More Lies About the War Between the States

Another Court Historian’s False Tariff History

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

The only thing worse than a historian who calls himself a "Lincoln scholar" is a sociologist who does the same. This truth was on display recently in a January 9 Washington Post article entitled "Five Myths about Why the South Seceded" by one James W. Loewen.


In discussing the role of federal tariff policy in precipitating the War to Prevent Southern Independence Loewen is either grossly ignorant, or he is dishonest. He begins by referring to the 1828 Tariff of Abominations, which led to South Carolina’s Ordinance of Nullification, whereby the state rightly condemned the 48 percent average tariff rate as a blatant act of plunder (mostly at the South’s expense) and refused to collect it at Charleston Harbor. Loewen writes that "when, after South Carolina demanded the right to nullify federal laws or secede to protest, President Andrew Jackson threatened force." That much is true. "No state joined the movement, and South Carolina backed down," Loewen then writes. This is all false. It is not true that "no state joined the movement." As historian Chauncy Boucher wrote in The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, and Alabama joined South Carolina in publicly denouncing the Tariff of Abominations, while the Yankee bastions of Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Indiana, and New York responded with their own resolutions in support of political plunder through extortionate tariff rates.

Nor is it true to say that "South Carolina backed down." South Carolina and the Jackson administration reached a compromise in 1833: Jackson "backed down" by not following through with his threats to use force to collect the tariff, and South Carolina agreed to collect tariffs at a much lower rate. Jackson "backed down" as much (or more) as South Carolina did, but the Official Court Historian’s History of the War, as expressed by Loewen, holds that only South Carolina retreated. The reason for this distortion of history is to spread the lie that tax protesters such as the South Carolina nullifiers, or the Whiskey Rebels of an earlier generation, have never successfully challenged the federal government’s taxing "authority." But of course they have succeeded; The Whiskey Rebels ended up not paying the federal whisky tax, and the Tariff of Abominations was sharply reduced over a ten-year period.

Loewen next spreads an egregious falsehood about the tariff: "Tariffs were not an issue in 1860, and Southern states said nothing about them," he writes. "Why would they? Southerners had written the tariff of 1857, under which the nation was functioning. Its rates were lower than at any point since 1816." Every bit of this narrative is false.

Tariffs certainly were an issue in 1860. Lincoln’s official campaign poster featured mug shots of himself and vice presidential candidate Hannibal Hamlin, above the campaign slogan, "Protection for Home Industry." (That is, high tariff rates to "protect home industry" from international competition). In a speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ("Steeltown, U.S.A."), a hotbed of protectionist sentiment, Lincoln announced that no other issue was as important as raising the tariff rate. It is well known that Lincoln made skillful use of his lifelong protectionist credentials to win the support of the Pennsylvania delegation at the Republican convention of 1860, and he did sign ten tariff-increasing bills while in office. When he announced a naval blockade of the Southern ports during the first months of the war, he gave only one reason for the blockade: tariff collection.

As I have written numerous times, in his first inaugural address Lincoln announced that it was his duty "to collect the duties and imposts," and then threatened "force," "invasion" and "bloodshed" (his exact words) in any state that refused to collect the federal tariff, the average rate of which had just been doubled two days earlier. He was not going to "back down" to tax protesters in South Carolina or anywhere else, as Andrew Jackson had done.

The most egregious falsehood spread by Loewen is to say that the tariff that was in existence in 1860 was the 1857 tariff rate, which was in fact the lowest tariff rate of the entire nineteenth century. In his famous Tariff History of the United States economist Frank Taussig called the 1857 tariff the high water mark of free trade during that century. The Big Lie here is that Loewen makes no mention at all of the fact that the notorious Morrill Tariff, which more than doubled the average tariff rate (from 15% to 32.6% initially), was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives during the 1859–60 session of Congress, and was the cornerstone of the Republican Party’s economic policy. It then passed the U.S. Senate, and was signed into law by President James Buchanan on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration, where he threatened war on any state that failed to collect the new tax. At the time, the tariff accounted for at least 90 percent of all federal tax revenues. The Morrill Tariff therefore represented a more than doubling of the rate of federal taxation!

