History Book Stupidity

Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence ~ Joseph Wood Krutch (11/25/1893 to 5/22/1970) an American writer, critic, and naturalist.

This recent post from the blog of one Willis Hart concerning the American Civil War. See if (after reading to the end) you can identify the faulty logic.

Willis Hart: "On the American Civil War". It wasn't a civil war. A civil war is when two participants vie for the control of one government and one piece of territory. All that the American South wanted to do was leave and start a new government... (5/28/2014 AT 9:46pm).

Perhaps he has a point, but do not all the history books unequivocally state that the war between the Southern States and the Northern States was a CIVIL WAR? I'm pretty sure they do. In fact I'd bet my life on it (Note: See update below).

So, what Willis is saying is that ALL the history books are WRONG?

In other words...

Willis Hart: The history books are all wrong. There was no American "civil war" that began shortly after Abraham Lincoln assumed office. Willis Hart = Right. Every history book ever written = wrong.*

Hmm... As I recall Will said something different when I disputed his assertion that the Civil War was NOT fought over slavery...

Will Hart: [Dervish Sanders is] a total moron... Anybody who's taken as little as an introductory history course knows that slavery wasn't the predominant reason for Lincoln's actions or even the South's... (3/22/2014 AT 2:44pm).

So, what Will is saying here is that I would know he's right if only I had taken an introductory history course... which means that all the history books MUST agree with him. They ALL say the American Civil War (or "war of Northern aggression", or whatever you want to call it) was NOT fought over slavery.

So, in other words...

Willis Hart: The history books are all right, in that NONE of them say the Civil War was fought over slavery. Willis Hart = Right because every history book ever written agrees with him.*

So, I am dumb because I disagree with what the history books supposedly say (according to Mr. Hart) regarding what caused the Civil War, but Willis is smart for disagreeing with what the history books say about the war in which the South attempted to leave the union being a CIVIL war? I guess one thing can be said for certain about The Hartster's "logic", which is that he is quite confident that he is right.

Wrongly confident, in that the Civil War WAS fought over slavery, and that is what the history books say. I don't know what history books Willis is reading, but they aren't any written by the majority of historians who disagree with him, that's for sure (Civil War's Causes: Historians Largely United on Slavery, But Public Divided).

The public is divided because the "public" consists of a great many morons. The actual historians are NOT divided. An example of this tendency toward moron-like thinking is "logic" that says you can call someone a "total moron" for not agreeing with what you THINK the history books say, and then turn around and - in regards to the same fricking subject - say the history books are wrong.

I don't know about you, but this is the "logic" of a moron, in my strong opinion.

FYI, in regards to Willis' point, according to this online dictionary, a civil war is "a war between factions or regions of the same country". This definition says nothing about a civil war being when two participants vie for the control of one government and one piece of territory.

Perhaps the moron should have looked up the definition before he authored his moronic post.

*Note: Not an actual Willis Hart quote, simply my gathering of what he's saying given past commentaries and statements from his blog. Also, the first post quote is an excerpt and NOT the full commentary.

Video: the Young Turks Cenk Uygur says "Confederates were the ones who held the slaves [and it was slavery] that ripped the country apart and caused the civil war. ... On what planet, man? (was slavery NOT the primary cause)".

4/9/2016 Update: Regarding me saying above that "perhaps he has a point" concerning the Civil War not being a civil war, Freedictionary.com actually confirms that WTNPH is wrong. Because (as per the definition) a civil war is "a war between factions or regions of the same country". This definition says nothing about a civil war being when two participants vie for the control of one government and one piece of territory.

SWTD #256, wDel #62.

Causes of The Civil War According to Ken Burns' Documentary Series (Episode 1)

When the Right ponders why the Republican Party continues to struggle with race, conservatives should remember it's not just "Barack the Magic Negro" CDs, or Republican congressman referring to Barack Obama as "uppity" and "boy", or the Ashley Todd hoax, or "Obama Bucks". It's also that no one seems too terribly surprised to hear a Republican official in the 21st century refer to the Civil War as the "War of Northern Aggression" ~ Steve Benen (dob 5/15/1973) a producer for The Rachel Maddow Show who was the lead blogger for the Washington Monthly's "Political Animal" blog (8/2008 to 1/2012) as quoted in a 2/11/2009 blog post.

