Causes of the Civil War Why would a lifelong Northerner take a stand in defense of the Confederacy?
Economics
It's often said, in recent times, that the American Civil War was entirely and only about slavery. Is there another view?
Yankee Canards
Was the ante-bellum South a primitive, backwards, illiterate, violent culture?
Mulattoes
Numbers and significance of the Southern mulatto population
Northern Racism
Some light shed on the ante-bellum attitudes of the North toward its black population
Slavery as History
How can you make an honest inquiry into American slavery without understanding the mindset of slave-owners? How can you do that without being yourself a racist?
Rebel View
Early 19th century American politics and political culture as it was seen by many Southerners
Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, the politician who could not live with the South, was perhaps the greatest writer in American political history. Writers are great, in part, because of their ability to disguise what they really intend.
1860 Election
Exploding a common misconception about the 1860 presidential election: even if all the Democrats had united behind one candidate, the Northern regional ticket would have won
Secession
The wire-pulling over the Morrill tariff bill in 1860 showed the party of the abolitionists cynically using a legitimate government mechanism to gain power in a presidential election. It indicated to the South what this party would do once it got its hands on the U.S. military and on the financial machinery of the nation
Legal Issues
Secession was legal under the Constitution, based on the nature of its ratification by the states in 1787 and 1788
Slavery as History
Alexander Stephens "Cornerstone Speech" is the magical talisman in the hands of the "CSA had no other purpose but to promote slavery" view. What is its context and what does it say, beyond the few damning quotes so often repeated?
Upper South
"States rights" is dismissed as a red herring argument for secession, yet the Upper South states seem clearly to have left the Union for just this reason
What Cost Union?
Lincoln saved the union, but at a terrible cost to America's democracy and culture of freedom
Bibliography
A listing of some of the published sources consulted
| 2002 - Slavery in the North - Slave and Free in Pennsylvania - The Confederate War - The War in the North - Race in America |
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