This threat to use "force" and "invasion" against sovereign states, by the way, was a threat to commit treason. Article 3, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution defines treason as follows: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort" (emphasis added). Lincoln followed through with his threat; his invasion of the Southern states was the very definition of treason under the Constitution.

The words "Morrill Tariff" do not appear anywhere in Loewen’s Washington Post article despite the fact that he portrays himself as some kind of "Keeper of The Truth" regarding "Civil War" history. (And where were the Washington Post’s "fact checkers?!) It was the Morrill Tariff that Lincoln referred to in his first inaugural address, not the much lower 1857 tariff, as Loewen falsely claims.

Abraham Lincoln was not the only American president who believed that the tariff was an important political issue in 1860. Contrary to Loewen’s false claims, Jefferson Davis, like Lincoln, highlighted the tariff issue in his February 18, 1861 inaugural address, delivered in Montgomery, Alabama (From The Papers of Jefferson Davis, vol. 7, pp. 45–51). After announcing that the Confederate government was "anxious to cultivate peace and commerce with all nations" Davis said the following:

An agricultural people, whose chief interest is the export of a commodity required in every manufacturing country, our true policy is peace, and the freest trade, which our necessities will permit. It is alike our interest, and that of all those to whom we would sell and from whom we would buy, that there should be the fewest practicable restrictions upon the interchange of commodities. There can be but little rivalry between ours and any manufacturing or navigating community, such as the Northeastern States of the American Union. It must follow, therefore, that a mutual interest would invite good will and kind offices. If, however, passion or the lust of dominion should cloud the judgment or inflame the ambition of those States, we must prepare to meet the emergency . . .

Thus, Loewen’s statement that the Southern states said "nothing" about tariff policy is unequivocally false. Jefferson Davis proclaimed here that the economy of the Confederacy would be based on free trade. Indeed, the Confederate Constitution of 1861 outlawed protectionist tariffs altogether, and only allowed for a modest "revenue tariff."

When Davis spoke of a "passion or the lust for dominion," he was referring to the constant attempts, for some seventy years, of the Northern Whig and Republican parties to plunder the South with the instrument of protectionist tariffs, as was attempted with the 1828 Tariff of Abominations. In other words, he declared here that, in his opinion, Lincoln was deadly serious (pun intended) about enforcing the newly-doubled rate of federal tariff taxation with a military invasion of the Southern states, and was preparing for war as a result. Contrary to Loewen’s ignorant diatribe, both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis announced to the world in 1861 that tariff policy was indeed a paramount political issue: In their respective inaugural addresses, Lincoln threatened "invasion" of any state(s) that failed to collect his tariff, while Davis promised to defend against any such invasion.

Before the war, Northern newspapers associated with the Republican Party were editorializing in favor of naval bombardments of the Southern ports because they knew that the South was adopting free trade, while the North was moving in the direction of a 50% average tariff rate (which did in fact exist, more or less, from 1863 to 1913, when the federal income tax was adopted). These Republican party propagandists correctly understood that much of the trade of the world would enter the U.S. through Southern ports under such a scenario. Rather than adopting reasonable tariff rates themselves, they agitated for war on the South.

The tariff controversy was not the only cause of the war, and I have never argued that it was (despite lies to the contrary told about me by such people as historian Jeffrey Hummel). But it was obviously an important cause of the decades-long conflict between North and South.

The rest of Loewen’s Washington Post article is about as accurate as his uninformed rantings about tariff policy. This was the Post’s second attempt to "correct the record" of the "Civil War," which began 150 years ago this year, in the first nine days of 2011. The government’s company newspaper is apparently terrified that the public will get wind of the truth and begin questioning the foundational myth of the federal Leviathan state.

January 18, 2011

Thomas J. DiLorenzo is professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland and the author of The Real Lincoln; Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed To Know about Dishonest Abe and How Capitalism Saved America. His latest book is Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution – And What It Means for America Today.





