24. Is There Any Support for the Claim That the Civil War Was Not About Slavery?
“Revisionist” history gets a lot of criticism these days from some quarters. However, there has been no greater example of revisionism in American history than that which took place after the Civil War, when the losers brazenly rewrote the history about the conflict’s causes. Amazingly, and despite overwhelming evidence that belied their claims, they got away with it for an astonishingly long time. In what became known as the “Lost Cause” myth, Southern writers painted the war’s causes in romantic terms that were uncritically accepted by too many for too long.
In such a revisionist retelling, the war was caused by a disagreement about state rights, mixed in with chivalric notions about a desire to maintain a way of life. Slavery is studiously downplayed in such narratives or outright ignored. However, the war’s cause, according to Southern secessionists and leaders at the time, was all about slavery. They were not mealy-mouthed about it, did not hint, imply, or fudge, and were completely unambiguous. As seen below, Southern decision-makers at the time stated in clear-cut language that they intended to go to war against the United States because they wanted to hold on to their human property.
