THE DEBATE FOR HISTORICAL TRUTH

by Leonard M. Scruggs (with a Comment at the end by Diane Rufino), September 26, 2023

FORWARD: The Battle for Historical Truth (from Leonard Scrugg’s book THE UN-CIVIL WAR: Shattering the Historical Myths), by Leonard M. Scruggs

Shortly before his death at the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, on November 30, 1864, Confederate General Patrick Cleburne reminded his comrades in arms of the possible cost of surrender: “Surrender means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy, that our youths will be trained by Northern school teachers who have been taught from Northern school books which detail THEIR version of the war and taught to regard our gallant dead as traitors and our maimed veterans as fit subjects of derision.”

This was particularly true during the Reconstruction years from 1865 through 1877. Not only was the South exploited economically, it was also subjected to continuous political despotism in an attempt to remold its social and political structures in the image of Northern radicalism. The concomitant objective of this tyrannical reign was to maintain the dominant national party in power without serious opposition. In addition, many Northern politicians campaigning at home “waved the bloody shirt,” reminding Northern voters how much invading the South had cost in Northern blood and treasure. Demonization of the South and the cause of Southern independence (which, by the way, was a peaceful and well-organized feat) continued to be a dominant feature of Northern politics for many decades.

In an address to graduates of Hampden Sidney College in Virginia in 1887, prominent theologian Robert L. Dabney advised them that Northern interests were straining every nerve to falsify or misrepresent history in order to justify the late war and sustain Northern national dominance. He warned them that “With a gigantic sweep of mendacity, this literature aims to falsify or misrepresent everything – the very facts of history, the principles of the former Constitution as admitted in the days of freedom by all statesmen of all parties…..The whole sway of their commercial and political ascendency is exerted to fill the South with this false literature. Its sheets come up, like the frogs of ancient Egypt, into our houses, our bed chambers, our very feeding troughs.”

Union propaganda generally served up a self-justifying misrepresentation of the war as a morality play in which a noble Union Army marched forth to battle for the glorious and noble purpose of emancipating down-trodden slaves from evil Southerners. This explanation has been continued in an even more strident and self-righteous form in modern political correctness. These often-repeated assertions attempt to claim the moral high ground for Northern aggression and to discredit the South’s resistance to that aggression as “morally wrong.”

No serious student of the so-called “Civil War” believes that the Union invaded the South to emancipate the slaves. Slavery was non-existent in the North and so, why would they care how the southern states chose to base their economy. Such ignorance, however, is commonplace. Even today, mistreatment and discrimination against African-Americans is blamed on the South’s dependence on slavery and its belief that slaves are a lower-class of human beings. This propagandistic version of the war is commonly taught in public schools, and, in ignorance, even in many Christian schools. Yet it has little basis in fact. Slavery was an issue between the North and South, but not in the propagandistic, fabricated moral sense usually assumed. The extension of slavery into new territories was an issue. The Northern States wanted to preserve the new states for free labor without unfair competition from slave labor, but they also feared the possible social consequences of bringing in large numbers of African-Americans into the new territories. Most Northern legislatures severely restricted the entry of such individuals, slave or free, into their states. Southern political leaders, on the other hand, felt that legislation preventing Southern immigrants from bringing their slaves into the new territories violated their property rights and was designed to assure Northern dominance in the new states and the national Congress. It was in the latter sense a matter of political numbers – part of an ongoing national struggle for legislative dominance in Congress. It was the fear of unfettered Northern political dominance that made limited Constitutional government and States’ Rights paramount to the interests of Southern States.

President Woodrow Wilson was once asked how the role of slavery became so distorted and exaggerated as to be used as the cause of the Civil War. Wilson gave this succinct answer: “It was necessity to put the South at a moral disadvantage by transforming the contest from a war waged against states fighting to defend their Constitutional right to independence into a war waged against states fighting for the maintenance and extension of slavery….”