Copyright © 2011 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

What If the South had Won the War Between the States?

South Wins!!!

By Russell D. Longcore

How different would the world be today if the Confederate States of America (CSA) had won? Here is my version of how history might have transpired.


The first seven Southern states seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America in February of 1861. The first hostilities at Fort Sumter, SC happened in April 1861.

Battle of Bull Run/First Manassas, July, 1861

(In the actual battle, the South wins. CSA Generals Beauregard and Johnston command barely 29,000 troops against 50,000 Federal troops under the command of Gen Winfield Scott. The Confederacy wins the battle, and the Federal troops make a full panicked retreat back to Washington. But President Jefferson Davis hesitates and loses the opportunity to capture Washington, DC, which would have ended the war in the first major battle. Here is how it could have gone if Davis had made a positive decision to complete the battle, and here is the history that could have flowed from that victory.)

Learning of the Federal defeat and retreat, President Jefferson Davis and General Beauregard order the CSA troops to complete the rout by pursuing the Northern troops back to Washington, only about 30 miles. The pursuit is made far easier for CSA troops as the Federals have abandoned their stores of provisions all along the way back to Washington. A small cavalry force under the command of General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson captures the White House and President Lincoln. The cavalry and CSA troops camp on the White House lawn.

Within a week, President Davis and General Robert E. Lee begin negotiations with Lincoln, Cabinet members and Congress members to cease hostilities permanently. The parties negotiate various treaties regarding commerce between the nations. They determine that subsequent territories desirous of statehood get to choose which nation to join, and other border issues.

Abraham Lincoln is impeached by Congress and removed from office in late 1861. He is tried, found guilty of war crimes and receives a prison sentence of 50 years, and dies in prison. As General Ulysses S. Grant has achieved no notoriety in the war, he is not elected President and retires in obscurity.

The lives of over 620,000 men on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line are spared. The CSA is not pillaged and sacked by the Union forces. The state of West Virginia is not formed by Lincoln. CSA cities and plantations are not burned. There are no draft riots in New York City. Northern newspaper editors are not jailed for disagreeing with Lincoln. Robert E. Lee's plantation named "Arlington" is not stolen by the US Government and made into a Union cemetery.

The importation of slaves was outlawed in the CSA Constitution of 1861, and slavery slowly collapses under its own weight at about the same time as mechanization comes to agriculture in the 1870s. The freed slaves become sharecroppers, or become a part of the workforce necessary in the manufacturing boom in the CSA.

Jefferson Davis serves his Constitutionally-mandated single six-year term, and then is elected Senator from Texas, where he serves until just before his death. John Calhoun of South Carolina is the next President elected in 1866. Dozens of new Southern cities and streets are named after Davis, just like George Washington's legacy after the Revolutionary War.

Stonewall Jackson does not die in battle in 1863, but goes back to the Virginia Military Institute, where he resumes teaching. He eventually becomes the Chancellor of the School, and remains in this position until his death.

The Citadel, the Charleston military academy, becomes the Naval Academy for the CSA.

Richmond, Virginia, continues to be the capitol of the CSA. Atlanta becomes the business and financial center of the CSA. The Atlanta Stock Exchange becomes one of the largest and wealthiest in the world. Most of the major banks of the South are based in Atlanta.

The territories west of the Mississippi eventually seek statehood, and must decide with which nation they will align themselves. Only North and South Dakota Territories decide to become US states. All other territories become Confederate states, because the Montgomery Constitution of 1861 was a vast improvement over the US Constitution.

The USA becomes a nation bordered on the north by Canada, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south and west by the CSA. California, Maryland and Oregon vote to secede from the Union and join the CSA in 1862. The USA statehood growth ceases at 19 states. The CSA eventually grows to 27 states, bordered on the north by the USA and Western Canada, on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the east by the Atlantic, and on the south by Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico. Puerto Rico becomes the last state to join the CSA in 1960.

Hawaii is not stolen by the USA and remains a sovereign nation. Alaska belongs to Canada.

