I’d encourage you to go back and read what the secessionist leaders were saying and writing at the time, especially in the winter of 1861-62, about the causes and justifications of their actions. Read the various states’ articles of secession. Read the Confederate constitution. Read the speeches and the editorials.

The reason historians recognize that the Southern states’ decision to secede from the Union was over the preservation and expansion of the institution of slavery is because they said so themselves. They were very, very clear on that.

1. You have the cart before the horse. It was protection of the institution of slavery that led Southerners down the path to States’ Rights. If they could have maintained a majority at the national level they would have been happy to continue to use federal power to protect their “way of life.”

2. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say a state DOES have a right secede.

3. To whom are you referring?

4. You can’t possibly sudy American history without running into the issue of slavery over and over and over again. It didn’t suddenly become an issue when the EP was announced.

5. Unfortunately, I think there were many who wanted war. Most thought it would be a grand adventure, over in a few months. No one foresaw what it actually became. No question the EP was a military move, but it also transformed the Union cause from one of strictly saving the Union to one of human freedom. Ultimately, that was its true value. As to the accuracy of historic documents and the motivations of historic figures, the job of a historian is to analyze and put into context all the available evidence and offer the best interpretation based on that evidence. Beyond that, people can choose to believe anything they want.

1. Slavery seems to have been a touchy issue from the word go, and even before independence, but was not the reason the southern states wished to secede from the Union. Slavery seems to have contributed a great deal to the tension but, ultimately, it was states rights (or lack thereof) that led to an attempted secession.

2. Nowhere in the Constitution did it state at the time of secession that a state could not secede from the Union. Every President up to the Civil War seemed to be concerned about the potential for just such a division and did everything within their power to prevent a war. Lincoln was no exception.

3. I do not think you can call a man “anti-slavery” or “abolitionist” for freeing his slaves upon his own death. If the man truly thought slavery was wrong, why did he wait until he no longer needed them to free them? One would think that a man who was truly convicted that slavery was wrong would free his slaves the moment he was convicted.

4. Frankly, I don’t buy that the Civil War was a fight against northern or southern aggression. I see it as a division in political beliefs that led to a stamping of feet and shouting which grew into “we’ll take our ball and go home” countered by “over our dead bodies” followed by “sounds good to us” and voila! … Civil War. Obviously, that is a rather simplistic viewpoint and misses completely the finer points and counterpoints of the entire ordeal. However, I hope you see my point. Slaves had little to do with anything until Lincoln brought up the Emancipation Proclamation …

5. Was the Emancipation Proclamation truly the move to freedom that it appeared to be or was it simply a brilliant military move in a war no one really wanted? I think the sad truth is that no one can ever really know at this point. None of us were there. None of us are intimately familiar with these long dead figures or their minds. All we have are historical documents that may or may not be accurate, the motivations of which we can only speculate about.

As I said, sorry to interrupt. Pray, continue with the interesting discussion.

Were the previous comments at this post deleted or are they not here due to issues with DISQUS?

Were the previous comments at this post deleted or are they not here due to issues with DISQUS?

You didn’t respond to my main point. If Zinn’s political bias is a reason to reject his writing than I suspect that the same holds true for you? If what we write is to be understood simply as an expression of our politics than what is the point? I don’t know which writings of mine you are referring to. Have you read my published work? If so, you’ve never given any indication of it. I’ve never claimed that I am above any kind of bias. That said, I don’t think you know much of anything about where I stand on most issues since I rarely talk about them on my blog. No doubt, you’ve read enough for your overly simplistic world of good v. evil that you live in. What I have said over and over is that it is not enough to dismiss an individual or group of historians without analyzing the actual interpretation. Of course, you don’t reject the work of all academics. You only reject those that do not hold your political/cultural beliefs. I suspect that is why you came out charging in your defense of Crocker. Your rejection of “faddish” books is nothing more than an indication that you’ve not read them. You mention Simpson, but have you ever read his biography of Grant or anything by him? If not, than what exactly are you complaining about? To be honest, I don’t know much of anything about his politics and I really don’t care. I am interested in his historical interpretations while you are preoccupied with his politics.

Case in point, when I ask my students to write summaries of analytical essay by historians I tell them to steer clear of the author’s backgrounds. As you know my students read one of the chapters in Zinn’s _People’s History_ and we talk about his politics and activism. One of my students asked if he could comment on this in his essay and I told him that his job is to critique the argument that is contained in the book. The argument stands or falls on how well Zinn (or any other historian for that matter) interprets the available evidence. You, on the other hand, have never seemed to understand that important lesson.