In the decades before the “Civil War,” the political parties that dominated the North and South had come to have almost opposite interpretations of the US Constitution. The Republican Party that emerged in the late 1860s as the dominant party in the North was essentially a big-business/big-government party willing to sacrifice the Constitution to national industrial and political greatness. Yet the South believed in the vision of our Founding Fathers that the Constitution, Constitutional government, and especially States’ Rights were essential to its political and economic well-being. At that time, the terms “Conservative” and “Democrat” were virtual political synonyms.

Southerners also believed that they were being forced to submit to a government whose character had been hijacked and sacrificed to sectionalism. This sectionalism had been most flagrant in the protective tariffs passed to benefit Northern interests (northern industry and infostructure) and imposed against strong Southern opposition beginning in 1834. This culminated in the passage of the Morrill Tariff, signed into law on February 2, 1861, which imposed tremendous hardship on the South for the benefit of Northern industry. This legislation, endorsed publicly by Abraham Lincoln as he campaigned in 1860, nearly tripled the tariff burden on the South and virtually forced the cotton-producing states to secede. The immediate cause of armed conflict, beyond the bloodless confrontation at Fort Sumter, was Lincoln’s call for 75,000 troops on April 15 to put down the “rebellion” of seceding states and assure that the tariff would continue to be collected.

Few modern writers recognize that there was also an underlying religious conflict between the North and South that went to more fundamental depths than the debate over slavery. Secular propaganda has succeeded in framing the issue as a debate over slavery, but the truly essential issue was a debate over the authority and interpretation of Scripture, with the South taking the conservative side of the debate. Southern Biblical conservatives had their allies in the North, but one Southern cleric remarked that the North and South had fundamentally different interpretations of the Constitution and the Bible.

There were several decades from the late 1890s until the end of the 1950s that saw a reconciliation of the North and South. This was largely the result of efforts by the veterans on both sides of the war. Despite differences, each side treated the other with respect and even admiration. Southern cultural symbols thrived in a relatively friendly atmosphere of mutual understanding.

In the early 1960s, however, legitimate civil rights issues began to be pushed beyond the pale of Constitutional government, sound judgment, and fairness. Liberal politicians and demagogues then began to use the issues of slavery and race again as a weapon to shut down debate on issues like school-busing for the purpose of racial balance, racial quotas and preferences, and other coercive methods of social change reminiscent of Reconstruction, This eventually led to tyrannical social and academic political correctness being imposed on any discussion of issues related to race, slavery, and the “Civil War.” These intellectual chains have also spread to any issue that conflicts with the new dominant philosophy of secular humanism. Unfortunately, the chains of political correctness are most heavily forged in academia, where children imprint on their teachers and adopt their lessons. Degrees, grants, scholarships, promotions, publication opportunities, intern opportunities, ad academic prestige are often dependent on adherence to politically correct dogma and presuppositions.

NOTE: Secular humanism is a nonreligious worldview that values human reason, ethics, and naturalism. Secular humanists do not rely on faith, doctrine, or mysticism, but on compassion, critical thinking, and human experience. They reject religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality and decision-making.

One purpose of this book is to expose the historical errors and myths about the inappropriately-named Civil War that have been imposed on an ignorant and uninterested public, largely unaware that historical truth has been obscured by political agenda and an ambitious government. It has been the narrative of political correctness.

Reference: Leonard M. Scruggs,THE UN-CIVIL WAR: SHATTERING THE HISTORICAL MYTHS   Foreward) Published by Universal Media, 2011.