The CSA's import tariffs are an average of 13%. Consequently, shipping and trade at Southern ports explodes. The ports of Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, Miami and New Orleans become the busiest ports on the Eastern Seaboard. Western ports at San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle become CSA ports. The port of Norfolk/Portsmouth becomes the shipbuilding capital of the Americas. The Navy of the CSA is harbored at Norfolk and Charleston. The CSA controls all commerce in Chesapeake Bay and controls all commerce coming up and down the Mississippi River.

USA's main ports are New York, Newark, Philadelphia and Boston. The canals and locks are built by the US government to facilitate access to the Great Lakes.

Chicago still becomes a major Midwestern business center, and a center for commodities. Kansas City, Missouri becomes the major Midwestern business center and commodities exchange for the South.

Southern manufacturing expands rapidly as investments pour into the CSA from wealthy Southerners, as well as Northern and European investors. The Bessemer steel mill in Alabama becomes the largest steel mill in the world.

CSA makes gold and silver the only money. Southern banks are not regulated by the government and are allowed to coin their own money. Fractional banking is not allowed in the CSA. There is no inflation in the CSA throughout its history.

In 1898, William Randolph Hearst owns a chain of publications and newspapers. However, his publishing empire is in California, which is a state of the CSA. Hearst finds no interest in the CSA for his stories about Spain's influence in the Western Hemisphere, as Spain is a valued ally and trading nation. The US Congress and President McKinley want to establish an American Empire. However, with only 20 states, they are no so quick to project military might. Their southernmost port is Philadelphia, not Florida. The USS Maine is never dispatched to Havana harbor and does not sink there. Teddy Roosevelt never leads the Rough Riders in a cavalry charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba. He does not win the Congressional Medal of Honor. The United States has no naval presence in the Pacific, and does not attack the Spanish at Manila.

Theodore Roosevelt still becomes Vice President, and eventually becomes President in 1901 when McKinley is assassinated.

Theodore Roosevelt leads the project to build the Panama Canal. Many CSA companies participate, but the CSA government does not spend money unconstitutionally on the project.

Hoover Dam is not built by the US government, but by a consortium of the seven states served by the Colorado River. Its name remains the Boulder Dam.

The CSA continues to gain its revenue from tariffs, and there is never an income tax of any kind.

There is no CSA standing army, but each state has its militia. The CSA does have a Navy, authorized in its Constitution.

Oil is discovered in Texas, Oklahoma and the Gulf of Mexico. Over time, the CSA becomes an exporter of petroleum products to the North, as Northern oil fields do not produce what they need. The CSA is entirely self-sufficient in oil and gas. Because there is no inflation, crude oil prices never exceed $20 per barrel.

Coal is also produced and exported to the North from the vast fields of Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia (remember that West Virginia is not formed by Lincoln).

The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in 1914 starts WWI. As a result of the overlapping treaty obligations between various European nations, the continent is gripped by war. Even though US President Wilson desires entry into the war, the USA does not have either the military might or the political will to enter. The USA gives support of munitions and material to the Allies in much smaller quantities but does not commit ground troops to the Continent. Germany wins, and the maps of Europe are redrawn. There is no Treaty of Versailles. Germany projects its military might worldwide with its navy, a superior force to the defeated British navy. However, Germany is very friendly with the CSA, who stayed neutral in the war. It is more hostile toward the US.

After 1918, Germany becomes a major world power. No communism develops in Russia, as a strong Germany would not tolerate it, and was positioned geographically to do something about it. Hitler remains an obscure paper-hanger and non-entity.

The Ottoman Turkish Empire is not defeated in WWI. Consequently, the territories controlled by Turkey are not divided, and the British do not get the opportunity to establish Palestine, Syria and Trans-Jordan in 1918. This also means that the state of Israel was not established in 1948. Prior to World War I, the best major European countries in which to be Jewish were Germany and Austria. The vast Jewish communities of Central and Eastern Europe would have held their traditional places in multi-nation-empires, instead of becoming aliens in new nation-states. The Jewish diaspora from Russia and Europe to North America would not have occurred in such large numbers. Consequently, many of the Jewish movie directors, producers, writers, composers and actors would have stayed in Europe.

