The Irrepressible Conflict Leads to Many Questions

It is brilliantly written with passion and confidence. The writer was a credentialed historian at Vanderbilt and the University of Alabama. The essay published in 1930 earns him the label “notorious” today.

What prompts someone to write such an essay? Is there not likely some truth in his warrant expressed so vigorously? Might we learn something new or forgotten if we investigate some of the claims? Or shall we dismiss it as a racist, early 20th century lost cause diatribe?

It wasn’t until 1936 that any large-scale documentation of the lives of actual slaves was undertaken. Was there no interest in the North? White Southerners were living with freedmen. They knew the history. Why didn’t the abolitionists come and document their pre-1861 claims about slavery. Make sure you understand that white Southerners conducted those slave interviews, so they are not reliable.

Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson were all part of the first federal administration, no? There was consensus on the way the central government was to operate, right? No, you say. What were their differences? The power of the central government versus the states. Lost causer!

20th century Southern school textbooks are said to have been full of inaccuracies. What were the texts like from 1866 to 1890? Inquiring minds want to know. Seriously, are their regional histories and cultures within the United States worth preserving? Why is Mississippi still 50% black? What is wrong with Idaho and Oregon?

Can it be true that “the North was demanding positive action on the part of the federal government, and the South was demanding that no action be taken at all”? This seems important. Shut up. The war was about ending slavery and the South was evil. So, there is nothing to any of the differences between the sections? Internal improvements, tariffs, state rights versus centralized power, and fear of being overrun by another race count for nothing? Right, it was slavery.