BLOGGER’S COMMENT:  I have been saying all the things Mr. Scruggs discussed in his book’s “Foreword: The Battle for Historical Truth” for over 40 years. You can imagine how happy I was to finally read his highly-acclaimed book, “The Un-Civil War – Shattering the Historical Myths.” As you may already know, I am a lawyer, and in particular, a Constitutional attorney. I take the Constitution seriously – as a social compact, agreed upon by the people of this country, organized into individual States, and being ratified by their delegates in conferences specifically designated for the debate on the Constitution of 1787 and ultimately to its adoption or rejection. The Constitution, essentially a contract, was an agreement among the States, as its parties, intended to create a Union and a “common government” for that purpose. The federal government, or “common government,” was never intended to usurp powers from other rightful sovereigns that it felt it needed or wanted. And this is exactly what Lincoln did in 1861, almost immediately after he was inaugurated as our sixteenth president. He was our nation’s greatest tyrant. He obviously never read the Declaration of Independence, a secessionist document as well as one that articulates inalienable and God-given rights. He tricked South Carolina into “initiating hostilities” at Fort Sumter and proceeded to invade and subjugate the Confederate States in order to “bring them back into the Union” – for which he had absolutely no authority to do. He has been nationally celebrated for all this and in recognition, he has been given the most important monument on Washington DC’s “National Mall” – opposite from the Washington Monument. His monument, in its design and placement on the Mall, signifies that he reunited the states. Lincoln looks out to see Washington, as if they were of one vision. Oh please. 

We, the American colonies “seceded” from Great Britain because of its long history of tyrannical kings, its abuse of its subjects, and conduct of the “present King” (King George) and Parliament towards the colonists, which Jefferson articulated as “a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” Great Britain had the right to use force to bring us back into its fold, which it tried hard to do, with the Revolutionary War…. which is one very important reason why the Founders designed our government to be ideologically different from that of Great Britain and to be “of the People, by the People, and for the People” (second paragraph, Declaration of Independence).

Why would we, the United States, glorify Lincoln so visually and respectfully when he was exactly the type of leader that the Declaration characterized as a perfect reason for political separation (secession) – an absolute tyrant? He is glorified and honored by the federal government and perhaps that makes perfect sense; he did more than any other president to transform the “common” government into the government we have today.

If you have an opinion on this matter, please feel free to share. If you need to do your own research, I’d suggest reading this book and maybe a book or two by Thomas DiLorenzo.

SLAVERY WAS NOT THE CAUSE OF THE CIVIL WAR (by Leonard M. Scruggs)

by Leonard “Mike” Scruggs

No serious student of the Civil War believes that the Union invaded the South to emancipate the slaves. Such ignorance, however, is commonplace. This propagandistic version of the war is commonly taught in public schools, and, in ignorance, even in many Christian schools. Yet it has little basis in fact. Slavery was an issue between the North and South, but not in the propagandistic, fabricated moral sense usually assumed. The extension of slavery into new territories was an issue. The Northern States wanted to preserve the new states for free labor without unfair competition from slave labor, but they also feared the possible social consequences of bringing in large numbers of blacks into the new territories. Most Northern legislatures severely restricted the entry of blacks, slave or free, into their states. Southern political leaders, on the other hand, felt that legislation preventing Southern immigrants from bringing their slaves into the new territories violated their property rights and was designed to assure Northern dominance in the new states and the national Congress. It was in the latter sense a matter of political numbers – part of an ongoing struggle for legislative dominance in Congress. It was the fear of unfettered Northern political dominance that made limited Constitutional government and States Rights paramount to the interests of Southern states.

Southerners believed they were being forced to submit to a government whose character had been sacrificed to sectionalism. This sectionalism had been most flagrant in the protective tariffs passed to benefit Northern industry and imposed against strong Southern opposition beginning in 1824 (indeed, South Carolina nearly seceded over the issue; refer to the Nullification Crisis of 1832). This culminated in the passage of the Morrill Tariff, signed into law on February 2, 1861, which imposed tremendous hardship on the South for the benefit of Northern industry. This legislation nearly tripled the tariff burden on the South and virtually compelled the cotton producing states to secede. The immediate cause of armed conflict beyond the bloodless Fort Sumter confrontation was, however, Lincoln’s call for 75,000 troops on April 15 to put down the “rebellion” of seceding states and assure the tariff was collected.