Hollywood does not become the world's entertainment center, but Berlin does. But Hollywood does become an important center of entertainment in Los Angeles, California, CSA.

The Great Depression of 1929 does still occur in the USA because of the formation of the Federal Reserve and fractional banking. However, the CSA is enriched by it, since the CSA's money is backed by gold and silver, with no inflation. Thousands of businesses and millions of people relocate to the South and West.

Japan becomes one of the leading nations of the Far East. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not bombed with nuclear weapons in 1945.

Russia remains a monarchy. Communism never gains a toehold. V.I. Lenin, Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin remain obscure theorists. No Iron Curtain. No Cold War. No use for thousands of ICMBs...they were never built.

No Communist Cuba. The CSA has a very strong relationship with Cuba, and is Cuba's primary trading partner. Cuba emulates the CSA's constitution, and becomes a beacon of freedom for Latin and South America. However, the US also trades with Cuba since no embargo was enacted.

Mao Tse Tung and his wife are communists and work to bring Communism to China. They are arrested and executed in 1927. No more Communism in China.

China's emperor embraces capitalism, and China becomes a leading world power.

Word War II does not occur, since none of the reasons for the war existed.

The Jewish Holocaust does not occur.

The Wright brothers fly their airplane in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, NC. Over the remaining part of the 20th Century, aeronautic innovation occurs primarily in private aviation, since the USA and CSA were not consumed by and planning wars.

NASA is not created by governments, but private enterprise develops rocket technology.

No United Nations is formed.

No Korean War. The Korean Peninsula is not split by Chinese Communism, and the nation remains whole.

John F. Kennedy is not assassinated in Dallas in 1963. However, his Executive Order 11110 on June 4, 1963 to issue silver-backed money and de-fund the Federal Reserve still gets him assassinated in a Northern city. Someone other than Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas becomes the next president.

The CSA embraces nuclear power, and dozens of nuclear power generating plants spring up all over the nation. The CSA generates 90% of its electrical needs through clean, safe nuclear power.

No Vietnam War, and only one Vietnamese nation exists because China is not promoting Communism.

No Gulf Wars.

In the entire 140-plus year history of the Confederate States of America, there is no warfare, save the one day of battle on July 21, 1861 in Virginia.

Over 150 million people are not killed by governments and wars during the 20th century. All because Jefferson Davis did not hesitate to act on a day in July of 1861.

One Man Can Make A Difference.


Copyright © 2008, All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted with permission of the author.

Russell D. Longcore is one of those rare individuals who has found the perfect career and enjoys every minute of his work. Russell has an insurance claims practice headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. In his career, he has handled claims as simple as a water leak in a home, and as complicated as multi-million dollar commercial property and liability losses. Russell is one of the leading authorites in North America on the insurance claims process. He is the author of the most popular book at Amazon.com on insurance claims, entitled "Insurance Claim Secrets REVEALED!" Russ invites you to visit his website at: http://www.insurance-claim-secrets.com/

He is married to "his redhead," Julie, and has three wonderful children, and three even more wonderful grandchildren.

The American Lenin

By L. Neil Smith
http://www.lneilsmith.org/abelenin.html

It's harder and harder these days to tell a liberal from a conservative -- given the former category's increasingly blatant hostility toward the First Amendment, and the latter's prissy new disdain for the Second Amendment -- but it's still easy to tell a liberal from a libertarian.
Just ask about either Amendment.

If what you get back is a spirited defense of the ideas of this country's Founding Fathers, what you've got is a libertarian. By shameful default, libertarians have become America's last and only reliable stewards of the Bill of Rights.

But if -- and this usually seems a bit more difficult to most people -- you'd like to know whether an individual is a libertarian or a conservative, ask about Abraham Lincoln.

Suppose a woman -- with plenty of personal faults herself, let that be stipulated -- desired to leave her husband: partly because he made a regular practice, in order to go out and get drunk, of stealing money she had earned herself by raising chickens or taking in laundry; and partly because he'd already demonstrated a proclivity for domestic violence the first time she'd complained about his stealing.

