I may be speaking too soon, but it looks like the influence of the Sons of Confederate Veterans on how we remember the Civil War will be minimal as we make our way through the Civil War Sesquicentennial. Today we learn that plans to place a monument to South Carolina’s decision to leave the Union [...]
Secession
Update: “The board of the Patriots Point Development Authority on Tuesday split 3-3 on whether to allow the Sons of Confederate Veterans to place an 11 1/2-foot granite monument to the ordinance signers at the Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum. The tie vote meant the idea failed.” The Sons of Confederate Veterans is hoping [...]
Here is the second post in the ongoing series on Civil War classics written by students in Prof. Peter Carmichael’s graduate seminar. Today Joseph Rizzo reviews David Potter’s classic, The Impending Crisis: 1848-1861. Read other reviews in the series. Professional historians, to varying degrees, believe that slavery was elemental to the coming of the Civil [...]
You gotta love these commemorative events that on the surface seem to be about the Civil War, but are little more than forums for folks to complain about what they perceive to be our own oppressive government. They always seem to bring together a true cast of characters. In this case there is John Eidsmoe, [...]
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has publicly stated that according to his reading of the Constitution a state does not have the right to secede. If there was any Constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede. (Hence in the Pledge of Allegiance, “one nation indivisible”). Read [...]
The Sons of Confederate Veterans is hoping to erect a monument commemorating the 170 South Carolinians who signed the ordnance of secession in December 1860. The South Carolina division is proposing to install an 11 1/2-foot-tall stone memorial as the centerpiece of a 40-foot by 40-foot landscaped plaza at Patriots Point. According to the news [...]
It’s a pretty miserable day here in central Virginia. On top of the rain I am strung out on the couch watching college football and dealing with a cold and sore throat. Since it looks like I will not get anything serious done today I thought I might offer you the second installment of my [...]
My Civil War courses are in the middle of reading two essays about the 1850s and secession by James McPherson and Charles Dew. It is interesting that every year I end up having to spend the most time on two specific issues at the beginning of the semester. Even if my students claim not to [...]