Woodrow Wilson was once asked how the role of slavery became so distorted and exaggerated as a cause of the Civil War.  Wilson gave this succinct answer: “It was necessary to put the South at a moral disadvantage by transforming the contest from a war waged against states fighting for their independence into a war waged against states fighting for the maintenance and extension of slavery.”

Reference: Excerpt from Leonard “Mike” Scrugg’s book: THE UN-CIVIL WAR: SHATTERING THE HISTORICAL MYTHS  (the Foreward)

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THE CONFEDERATE FLAG IS NOT A SYMBOL OF RACISM

There are those who say that the display of the Confederate Battle Flag is insensitive. They say it is a symbol of slavery and offends many people. But their offense is based on ignorance of its true origin and history. Their offense is based on decades of unquestioned propaganda attempting to justify an unjust war and its deplorable tyranny and conduct.

One of the underlying causes of the war was the growing religious difference between the North and the South. By 1850, the original Calvanism of the New England Puritans had been in steep decline for generations. The Calvanism and orthodox Christianity of the Puritan fathers was being eroded and displaced by Deism, Unitarianism, Universalism, and Transcendentalism…the antecedents of modern liberalism. A few strong bastions, like Princeton, remained, but the majority of Scripture, the sovereignty of God, and the centrality of Christ’s redeeming grace were fighting a losing battle against secularism and numerous heresies. The godly zeal of the first Puritans had been replaced by zeal to reform society by government force. On the other hand, the South was not only holding fast to traditional Christian teachings, but was experiencing a dramatic revival, culminating in more than 150,000 conversions in the Confederate Army alone during the war.  And so, when it came time to decide on a design for the Confederate Battle Flag – to identify the Confederate troops on the battlefield – the CSA (Confederate States of America) looked to the St. Andrews flag, adopted by the Scots to identify themselves as a Christian people. St. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland. (When Saint Andrew was to be put to death and martyred, he requested to be crucified on a diagonal cross. He, like his brother Peter, felt himself unworthy to be crucified on the upright cross of Christ. And so, the Confederate Battle Flag or “Southern Cross” was adopted with the intention of signifying the Christian heritage of the Southern people. “The flag should be a token of humble acknowledgement of God and  be a public testimony to the world that our trust is in the Lord our God,” explained the designer of the flag, William Miles.

The men who carried the Southern cross into battle never meant it to be a symbol of slavery. Their letters and diaries prove it was far from their minds. Not many of them owned slaves or favored its continued existence for very long in the future.  Less than 25% of Southern households owned slaves. So far as slavery was concerned, they only wanted the right to deal with it in their own way, in their own time, state-by-state, just as the Northern states  had done. The Union Army did not invade the South to free slaves. They invaded the South to prevent the political and economic independence. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation came after more than 19 months of war (with the South having the upper hand) and did not actually free any slaves in the Union or Union-held areas of the Confederacy. It was done as a war measure in hopes of causing disorder and mayhem in the South. Only later was the slavery issue used in an attempt to give tyranny a pious justification.

The right to define the meaning of the Confederate Battle Flag, or any flag, belongs to those who, by their history and by the blood they shed in loyalty to it, own its heritage, Radical and lawless groups often display the United States flag, but this does not change its true meaning to fair-minded people. Nor should fair-minded people rightly associate the Confederate Battle Flag with evil. Groups such as the NAACP and SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center, a hate group) have no right to define the meaning of Confederate flags any more than the French have the right to define the meaning of the Italian flag or any other flag but their own. Redefining and slandering someone else’s heritage and symbols is incredibly arrogant and stirs up needless strife. Honorable people pursuing a just and civil society do not seek to dishonor and marginalize the heritage and symbols of others. To Confederate soldiers and their families, the Confederate Battle Flag symbolized their Christian heritage and resistance to tyranny. They were fighting for the right of Southern States and their people to determine their own political destiny, just as their Revolutionary War forefathers had fought the British. They were fighting against the evil of unjust taxation and many other abuses of power perpetrated by Northern political factions, in violation of the US Constitution and the compact that brought the States together in the first place. They were fighting to free themselves of a Northern political dominance that had enriched the Northern states at the expense of the Southern states, thus oppressing them unfairly.  After many years of hardship and blood spent on the battlefield, the Southern Cross came to symbolize the courage and blood of the Confederate soldier and the Southern people. They believed in the justice and righteousness of their cause, and when the surrender at Appomattox came, they gave up their regimental banners with tears and heartbreak.

