A Hateful Sham

The Naming Commission Report has been submitted to Congress. The three-part report is anti-Southern and perpetuates a modern and ahistorical view of the Civil War. It reads like a piece of propaganda.

“The defeated Confederates lived in the literal ruins of the slave society they had fought to perpetuate.”

Even a cursory understanding of the history of the lead-up to the Civil War shows that this is a patently false statement. The South was not a homogeneous block. It took 6 months for all the states that seceded to secede. The last four only did so after President Lincoln’s call for troops. Several of those states had secession votes fail prior to Lincoln’s aggressive actions. There is evidence that slavery was a primary concern for some of the first seven states that seceded. That is in no way evidence that the South “fought” to perpetuate slavery.

Speeches, letters, and diary entries of Confederates make it clear that large numbers of people from all classes were fighting for things that were not even tangentially related to slavery. Northern abolitionists described how secession and a war would result in the South not getting slaves returned or not being able to take slaves into the territories. Some perpetuation.

The statement also ignores the sectional differences that existed almost from the founding and yes, they include tariffs. More important was the tension between the sections over the role and power of the central government. The war ended slavery and advanced the power of the central government something much of the South long resisted.

For every piece of evidence that supports the South fought to “perpetuate” slavery there is evidence she did not. History does not come in neat packages and for a US Government commission to present a biased interpretation is inexcusable. Every conservative member of Congress should be ashamed that they let this sham happen without significant opposition.