic home where slavery was baked into every aspect of the lives of its inhabitants and where a Civil War battle took place, it would be difficult to deliver what he asked for.
After I composed a thoughtful answer, I responded, “That might be hard to do.
“How would you have me talk about the house and how it was built and how the farm here operated and why there was a war and what the outcome of the war meant for the people who lived here?” I asked a now stunned group of visitors.
You could have heard a pin drop.
“Actually, no. That makes sense,” said the same man after an incredibly long pause. The tour began and within minutes, the awkward moment was behind us because ultimately, this group of people came to a site to hear a story about the past and connect with the site. We talked about slavery, politics, social and cultural influences, the war, Reconstruction, and the legacy we carry today. Even still, at the end of the tour one of the women walked with me back to the visitor center. “I just don’t care to hear about slavery; it’s always rammed down my throat. Everywhere we go. Slavery this. Slavery that. Just tell us about the house and none of the woke stuff,” she said. As I struggled to come up with an answer, she expressed how she feared history will be forgotten and how younger generations simply don’t care for the past.
The entire way home, and still sometimes a year later, I wonder what aspects of history she would want to see preserved and what should be cast aside. Did she not notice that the entire staff that day was under 40? Or that the bookstore was full of families and young adults? I also know that I am not discussing anything here that anyone in the public history field has not already experienced. These are the ones that stay with you.
Maybe she still thinks of that visit or maybe it has simply faded into the past already.
All that to say, we have a responsibility to the past and to those who can no longer speak for themselves. It is our duty to tell their stories and the stories of those who never had a voice in their time. We have an obligation to the truth.
“This old world’s waking to a new born day
And I solemnly swear that it’ll be their way
You better help the voice of you find
What is truth?”
I do not know Johnny, but I know that as a profession we are beholden to the ideal and dedicated to preserving the past for the future.
[1] https://aaslh.org/smithsonian-white-house-letter/?fbclid=IwY2xjawMMZZ9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFycmhXUWRoVUtvTFZZTzlGAR4YiEmVOR2mXPhEos6PCU8rZ3aKtXov0fw410dSAn8PyqcE96zwYrSTyMkC4w_aem_9oNpcSnZA2STfXYxI6G4XQ
What can one say? Too often we fall into the dreadful trap of giving universal applications to limited realities. Our “truth” becomes the “Truth”. We seek to justify our political opinions of today by somewhat tortured extrapolations valid 160 years ago. We only partially evaluate our own positions, and unload our artillery against those not wise enough to agree with us. I noticed that the author correctly states that it shouldn’t be controversial to state that the war was fought over slavery. That’s correct, it shouldn’t be controversial, and as the root cause of the Deep South secession, it’s also “true”. It is not true as the sole reason for the war, especially as regards the initial northern war effort. That evolved. “Truth” evolved with it.
I find it impossible, after a lifetime of engagement with the war and it’s historiography, with the way it has been presented, to see anything particularly “controversial” in these alleged “difficult truths”. Unfortunately, too many modern historians seek to make them the only truth. They are not. They are merely part of an ongoing process. They selectively exclude as well as include. The au courant theories demonize those that went before, as the materialism of the Progressive Era schools demonized the actual accomplishments of the Reconstruction Era. I’m sure the adherents of Dunning were as sincere in believing they sought the “truth”.
Such are the traps we dig for ourselves. All I could think, seeing the bloodstained upper floor at Carnton, was how many mothers wept, and father’s grieved, because everyone was so certain they had the “truth”.
It’s true that slavery was an abhorrent, dehumanizing institution. I don’t know if anyone reasonable could argue otherwise. This is the truth.
Yet if you were born 200 years ago in the south, during the Roman and Greek times, or a member of a West African tribe participating in the slave trade your ‘truth’ could of been/would of been very different. What is ‘truth’ in 2025 (no argument there) was not the truth for a good number of citizens of the United States north and south (much less equality) in 1861.