An alternate title for this post could be "On the Ludicrous Notion that the Civil War Wasn't Fought Over Slavery". Ludicrous according to historians on the subject who are largely in agreement on the causes of the Civil war. Ludicrous as well according to the highly lauded and award winning Ken Burns documentary. A documentary that won 40 major film and television awards, including two Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, Producer of the Year Award from the Producers Guild of America, People's Choice Award, Peabody Award and numerous others.

Although some history rewriting enthusiasts might claim that the series is "an anti-history smear documentary", the fact is that the film is correct (at least) in regards to the underlying cause, which is that the seceding states most certainly did fight for their independence from the United States in the name of slavery and the racial hierarchy that underlies it.

Even someone critical of the series, James M. Lundberg, an assistant professor of history at Lake Forest College who says the series is "a deeply misleading and reductive film that often loses historical reality in the mists of Burns' sentimental vision and the romance of Foote's anecdotes" affirms that the Confederates "were fighting for their independence from the United States in the name of slavery and the racial hierarchy that underlay it".

I just watched part one, and although it is titled "Causes" THE CAUSE, only the first hour is devoted to THE CAUSE (singular). The remaining half hour covers the attack on Fort Sumter and the Battle of Bull Run, after which both sides in the conflict realized their initial beliefs that each would win quickly was shattered.

During that first hour not once were tariffs mentioned. States' rights came up, but it was in the context of the South wanting to leave the union after Lincoln was elected because they worried that signaled the end of slavery (or, the beginning of the end of it). The fact is that ALL the reasons that lead up to the war were, according to the Ken Burns documentary, slavery related... hence the title of the episode THE CAUSE. Even the history rewriting enthusiast (HRE) mentions in his post that "Mr. Calhoun, after finding that the South could not be brought into sufficient unanimity by a clamor about the tariff, selected slavery as the better subject for agitation".

(John C. Calhoun, VP under John Quincy Adams, is best known for his intense and original defense of slavery as a positive good rather than a necessary evil. Although Calhoun died eleven years before the start of the American Civil War, he was an inspiration to the secessionists of 1860–61).

So, even the HRE admits that the populace was "agitated" to go to war to defend slavery and was NOT agitated to do the same over a tariff. Then he quotes the "North American Review" (Boston, October 1862) which wrote that "Slavery is not the cause of the rebellion. Slavery is the pretext on which the leaders of the rebellion rely, to fire the Southern heart, and through which the greatest degree of unanimity can be produced".

Pretext? If slavery fired the Southern heart, how the HELL can it be called a "pretext"? If it agitated and fired the hearts of the population to go to war, does that not point to slavery being THE cause? I say undoubtedly YES. Yet the HRE labels me a "total moron", and insists, if I opened an introductory history book, I would find that tariffs or states' rights or some reason other than slavery lead to war (and finally the HRE lies about me calling him "evil" as part of my "narrative").

The only "narrative" I'm pushing here is the one that comports with the truth. A truth, as I pointed out previously, historians are largely in regards to. Slavery led to the Civil War, and the historians interviewed in this first episode of Ken Burns' documentary are no different.

Having just watched it, I copied down some quotes - both historical and by present day historians - which I present below. As you will see, these quotes all support the historically correct version of events, which is that the underlying cause of the conflict was slavery.

Quotes from Part 1 of the Ken Burns' Civil War Documentary, "The Cause"

0:09:10 For me, the picture of the Civil War as a historic phenomenon, is not on the battlefield. It's not about weapons; it's not about soldiers. Except to the extent that weapons and soldiers at that crucial moment joined a discussion about something higher; about humanity, about human dignity, about human freedom ~ Barbara Fields, a professor of American history at Columbia University. Her focus is on the history of the American South.