Now, when he stood in the doorway and beat her to a bloody pulp to keep her home, would we memorialize him as a hero? Or would we treat him like a dangerous lunatic who should be locked up, if for no other reason, then for trying to maintain the appearance of a relationship where there wasn't a relationship any more? What value, we would ask, does he find in continuing to possess her in an involuntary association, when her heart and mind had left him long ago?

History tells us that Lincoln was a politically ambitious lawyer who eagerly prostituted himself to northern industrialists who were unwilling to pay world prices for their raw materials and who, rather than practice real capitalism, enlisted brute government force -- "sell to us at our price or pay a fine that'll put you out of business" -- for dealing with uncooperative southern suppliers. That's what a tariff's all about. In support of this "noble principle", when southerners demonstrated what amounted to no more than token resistance, Lincoln permitted an internal war to begin that butchered more Americans than all of this country's foreign wars -- before or afterward -- rolled into one.

Lincoln saw the introduction of total war on the American continent -- indiscriminate mass slaughter and destruction without regard to age, gender, or combat status of the victims -- and oversaw the systematic shelling and burning of entire cities for strategic and tactical purposes. For the same purposes, Lincoln declared, rather late in the war, that black slaves were now free in the south -- where he had no effective jurisdiction -- while declaring at the same time, somewhat more quietly but for the record nonetheless, that if maintaining slavery could have won his war for him, he'd have done that, instead.

The fact is, Lincoln didn't abolish slavery at all, he nationalized it, imposing income taxation and military conscription upon what had been a free country before he took over -- income taxation and military conscription to which newly "freed" blacks soon found themselves subjected right alongside newly-enslaved whites. If the civil war was truly fought against slavery -- a dubious, "politically correct" assertion with no historical evidence to back it up -- then clearly, slavery won.

Lincoln brought secret police to America, along with the traditional midnight "knock on the door", illegally suspending the Bill of Rights and, like the Latin America dictators he anticipated, "disappearing" thousands in the north whose only crime was that they disagreed with him. To finance his crimes against humanity, Lincoln allowed the printing of worthless paper money in unprecedented volumes, ultimately plunging America into a long, grim depression -- in the south, it lasted half a century -- he didn't have to live through, himself.

In the end, Lincoln didn't unite this country -- that can't be done by force -- he divided it along lines of an unspeakably ugly hatred and resentment that continue to exist almost a century and a half after they were drawn. If Lincoln could have been put on trial in Nuremburg for war crimes, he'd have received the same sentence as the highest-ranking Nazis.

If libertarians ran things, they'd melt all the Lincoln pennies, shred all the Lincoln fives, take a wrecking ball to the Lincoln Memorial, and consider erecting monuments to John Wilkes Booth. Libertarians know Lincoln as the worst President America has ever had to suffer, with Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson running a distant second, third, and fourth.

Conservatives, on the other hand, adore Lincoln, publicly admire his methods, and revere him as the best President America ever had. One wonders: is this because they'd like to do, all over again, all of the things Lincoln did to the American people? Judging from their taste for executions as a substitute for individual self-defense, their penchant for putting people behind bars -- more than any other country in the world, per capita, no matter how poorly it works to reduce crime -- and the bitter distaste they display for Constitutional "technicalities" like the exclusionary rule, which are all that keep America from becoming the world's largest banana republic, one is well-justified in wondering.

The troubling truth is that, more than anybody else's, Abraham Lincoln's career resembles and foreshadows that of V.I. Lenin, who, with somewhat better technology at his disposal, slaughtered millions of innocents -- rather than mere hundreds of thousands -- to enforce an impossibly stupid idea which, in the end, like forced association, was proven by history to be a resounding failure. Abraham Lincoln was America's Lenin, and when America has finally absorbed that painful but illuminating truth, it will finally have begun to recover from the War between the States.