For starters, John Pryor’s contribution is outstanding. I believe the problem goes even deeper than the surface debate, because ingrained now in the American – and international – consciousness are these horrid ideas that America was founded on racism – factually incorrect – and built on slavery – factually incorrect – and thus the country and the nation are inherently evil. And we all know evil must be destroyed. This is ugly, dishonest propaganda with a definite end goal: At the least, prise reparations out of people who do not owe them, and pay them to people who do not deserve them. At most, destroy the nation, particularly Caucasians, and loot the country – then rebuild it as a Worker’s Paradise. Yeah – that’s 0-12 so far in world history, with 250 million murdered.
A few facts which most do not know – or want to know. Slavery has existed worldwide since the Dawn of Man. It exists today – in the Muslim world, over 1 million people are enslaved – and no one says a word about it. In fact, it was Islam that created the slave trading of Sub-Saharan black Africans. They got the idea from…those same Africans, who were enslaving each other. The Arabs brought two curses to Sub-Saharan Africa: Islam, and international enslavement. They began taking these unfortunate people and using them for themselves and selling them to Europeans. The Europeans brought them to the New World, and enslaved them there. Eighty percent of the Africans brought to the New World went to the Caribbean, Cental and South America…but you never hear a single complaint about the practice in that region. Why? Because Americans, being both compassionate and credulous, can still be gamed for money based on their lack of knowledge about slavery. Hence, BLM and CRT and DEI. Resistance to the scam is deemed “racist.” Incidentally, Britons displaying the Union Jack and Cross of St. George are now deemed “criminal,” “fascist” and “racist.” It’s propaganda. The United States of America inherited slavery – it was not built on it. From even before its inception, it tried to eliminate slavery, and did eliminate it in 76 years, a great accomplishment.
More to the direct point, the Civil War was not about slavery. In the history of mankind, no war – let alone a Civil War – has ever been fought to eliminate slavery. Not once. Never happened. In 1860 America, only 1/125 Americans owned slaves. In the 11 slave-holding states that seceded, only 7 percent owned slaves. In the North, only 2% identified as Abolitionists, and only 0.5% joined Abolitionist societies. The worthy, though extremely loud, cry against slavery has fooled to this day historian and novice alike into thinking slavery was a major issue in the American mind, body politic, and economy. It was not. Not being major is not an issue of immorality. Americans were not immoral, or evil, for generally being racist – all humans have progressed greatly over the past 150 years – or for slavery not being of much concern to them. This issue goes even deeper, as evidenced by my own family, who sent 23 young men to Pennsylvania regiments during the war, and two to a North Carolina regiment. They left voluminous letters, memoirs and three remarkable diaries – writing, as well as incredible beauty, runs in my family – and the Pennsylvanians made it very clear: They were Democrats, they disapproved of slavery but also disapproved of the Republican Party of the time as they felt it was fomenting an unnecessary war; they recognized that however immoral, slavery was legal and it was protected by the Constitution, so, logically, they felt this was a matter for Congress, to legislate it out of existence. But to declare war on their brethren and kill them and destroy their land and wealth in order to end something that was legal and in the Constitution – not to mention all the while protecting slavery in the five, and then six, slave states in the Union, they saw as an abomination. What’s more, they saw Abolition as a smokescreen simply for the North to make a war of destruction and attrition on the South.
Further to this, can anyone please show me the documentation of Congress declaring war on the South in order to end slavery? You know, like when FDR on December 8, 1941 made his “Day of Infamy” speech to Congress asking for a declaration of war on Japan – and got it. Give me the date and the words by which Congress declared war on the South for the express purpose of ending slavery. Please send it to me. Take your time. I’ll wait. What’s more, I refer you to James McPherson, who admitted in his book ‘For Cause & Comrades’ that he had been wrong to have declared it a war on slavery in ‘Battle Cry of Freedom,’ because his reading of something like 10,000 letters written by officers and soldiers serving in the war – North, South, East and West – and found that 10% or less went to war for or against slavery.
I grew up spending thousands of hours with my grandparents, who grew up with their grandfathers and great-uncles and those men’s friends in their family homes, and they told me countless stories that these Civil War veterans communicated directly to them – and every one of them told my grandparents that they had never fought to eliminate slavery. It doesn’t make them racist, it doesn’t excuse or support slavery – they were just telling the truth about the war – a truth that has now been declared useless to “the cause” as American history is busily being erased and rewritten to suit a bogus current day cause. For my part, I have lived and worked throughout North and South America, Western Europe, Australia and Asia, and worked with many who have worked for years in Africa and Eastern Europe, and without exception it has revealed to me that America is the least racist country on Earth. Meanwhile, I shall continue writing my book on my remarkable ancestors who fought in the Civil War. Undoubtedly it will anger many, because in it I do what I have always done: Refuse to lie.