(0:17:03) If there was a single event that caused the war, it was the establishment of the United States in independence from Great Britain with slavery still a part of it's heritage ~ Barbara Fields.

(0:26:18) As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal". We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except Negroes". Soon it will read "all men are created equal, except Negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics". When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy ~ Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Letters.

(0:27:25) A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other ~ Abraham Lincoln, from his House Divided Speech.

(0:31:17) Herman Melville called him the meteor of the war ~ narrator David McCullough [Quote from Melville's "The Portent" (1859), a short poem about White abolitionist John Brown and his hanging following the raid on Harpers Ferry, which was an attempt by Brown to start an armed slave revolt in 1859 by seizing a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.]

(0:32:22) John Brown becomes the single most important factor, in my opinion, in bringing on the war. The militia system in the South had been a joke before this, becomes a viable instrument as the Southern militias begin to take a true form. And the South begins to worry about Northerners agitating the Blacks to murder them in their beds ~ Ed Bearss, a military historian and author known for his work on the American Civil War and World War II eras.

(0:35:45) Southerners saw the election of Lincoln as a sign that the Union was about to be radicalized, and that they were about to be taken in directions that they did not care to go. The abolitionist aspect of it was very strong, and they figured they were about to lose what they called their property. And faced ruin ~ Shelby Foote, an American historian and novelist who wrote The Civil War: A Narrative, a massive, three-volume history of the war.

(0:42:31) Our new Government is founded upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the White man ~ Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, from his March 1861 Cornerstone Speech, which declared that African slavery was the "immediate cause" of secession.

(0:50:15) The first gun that was fired at Fort Sumter sounded the death-knell of Slavery. They who fired it were the greatest practical abolitionists this nation has produced ~ Assistant Adjutant-General Moses C. Brown, in a 6/28/1863 NYT article.

(1:09:47) Teach the rebels and traitors that the price they are to pay for the attempt to abolish this government must be the abolition of slavery ~ Frederick Douglass, an African-American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement.

Conclusion

While there are those who criticize Ken Burns' Civil War documentary, I haven't been able to find a SINGLE slam, knock or nitpick from one damn source that even suggests Ken Burns' documentary is wrong for declaring unequivocally that the Civil War was fought over slavery - and that *IS* what "The Cause" concludes says. It doesn't "conclude" it at all, it states it as a matter of FACT, beginning with a summary of slavery in the United States and proceeding from there for an HOUR stating the war was fought because of SLAVERY, SLAVERY, (and also) SLAVERY.

Which makes me wonder, what kind of idiot writes literally dozens of posts declaring this fact "ludicrous", cites a bunch of reasons that have to do with Lincoln being willing to do practically anything to avoid war and keep the Union intact, and then basically admits slavery was the reason, but that it was "political"?

No, what was political were the solutions proposed by Lincoln for keeping the Union from breaking up. It was extraordinarily clear from his writings and statements that he strongly opposed slavery - but politicians compromise, which is what "A" though "D" on the HRE's list of "proofs" that the Civil War wasn't about slavery ARE - political compromises (or "ploys") designed to keep the union whole.

Frankly I'm surprised the HRE has never referred to the Civil War as "The War of Northern Aggression", which, according to the Urban Dictionary, is a "Southern term for the American Civil War that is mostly used by those who think the south should have won". While I do not believe the HRE thinks the South should have won, he is a Lincoln-hater who is absolutely convinced the North was the aggressor and that the Civil War should NOT have been fought (and the Southern states should have been allowed to secede).

Coincidentally, this is where one of the Burns' documentary critics finds fault with the series. Leon F. Litwack, an American historian whose scholarship focuses on slavery, as quoted in the book Ken Burns' The Civil War: Historians Respond, complains about Shelby Foote "refusing to concede that slavery defined the Confederacy as a nation [and] for wishing, in retrospect, that compromise had prevented the war in the first place.