A Historical Sign that opened my Eyes

When a person sets out on a quest to visit each of the 3,141 counties or their equivilents in the United States, as I am doing, he never knows what unexpected discoveries he may make along the way.

This simple interpretative sign at Tannehill Historical State Park in Alabama was a catalyst that made a deep and lasting impact on my life. When I first read it several years ago I would never have imagined the quest for knowledge on which it would lead me.

I had read countless other such signs during my travels, but for some unknown reason this one particular sign on that day resonated deeply with me - especially the description of actions taken by Union troops from Iowa who were here during the latter days of the War Between the States:

"... they torched all the adjacent factory buildings, slave cabins, a large gristmill and tannery and a storehouse for food and supplies. In the fire Tannehill’s workforce of over 500 slaves and white mechanics were scattered and displaced."

Whoa, I thought! The Yankees burned the slave cabins along with those of the white workers? Hundreds of people were left with no shelter, no food, and nowhere to go?

Although I grew up in the South, I had been told all my life that the Union troops marched south to free the slaves. If that were so, then why did the Northerners burn the slaves out, leaving them destitute, homeless and hungry. Elsewhere on the grounds of the Tannehill Historical State Park I saw a large patch of woods, marked as the site of scores of slave cabins which the Yankees had ransacked, plundered and then destroyed - cabins that would have been equal to those of my own Irish and Cherokee ancestors in Alabama and Georgia during the same era.

I began to make the connection to other discoveries from my travels, such as a monument to black Confederate soldiers in Mississippi and an antebellum plantation in Louisiana owned by a black slaveholder. I had previously dismissed such things as curious flukes, but now I was beginning to see a pattern which contradicted most of what I had always assumed I knew about the War Between the States.

It occurred to me that somebody was lying about what really happened during the so called Civil War, and I determined to find out the truth. It's not that I didn't know American History. I am better read and know much more history than the average person. But when it came to the War Between the States, I had learned primarily only the version of that conflict which was written by the victors, the North, and not the supressed Southern side of the story.

During the years since that fateful day I have spent thousands of hours studying about the Confederacy, the causes of secession, and the War Between the States. As I have read scores of books and have continued to visit hundreds of historical sites I looked for clues to the real story, unvarnished by political correctness. To say that the things I have learned have been an eyeopener is an understatement.

That historical sign at Tannehill State Park in Alabama was a catalyst in the chain of events that brought me to the point of beginning this blog. In the coming weeks and months I will continue sharing many more of the amazing discoveries I have made about the Confederate States of America.

The Overall Best Book about the War Between the States

The War Between the States:
America's Uncivil War

If I could keep only one book out of the scores of titles in my library about America's War of 1861-1865, it would be The War Between the States - America's Uncivil War, by John J. Dwyer. Author/Editor Dwyer, along with several contributing editors, are to be commended for their monumental achievement in producing a book which gives a very fair and balanced account of the War Between the States - the good and the bad of both North and South - without the political spin which seems to be standard for most books about America's so called Civil War.

I must confess that I hesitated to buy this book at first because of the price. Now I wish I had gotten it sooner. This meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated volume is a complete account of the Confederacy and the War for Southern Independence with more information packed between its covers than any five ordinary books.

The War Between the States: America's Uncivil War is a joy to read. One could well explore it's 700 pages from front to back, cover to cover. However, the layout lends itself readily to browsing as well. The chapters and subdivisions make it possible to open the book at any point and immediately find interesting, well presented, stand alone articles.

This valuable reference work is used by many private schools and home schoolers but it definitely doesn't have the stodginess of most textbooks. I find myself referring back to time and again. It is a treasure that I will always keep and guard jealously in my personal library.

Naming the War of 1861 - 1865

In front of the Highland County Courthouse in downtown Hillsboro, Ohio, you will see this monument to the Highland County soldiers and sailors who fought for the Union (North) in America's War Between the States. I found it interesting that the monument refers to the conflict as the "War of the Rebellion." That's what the British might have called the American Revolution if the Colonies had lost in their struggle for independence.