Here, in case you missed these:
https://emergingcivilwar.com/2019/01/22/primary-sources-slavery-as-the-cause-of-the-civil-war/
He missed it … apparently an allergy to primary sources … for those seeking the “truth” — or at least some semblance of accuracy — primary sources are the starting point … perhaps we can all agree that this is a touchstone of ethical scholarship?
Why must some people continue to contend that because the United States did not issue a “declaration of war” stating that slavery was the reason, it therefore can’t be the cause? It’s a ridiculous argument to keep purporting. The states that published their reasons for seceding make it clear why they were doing so. If the states do not secede, there is no war.
Just because ending the institution of slavery was not a stated war aim at the beginning of the conflict does not mean that the agitation over different aspects of that specific issue for at least 40 years before war wasn’t the reason for the war. Read the newspapers of the 1840s and 1850s, North or South. It is quite clear what the rub between the sections is.
Well said, Tim.
Here’s why. Too many people make this careless leap in reasoning: “If the war was started because of slavery, then we should view all the men who fought it as fighting for slavery.” The primary reason that most Southerners fought was NOT that they all earnestly wanted to be enslavers. The individual soldiers and commanders fought for many other reasons besides slavery.
If historians fail to make the distinction between why a war started in the first place, versus why individual men fought in that war in the first place, this tension will continue. As it should—because those are two very different things.
Donald, you’re 100% correct that the reasons a person fights are different than the reasons why political bodies go to war. I never make assumptions about why a soldier fights, on either side. But too many people split that hair to somehow jump to the erroneous conclusion that because specific soldiers didn’t support a war for slavery, the war somehow wasn’t about slavery. That’s incredibly intellectually lazy and dishonest.
How much more obvious does it get. The leaders of the secessionist states stated unequivocally that they were leaving the Union because of slavery and Lincoln said no and proceeded to ensure the dissolution of the Union did not occur. Whether for example, a farmer in the south fought for slavery or to defend his farmland or for states rights is secondary – people become supportive, defensive, enraged, hateful, or vengeful for any number of reasons. Bottom line, if there was no slavery there would have been no war.
Since others have ably commented on slavery’s direct role in Southern secession, and thus the war, I would like to reply to the implication that those who are interested in the history of slavery and racism are looking to undermine the United States, potentially even to “destroy the nation, particularly Caucasians”.
I am immensely proud of the people who fought for the United States, my country, during the Civil War. That includes both white and black people. Whether they were abolitionists when they joined the army or not, they ended up accomplishing something monumental — the legal end of slavery in our country.
I care about the history of slavery and racism precisely because I care about our country. I am proud that we declared our independence from a king, and engrained in our Constitution a robust Bill of Rights for our elected government to respect. I am proud that in the aftermath of our civil war, we passed constitutional amendments which legally removed the greatest violation of those rights in our history (slavery) and made the Bill of Rights applicable to state governments. The next time you want to defend any of your rights (speech, bearing arms, due process, etc.) against the state which you live in, thank a US Civil War soldier and the framers of the 14th Amendment.
I am also proud that we repudiated the Dred Scott decision, and declared in that 14th Amendment that every person born in our country and under our jurisdiction is a citizen, whether high-born or low, no matter what God you believe in. That is a far cry from the monarchies which still dominated much of the world in 1868.
And I am proud that people, including civil rights marchers, have protested to protect those rights when our governments were not honoring them properly. It is precisely because I don’t believe that our ideals support racism that I am proud that the Civil War set our country on a more egalitarian course. I would hope that Americans will still stand up for these ideals today.
Here’s a truth question for you – not too long ago I was at a historic site where the guide scrupulously adhered to the current parlance of only calling slaves “enslaved people” and the slave owners “enslavers.” But she took it to the point of specifically calling every member of the family an “enslaver”, including children who were, say, 10 when the Civil War ended. Is it true to call a little child an enslaver just because his parents own slaves? There are enough problems with the truth out there for all sides to have a healthy share….