Sounds like a new series for the HRE to take up... instead of slamming Michael Mann for "lying" about global climate change, he can slam historians like Leon F. Litwack who "lie" about the Civil War. But then the HRE would have to acknowledge that such people actually exist. The HRE might argue that Mr. Litwack is imaginary, given what information he THINKS is contained in introductory history books.

SWTD #250, wDel #58.

Evidence Strongly Points to Willis Hart Being "Total Moron"

It's all about slavery. But I think Americans, unfortunately, don't know our own history, first of all. And, at some point, of course, after the war, the nation sort of came together and decided that it was going to forget what the real cause was, because it was too painful to remember that slavery was what divided the nation ~ Edna Greene Medford, a professor of history at Howard University who specializes in 19th-century African-American history. Quote from a 4/12/2011 installment of the PBS News Hour titled, "Civil War's Causes: Historians Largely United on Slavery, But Public Divided".

In regards to my disagreement with the blogger Willis Hart on the issue of slavery being the root cause of the Civil War (see previous commentary), the history-revising enthusiast had this to say about yours truly...

Willis Hart: He's a total moron... Anybody who's taken as little as an introductory history course knows that slavery wasn't the predominant reason for Lincoln's actions or even the South's ... slavery wasn't even remotely in trouble and so it had to have been economic and nationalistic reasons for those states to secede... But, yes, he has to have narrative and anybody who challenges it he has to label as evil. The man is utterly grade-school... (3/22/2014 AT 2:44pm).

This was after the idiot authored a post titled "on holding on to slights, perceived inequities, etc". He says he's against acting in such a manner, but is that NOT what he just did with this selective criticism of me? I mean, my commentary on the subject has numerous others agreeing with me, and Willis got the same disagreements from at least two other Liberals on his OWN BLOG! (see here and here for examples).

Yet I'm the only one who gets labeled a "total moron" and "utterly grade-school" despite plenty of other disagreement with the Hartster's history rewriting. Not to mention that the dude is totally full of shit in regards to his sureness concerning what people who have taken an introductory history class learn about the Civil War. It just so happens that history was one of my better subjects in school. Not to brag, but I aced my history tests.

For the record, one can find many commentaries on the interwebs in which tariffs and States' Rights being given as causes of the Civil War are correctly labeled as MYTHS, but I, unlike Willis, acknowledge that both theories are out there. Mr. Hart flat out lies about slavery being the root cause not being in introductory history books and his take being the widely accepted one - which it most certainly IS NOT.

I acknowledge there is some dispute, at least... even if I judge those stirring up the dispute to have an agenda of obscuring what really happened for either racist and/or political reasons. But Hart dissembles and says there is no dispute at all, even though all thinking people know this is complete nonsense. Yeah, he knows he can get away with this on his own blog (and the blog of rAtional nAtion), but I suspect many people would laugh at his ridiculous BS about things introductory history books say when they DO NOT say them!

Or, at least 38 percent of the public would agree that the Civil War was "mainly about slavery" (plus 9 percent who said it was both about slavery and states' rights) according to a PEW research poll. However, in regards to what historians believe, a 3/16/2013 Salon.com article titled "the South still lies about the Civil War" reveals that they are largely united on slavery being at the root of why the Civil War was fought. That would be the historians who WRITE HISTORY BOOKS! Those historians mostly agree the Civil War was fought over slavery and NOT tariffs and NOT States' Rights!

"No respected historian has argued for decades that the Civil War was fought over tariffs... or that only constitutional concerns drove secessionists" (i.e. States' Rights) according to American historian Edward Ayers - a professor & the 9th president of the University of Richmond - as well as an author of four, and editor of seven books on the history of 19th-century America.

The real causes were swept under the rug, says Yale historian and director of the Gilder-Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition, David Blight, who "describes a national fervor for reconciliation that began in the 1880s and lasted through the end of World War I, fueled in large part by the South's desire to attract industry, Northern investors' desire to make money, and the desire of White people everywhere to push the Negro question aside".

