Today I came across the commonly-offered argument that the Civil War wasn't about slavery, but "states rights", a term that has regained currency in recent years. I consider this to be extraordinarily disingenuous, an attempt to whitewash history. And whitewash is definitely the term to use in this case.
The reason, of course, is because the war was about states rights. Unfortunately for the people who argue that, they never finish the thought. The end of that is "to own slaves". That's right, the Civil War was about the southern states' right to retain the "peculiar institution" of slavery. To argue otherwise ignores the known history of the abolitionist movement and everything leading up to the Civil War. Should we ignore the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Dred Scott decision? Should we ignore the aftermath of the war, when the South fought Reconstruction tooth and nail until it was ended as a result of the compromise that installed Rutherford B. Hayes as the President? How about Jim Crow, Plessy v. Ferguson, separate but equal, the "Lost Year" in Little Rock, and the necessity to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
Shall I go on? I didn't even scratch the surface of the virulent racism in this country, both before and after the Civil War. But we are expected to believe that the Civil War was about non-specific states' rights that were being abridged by the northern states, ones that have never been named? Sure, we ought to just take their word for it in this case.
The Big Lie: it works everywhere it's tried. Goebbels had nothing on the good ol' boys. Only in this case, it's a lie that doesn't go away. It didn't die with a Confederate defeat, it didn't die with integration, it didn't die with legislation. And it's still passed around as absolute truth.
There is only one bit of good news: anybody who says it identifies themselves as a racist and an idiot. And that's no lie. Thank God for small favors.
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