Oops, you forgot the correct terminology. Your question should be: “Is it true to call a little child an enslaver just because his enslaver parents enslaved enslaved persons?”
One way to look at it is to think. If the ten year child was enslaved, considered property, liable to be sold away from parents, part of the taxable assessment of his owner’s property, avaliable to use as collateral for a loan, suddenly lose a mother or father being sold away, then, gosh, I guess that ten year old is part of the slavery system isn’t he? In fact, iti would be a herculean task for him to NOT be part of the system, part of which was dedicated to making sure he didn’t get away. And the ten year old enslaver child’s clothing, food and shelter, as well as his future prospects, and inherited property, are all thanks to the people his family was enslaving, weren’t they?
What do people want from history? Comfort? Affirmation? To be innocent of history?
I think the latest and greatest of terminology has got one of us turned around. I’m talking about the free white child of the slave owners, not a black slave child. That’s who the guide was calling an “enslaver.”
I think the latest and greatest terminology has got one of us confused. I’m talking about the free white child of slave owners, not a black slave child. That’s who the guide was calling an “enslaver.”
I know who you were talking about: a child whose food, shelter and clothing, future prospects and inherited wealth were dependent on slavery. You want to make him innocent of slavery, not part of the system enslaving human beings. But he was part of that system, a beneficiary of it, a participant.
I contrasted him with a ten year old black child, an enslaved child, who was certainly part of the slavery system. No question of that, whether he’s a child or not.
There’s a reason history is a liberal art and not science. All of history is something of an artistic creation, cherry-picking facts to construct a narrative. It’s unavoidable, since the limitations of the written word mean that some things will be included and most everything else will be left out. It’s possible for everything written or said to be factually true, but a distorted picture presented by omitting a bunch of other, equally true information. This is not specifically aimed at your argument, but a general statement about “doing history.”
I have no problem with saying the institution of slavery was the ultimate cause of the Civil War. What I don’t want to hear when I go to a battlefield is more about slavery than the battle. When I go to Mount Vernon I’m fine with the hearing about the role of the slaves which is hardly unavoidable, however there is much more to the history of the house and the Washington legacy. When I recently attended a battlefield walk with the site manager of the Bristol Station Battlefield Park (it was an excellent presentation) there was no mention of slavery or the causes of the Civil War.
None of the participants needed to be told or reminded again of what caused the war. Not every discussion about the Civil War needs to include a discussion of the reasons why. Yes, I find it tiring to be blamed as a Caucasian for the ills of the country which I have found is implicit in most tours of plantation or pre-war presidents houses.
This comment is exactly why the causes of the war need to be mentioned. For too long, they’ve been avoided, which leads us to the very dilemma we find ourselves in right now.
The cause of the war has been debated for at least the last 55 years since I have been reading about the war. The pendulum has swung I believe towards a consensus slavery had something to do about it (although my favorite Lost Cause proponent (Karl) on Quroa steadfastly claims it was really the Morrill Tariffs that drove South Carolina then the rest of the south to secede). So if when I visit a battlefield I neither need or want a lecture on why the war started. Most large visitor center I believe have at least some sort of display on the causes of the war. If a visitor has a different view I don’t believe it is a National Park Service employee job or docent to convince them otherwise. Does every author of a civil war book need to have a chapter on the cause of the civil war?
There are more words in the comments than the post, which tells us all something.
Anyway, I have been in the field for two decades, written a few things, and this is for certain.
Slavery led to secession.
Secession led to war.
So yeah, it really was about slavery.
Period.
It is somewhat disappointing to read the entries in this series. I looked upon the topic of ethics and issues as a topic of much promise. The ethical historian digs hard for the truth. I liken the process to that a good detective or an excellent reporter would do. There are questions to ask, sources to seek and only after those are exhausted can the writing process begin. The big difference between a historian and a detective or journalist is that the sources are most often dead. But that doesn’t release the historian from evaluating the source. The motivation of the source has to be taken into consideration. Bias has to be considered when using the source. The bottom line is that the serious historian tries incredibly hard to present the truth as all the evidence points to. Not to work as described above is highly unethical.