I don't know about you, but if one person seeks out the opinions of the experts, and then finds that the written words of the seceding states reasons for leaving agree with what the experts are saying - and from that concludes that the experts must be right - I surely would not call that person a "total moron".

If, on the other hand, there was an individual who insisted that the history books agreed with his point of view - despite historians (the people who write those books) largely being on the same page in disagreement with him... I might just conclude that this 2nd person was a "total moron".

I might just conclude it with certainty, in fact. Also, I never said a damn thing about "evil", but this sounds like exactly the kind of grade-school insult a total moron would accuse someone of. If the facts disprove the argument they're making - the desperate (and stupid) usually resort to ad hominem.

SWTD #243, wDel #54.

Schmuckery Of Claim That Civil War Began Over States' Rights

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free ~ Abraham Lincoln (2/12/1809 to 4/15/1865) the 16th president (3/4/1861 to 4/15/1865) as quoted in a 8/22/1862 letter to the New York Tribune. This section of Lincoln's letter follows the more often quoted portion that reads "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that".

As commander of the Northern forces during the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant apparently said "The sole object of the war is to restore the Union. Should I become convinced it has any other object, or that the government designs using its soldiers to execute the wishes of the abolitionists... I would resign my commission and carry my sword to the other side".

Or maybe he didn't say that. None-the-less the Libertarian blogger Willis Hart cites this quote as proof that the civil was wasn't about slavery - and on this matter commenter Rusty Schmuckelford whole-heartedly agrees, saying (2 comments)...

Rusty Schmuckelford: As I said before... the Civil War began over states rights... slavery was a secondary issue. [AND] Its unfortunate there are still american's suffering from a bad case of "white guilt". These deluded folks see a racial aspect in everything. They cant fathom the civil war being fought for anything but slavery... of course they are dead wrong, yet due to their guilt cannot accept the truth. (3/18/2014 at 8:42pm AND 3/9/2014 at 12:12pm).

Rusty may have said it before, but he was as dead wrong then as he is now. And a schmuck for thinking "white guilt" is any kind of factor for those who acknowledge the facts. Fortunately bullplop like Rusty's is pretty easy to disprove - all one has to do is take a look at the Declaration of Causes of Seceding States which all cite slavery as their reason for leaving the union. And, as pointed out in a 2/25/2011 WP opinion piece by the historian James W. Loewen "Confederate states did claim the right to secede, but no state claimed to be seceding for that right. In fact, Confederates opposed states' rights — that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery".

Between 12/20/1860 and 11/20/1861 13 states ratified ordinances of secession, with four states - "Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas also issued separate declarations of causes, in which they explained their reasons for secession". (quoted from Wikipedia).

What follows are brief excepts from the Declaration of Causes documents issued by the four previously mentioned states...

12/20/1860, South Carolina: The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due". [complaint about the North not returning escaped slaves, as per the 4th amendment's Fugitive Slave Clause].

1/19/1861, Georgia: For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property... [another complaint about the North not returning escaped slaves].

2/1/1861, Texas: [Texas] was received as a commonwealth holding [into the Confederated Union], maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery - the servitude of the African to the white race... a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.

6/6/1861, Mississippi: ...the prominent reasons which have induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery...

As you can plainly see, all four documents cite slavery as the reason the state in question decided to leave the union. None cited States' Rights as a determining factor, or any kind of factor at all. The Civil War was fought because of slavery; case closed. Also, in regards to that "quote" from Ulysses S. Grant - there is serious doubt as to whether or not he actually said it.

The words have been removed from Wikiquote, with the remover giving the reason of... "I hate to admit it but Grant did not say [it]". Also, on the website Dead Confederates: A Civil War Era Blog, blog proprietor Andy Hall concludes that the quote is "given as a years-old reminiscence by a third party and printed in The Democratic Speaker's Handbook [and that no] serious person can attribute [it] as an actual quote, in good faith". (Note: "Dead Confederates" is listed on the Center for Civil War Research's resources page. The Center was established by the University of Mississippi in 2009).