America's war of 1861-1865 was not a true civil war, as it is commonly called. A civil war is one in which a segment of the population rises up in an effort to overthrow the government. The South had no such desire. They simply wanted to peacefully leave the Union, in a day when many people held a higher allegiance to their home state than they did to the nation. Some southerners still call the conflict the "War against Northern Aggression," which is an accurate name since it was the South which was in the defensive position.

The War also has many other names. Some of these include:

The War for Constitutional Liberty
The War for Southern Independence
The Second American Revolution
The War for States' Rights
Mr. Lincoln's War
The Southern Rebellion
The War for Southern Rights
The War of the Southern Planters
The Second War for Independence
The War to Suppress Yankee Arrogance
The Brothers' War
The War of Secession
The Great Rebellion
The War for Nationality
The War for Southern Nationality
The War of the Sixties
The Yankee Invasion
The War for Separation
The War for the Union
The Confederate War
The War of the Southrons
The War for Southern Freedom
The War of the North and South
The Lost Cause
The War to Prevent Southern Independence

In doing a Google search for these names I found that the three most widely used are:

1. Civil War
2. War of the Rebellion
3. War Between the States

Of these three I prefer the third: War Between the States. By the very definition of the term it was not a civil war. Also, it was not a war of rebellion because the so called "Rebels" did not start the war and they only fought defensively. The Confederate states simply wanted to remain free and sovereign states as outlined by the United States Constitution. Probably the most accurate of all the names in the first list is "The War to Prevent Southern Independence."

The original historical accounts attest to the fact that America's war of 1861-1865 was definitely "Mr. Lincoln's War." Mr. Lincoln alone is responsible for starting the war. He could easily have let the South go in peace, as most of his advisers and hundreds of northern newspapers recommended. Abraham Lincoln started and executed the illegal and unnecessary war, resulting in more than 620,000 deaths and the almost total destruction of the South, for only one reason - to prevent Southern Independence. He didn't want to lose the southern tariffs which provided more than 87% of the Federal budget - money which was spent primarily in the northern states. Mr. Lincoln's War to Prevent Southern independence was a war motivated by greed and the lust for power.

-

Photo and Article by J. Stephen Conn

In Georgia it's the "War Between the States"

The thing about this plaque which caught my eye is that America's war of 1861-1865 is properly called the "War Between the States."

While on a trip to visit my grandchildren in Georgia over the Robert E. Lee/Martin Luther King Jr. long weekend, we stopped at a rest area on I-75 in Gordon County, north Georgia, where I saw the plaque honoring Georgia veterans, and all American soldiers who have been POWs (prisoners of war) or MIAs (missing in action). Interestingly, this rest area is directly on the route General William T. Sherman took when his invading Union army marched south on their way to plunder and burn Atlanta.

Most people nowadays call that darkest hour in the history of the United States the "Civil War." Few who do so realize they are parroting a bit of propaganda first used by Abraham Lincoln in an effort to put a better face on a brutal war of aggression which was both unnecessary and illegal.

A true civil war is one in which two or more opposing sides fight for control over the government of a single country. That was definitely not the case in the War Between the States. The South had no more desire to conquer Washington than the colonies wanted to rule London during the American Revolution. Believing that the United States had departed from the original intent of the Constitution, the people of the seceding states in the South saw themselves as fighting a war for indepencence -a Second American Revolution.

During and after the War Between the States, the government in Washington called it the "War of the Rebellion," which is reflected to this day on countless monuments throughout the northern states. "War Between the States" was a term popularized by Alexander H. Stephens, a constitutional authority, former Governor of Georgia, and Vice President of the Confederate States of America.

Abraham Lincoln, who was a master of political spin, used the term "civil war" during his Gettysburg Address, but it took many more decades of "politically correct" revisionism before the term came into general use. There has never been an American Civil War, and every time I see the term I cringe a bit at the erroneous message it sends.

Many other terms have been used to label America's war of 1861-1865. I'll talk about a few more of them in a later post.

Click on the photo above to enlarge it for much easier reading.

-

Photo and Article by J. Stephen Conn