“So yeah, it really was about slavery. Period.”
It’s that kind of attitude that many Southerners—including this one—are sick of hearing.
Too many modern historians make the leap from “the war started because of slavery” to “Confederate soldiers fought for slavery.” Some did, but many did not.
Good historians make the distinction between the men who fought the war (and the communities who suffered through it) and the political and social reasons that started the war in the first place.
The Civil War was fought for a worthy cause. It doesn’t necessary follow that all Confederates are therefore unworthy. The sin of slavery does not make all Confederate heritage unworthy.
If we have a responsibility to the past, we also have a responsibility to judge people fairly, based on the times and environments they lived in, not the ones we live in now.
Just as we should dismiss historians who think that slavery had nothing to do with the war, we should also dismiss historians that think that slavery rendered everything about Confederates unworthy of respect nowadays.
I am sick of semantics. Such approaches bogged us down for a century after the war and they cause all of us trouble to this very day. Slavery caused secession and everything about the Confederacy’s very creation is soaked in slavery. Let us never forget, that its intent was to destroy the United States and perpetuate slavery indefinitely. There is no getting around that. Of course, not all Confederate soldiers were directly fighting for slavery, but they were fighting for a government that was. Also, they knew the world they lived in, which had clear racial lines. To pretend otherwise is insulting to their memory and truth.
If heritage groups, institutions, and people who complain about addressing slavery as the cause of the problem would stop – period – we could address how some of the poor guys who fought for the Confederacy were fed into a machine that killed about 350,000 of them. But until we separate those who created the Confederate government on the backs of about 3.5 million enslaved blacks from poor whites who suffered the most on the battlefields we are stuck.
We have finally come to reckon with the soldiers who fought in Vietnam and understand they should not be conjoined with the abysmal foreign policies and lies that sent them and kept them there. We can do the same with 1861-65, but it requires some honesty about the likes of the 300,000+ slaveholders, Jeff Davis, R. E. Lee, etc.
Lastly, the South did not lose the Civil War. The Confederacy did, and there is a monumental difference.
I don’t know if this is an accurate generalization. The descendants of enslaved people and United States Colored Troops might beg to differ, as well as many of the people who live in the South who can acknowledge a failing in their own past and move on to the future.
I think most professional historians tell the truth. My problem, as a southern non Ph.D., historian, is that, too often, the whole truth is not presented. Was Abraham Lincoln a racist? Of course. Just like 99% of all white people on 1860. But that is usually ignored. Was slavery the only cause for the war? No. But you fail to mention the other causes. We need to tell the whole truth, good and bad. You know that is not done very often. It should be.
This response is a prime example of our dilemma. As a “southern non Ph.D., historian” you went out of your way to point out Lincoln’s racial issues, but were silent on Jeff Davis. Also, your 99% figure is demonstrably false.
Lincoln and Davis could not have been more different. Lincoln knew slavery was wrong – Davis believed it was a “positive” good. As Lincoln once said, he did not need to own nor marry a black person, he could just leave them alone. Davis believed black people were inferior and ordained by God to be enslaved.
Btw, slavery was the only reason for secession, well, other than the “Black Republican” Lincoln, at the head of anti-slavery party, being elected President.
OK, where do I begin?
“Also, your 99% figure is demonstrably false.” How? You’re saying that many, if not most, Northerners in the 1860s saw African-Americans as their equals?
“slavery was the only reason for secession.” Um…no. Four Confederate states didn’t secede until Lincoln called for troops to put down rebellion.
“This response is a prime example of our dilemma.” There’s no dilemma. You are entitled to have whatever view of American heritage you want. As are we all.
All those other causes you refer to all trace back to slavery. Slavery is the underlying factor in EVERY SINGLE ONE of them.
Sure, no argument. But if the Union had won at 1st Manassas or more likely if McClellan had taken Richmond in 1862 and the Confederacy collapsed, wouldn’t of Lincoln let the southern states back into the Federal government while keeping slavery legal where it had existed as he had promised when elected? The first and second call for troops to suppress the rebellion, not to end slavery.