Finally, in regards to the assertion by the blogger being rebutted here that "we could have done what England did and purchased the freedom of the slaves"... compensated emancipation was proposed by Lincoln in a 3/6/1862 message to Congress, but "the southern states, now in full rebellion, ignored the proposals" (source: Wikipedia).

Doesn't the fact that such a proposal was offered by Lincoln pretty much prove that the Civil War was fought over African Americans in bondage and forced servitude? I mean, here Lincoln is specifically offering a solution to the succession problem that phases out slavery. And Lincoln's message to Congress also points to that Grant quote being almost certainly false as well. Are we to believe that Grant was unaware of Lincoln's proposal? If the quote were true wouldn't Grant have resigned his commission and carried his sword to the other side? (Note: both Lincoln's message to Congress on compensated emancipation and the supposed Grant quote have a date of 1862 attached to them).

So that, I believe, pretty much debunks and refutes all (or most of) the nonsense about the Civil War not being fought because of slavery but because of tariffs or States' Rights from the blog of Will Hart. Both assertions are false and a disservice to those who seek an honest accounting of history. Because without such an honest accounting we cannot acknowledge our mistakes and learn from them - which is exactly what many who dissemble on this issue desire. They don't want us to learn from history. Their desire is that minorities should continue to be discriminated against and deprived of their voting rights.

I'm not saying this is Mr. Hart's motivation, but he surely is not a part of the solution with his recent (and numerous) Ahistorical commentaries on the subject of the Civil War and slavery.

SWTD #242. See also OST #6.

Delusional Free Trader Taken In By Myth That Civil War Was Fought Over Tariffs

The tariff issue was so unimportant that the groups looking for some sort of compromise did not consider it ~ David Potter (12/6/1910 to 2/18/1971) an American historian of the South who won, posthumously, the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for History for The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 (1976), which was an in-depth narrative and analysis of the causes of the American Civil War (quote sourced from pages 42–50). Born in Augusta GA, Potter was employed as professor of history at Yale (1942–1961) and Stanford (1961–71).

In a 3/15/2014 post a blogger who strongly supports the idiotic notion of "free trade" speaks about the Civil War and how he believes we shouldn't have fought it. Regarding why President Lincoln decided to fight a war to prevent the South from leaving the union, blogger (Willis Hart) sez "my personal theory is that he just got so addicted to the tariff revenue... with which he was using to solidify his political power and cronyism that the dude literally couldn't stop himself".

Regrettably for Mr. Hart, a 6/5/2013 NYT article titled "The Great Civil War Lie" points out that tariffs being the reason for succession is a myth. According to the article, the North worried about England supporting Southern independence because of their "reliance on imported Southern cotton [and that] many in Britain thought that the reason was the Morrill Tariff". These English pro-Southern succession believed the tariff "so incensed the Southern states that they left the union".

But the truth of the matter is that "passage of the tariff was possible because many tariff-averse Southerners had resigned from Congress after their states declared their secession". Furthermore, the article states that "Pro-Southern business interests and journalists fed the myth that the war was over trade, not slavery [in order] to win over people who might be appalled at siding with slave owners against the forces of abolition".

And that is a myth that continues to this day. Because Southern history re-writers, still supporting States' Rights (which, today, is code for laws intended to prevent minority voters from casting ballots), don't wish the truth about their shameful past to be known (or accepted). And they surely do not want anyone pointing out the fact that discrimination is still very much alive in the South. And this we know for a fact because, when the Conservative SCOTUS members recently voted to strike down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, a number of Southern States immediately rushed to pass legislation designed to disenfranchise Black voters.

No doubt Willis read about how tariffs were the reason for the Civil War on some Right-wing website - and the gullible fool ate it up. Further debunking Mr. Hart's assertion is the fact that the Morill tariff "replaced the low Tariff of 1857, which was written to benefit the South". Wikipedia notes that the original tariff was passed in "1842, but in 1846 the Democrats enacted the Walker Tariff, cutting tariff rates substantially. The Democrats cut rates even further in the Tariff of 1857, which was highly favorable to the South".