Thank you for this article — and for speaking up for truth in history. Historians, especially public historians, have an immense burden right now. You’ve eloquently put into words what myself and so many of my colleagues have been wrestling with for the last nine months. Keep on doing the good work.
All of this commentary was triggered by a man saying “I just don’t want to hear about slavery the whole time.”
“The whole time” was probably the critical part of that sentence. Maybe the gentleman simply meant what he actually said.
“But too many people split that hair to somehow jump to the erroneous conclusion that because specific soldiers didn’t support a war for slavery, the war somehow wasn’t about slavery. That’s incredibly intellectually lazy and dishonest.”
Chris, thank you for the kind words, and I agree with what you say. But, unfortunately, too many people fail to make the distinction between the individual causes for which a soldier fought, and the reasons that Southern politicians and elites started the war in the first place. Too many people also dismiss any positive mention of Confederates as “Lost Causeism.” That is incredibly intellectually lazy and dishonest.
After having another read of this article by Joseph Ricci, the statement “The American Civil War was fought over slavery” begs the question: WHY did slavery, the reduced-to-its essence cause of the Civil War, NOT erupt into a wider war during Bleeding Kansas? Why did the Moral North sit back and watch as John Brown’s 1859 attempt to spark, “the war against slavery” fail?
At the time war was initiated – by the South – in April 1861 the Confederate State’s agenda was to remove itself from association with the “unappreciative North,” and on their way out of the Union, implement “Rule or Ruin.” Not only “take their bat and ball and go home” but “torch the ballfield as they left” to make what remained behind unusable and unworkable. Southern elites believed THEY were the only ones competent to Rule America; they had a dream to cripple what remained of the Union by instigating a sectional war, pitting Old Northwest against Yankee New England, while Southern attention was directed towards conquest of territory forming the Golden Circle. And in the end, especially if Washington D.C. could by occupied – icing on the cake – the CSA would become the REAL American powerhouse; and the old consortium would become as relevant to world affairs as Canada East and Canada West.
Turns out, the North was not as ignorant and docile as the Southern elites believed: one Southron was NOT equal to ten Yankees. Northerners believed in the Dream of the United States of America, enshrined via a magnificent Constitution and God’s Protection; and the Southern elite code of “Rule or Ruin” was too widely disseminated. The South “would not go quietly out of the Union.” If not fought today, in 1861, the war against a stronger, more powerful South would only be delayed, not avoided. The North fought to preserve “the best system of Government ever devised.” And the ending of horrid Slavery was an ancillary benefit.
Cheers
Mike Maxwell
I am unaware of any Confederate plan to ‘Torch’ the rest of the country and make it unusable and unworkable much less occupy Washington D.C.. it was well beyond their ability to do so. if they hadn’t been stupid enough to fire on Fort Sumter then Lincoln wouldn’t have had much to justify calling for troops. It appears to me a Confederacy (without Virgina, Tennessee, North Carolina if no Sumter) would of been an incredibly weak country
Mark Seeger, Thank-you for the question. As regards “the destructive elements to be turned loose against the remaining USA” as part of the Confederate withdrawal from association: 1) The National Republican of 18 JAN 1861 p.2 c.3 “A Reality. To those who doubt the reality of the danger by which this city has been menaced, we commend the following extract from the address of January 3rd, of Governor Hicks to the people of Maryland: ‘…the secession leaders in Washington have resolved that the border states, and especially Maryland, shall be precipitated into secession with the cotton states before the fourth of March. They have resolved to seize the National Capital and the public archives, so that they may be in a position to be acknowledged by foreign governments as ’the United States”” 2) The pre-war preparation during the Pierce Administration for “Confederate” use of Letters of Marque in conducting raids against Northern merchant vessels – in opposition to the rest of the world, which had signed the 1856 Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law – allowed the use of raiders attempting to cripple Northern mercantile interests by seizing U.S. flagged ships, and causing maritime insurance rates to rise so high that foreign trade with the United States would not be profitable; 3) Abner Doubleday in his book “Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie” page 38: “In fact, it was a proposition to commit national suicide. The new Northern republic would have been 3000 miles long and only 100 miles wide, in the vicinity of Wheeling. A country of such a peculiar shape could not, as every military man knows, have been successfully defended…”
All the best
Mike Maxwell