Also bogus are Hart's claims that Lincoln was "so addicted to the tariff revenue" and needed the money to support cronyism. The truth is that "the Treasury was in financial crisis, with less than $500,000 on hand and millions in unpaid bills. The Union urgently needed new revenue".

Hart is incredibly wrong about tariffs causing the Civil War, as the tariff would not have been passed if the Southern states had not left the union. This is a chicken & egg argument, with this individual getting the order of how things played out mixed up. But, given the fact that the dude is a strong supporter of unrestricted American job-killing "free trade", his falling for this BS is not surprising. Given that this old lie feeds into the Southern states desire to conceal the truth about their voting laws designed to restrict the voting rights of minorities, it is quite unfortunate.

Unfortunate, if Hart is given the benefit of the doubt, that is. There are some who buy this "tariff" argument with the motivation of being very much in favor of States' Rights (code for disenfranchising minority voters). Whether their reasons are race-based or ideology based, these people want Conservatives to win - and will endorse the use of any dirty trick available to make that possible.

Another regular commenter on the blog of Mr. Hart is one such individual. According to the delusional Dennis Marks (AKA dmarks), gutting the Voting Rights act was a "victory for those who want progress toward equal treatment, diminished racial bias, and level playing field". Dennis, while not someone I'd classify as an overt racist, absolutely has racial biases that are much stronger than average. And he is on board with the Conservative plan to "win" by preventing as many minority voters from casting ballots as possible.

States' Rights is, and always has been a euphemism for restricting the rights of African Americans. The Encyclopeida Briticanna blog says it is a myth "that the South fought the Civil War not to defend slavery, but to uphold the rights of states against a tyrannical central government [and that this myth] was extremely important to the white South's resistance to post-war Reconstruction".

States' Rights were cited as justification for enacting the post Civil War Black Codes (passed in 1865 and 1866) which were "had the intent and the effect of restricting African Americans' freedom, and of compelling them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt". And States Rights "continued to serve as an effective shield against federal efforts to end segregation and discrimination against African Americans - known as the Jim Crow system in the South". And today it's all about restricting the ability of minorities to vote.

So, while President Lincoln may not have been for the equality of Whites and Blacks, and while he may have been willing to allow slavery to persist to preserve the union - and therefore the official position of the North was NOT that they were fighting the war to abolish slavery - the South's position was NOT that they were fighting because of tariffs to obtain independence.

A 2/25/2011 WP opinion piece by the historian James W. Loewen notes that on "Dec. 24, 1860, delegates at South Carolina's secession convention" said the reason they were leaving the union was because of "an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery" and because North states were "interfering with the return of fugitive slaves to bondage".

The conclusion by Mr. Loewen was that "Slavery, not states' rights, birthed the Civil War". This is the accurate conclusion. Whatever reasons cited by those in the North, the South was fighting to preserve slavery. That Mr. Hart has written so many posts to obfuscate this fact is troubling, as in doing so, he is siding with the States' Rights advocates of today who seek to disenfranchise Black voters as well as the States' Rights advocates of the past who used that rallying cry to keep African Americans oppressed.

Regardless of his reasoning (opposition to free trade versus disenfranchising Blacks), the Hartster is on the WRONG side of history in staking out this position. No, the issue isn't as black and white as everyone in the North being in favor of abolishing slavery and full equality, and everyone in the North being pro-slavery forever, but the Civil War WAS fought over slavery. And, in order to move away from our racist past and toward greater equality - that truth must be acknowledged.

Ridiculous comments like "Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation is one of the biggest jokes in American history" (because it did not immediately free the slaves as it wasn't recognized by Southern slave holders) only enable the history re-writers who continue to use States' Rights to oppress and disenfranchise minorities.

SWTD #241, wDel #53. See also OST #5.