Those in the South and those whose ancestors served the Southern cause, we must honor the memory of those fallen in the great struggle beneath the Southern Cross.

The Reverend James Power Smith, the last surviving member of Stonewall Jackson’s staff, had this to say in 1907: “No cowardice on any battlefield could be as base and shameful as the silent acquiescence in the scheme which was teaching the children in their homes and schools that the commercial value of slavery was the cause of the war, that prisoners of war held in the South were starved and treated with barbarous inhumanity, that Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee were traitors to their country and false to their oaths, that the young men who left everything to resist invasion, and climbed the slopes of Gettysburg and died willingly on a hundred fields were rebels against a righteous government.”

Let us ask these questions:  How long would a prosperous or social peace based on such disrespect for truth last? How long would a peace built on suppression of a people’s cherished heritage last? How long would a peace built upon suppressing the memory, valor, and virtue of the revered forebearers of a great number of the Southern people last? Does anyone outside of a madhouse believe such reckless villainy would not, in a very short time, reap a whirlwind of social destruction? What could possibly be a surer cause of social strife, bitterness, and economic and political turmoil? Can anyone believe that peace and prosperity can be achieved by discarding the heritage of a numerous people to gain political favor of another? It is more likely to shatter all hope of peace. Can a society set itself against tolerance and mutual respect and have peace?  No fair-minded person can accept such corrupt reasoning.

Reference:  Excerpt from the BOOK – THE UNCIVIL WAR: SHATTERING THE HISTORICAL MYTHS, by Leonard M. (“Mike”) Scruggs. (Chapter 1)

Americans are NOT Taught Their Country’s Correct History

This post is essentially a book review, of Leonard “Mike” Scruggs’ book THE UN-CIVIL WAR: Shattering the Historical Myths Un-Civil War: Shattering the Historical Myths (Universal Media, 2011). The first part is an actual book review, by Tadashi Hama and the remaining 2 sections are from the very beginning of the book.

I highly recommend this book to everyone. You can purchase it on Amazon.com for about $19.00 or less (used options) and on Ebay.

BOOK REVIEW: The Un-Civil War: Shattering the Historical Myths by Leonard M. Scruggs. Reviewed by Tadashi Hama

The most destructive conflict in American history, in terms of both lives lost and property destroyed, the so-called American Civil War, has been poorly represented in modern American history classes and, concurrently, everywhere else. Author Leonard Scruggs points out that the American “Civil War” was “not really a civil war”—the Southern states had no desire of imposing their political will on Washington, D.C. Rather, the Southern states sought to free itself from Washington, D.C. To Northerners, Southern resistance to the narrow interests of Northern industrialists and Northern radical Republicans was entirely unacceptable. The war to Northerners was a “War to Prevent Southern Independence. It was not a glorious crusade to free slaves.” A key misconception of the so-called Civil War is that President Abraham Lincoln waged war against the South to end African slavery. Scruggs points out that ending slavery was not the most critical issue at the time—ending slavery was important only to extremist abolitionists. The greater issue that loomed over America before the first shots were fired was the Republican’s ham-handed imposition of their political and economic will onto the Southern States.

The conventional narrative is that Southern secessionists fought to preserve African slavery. In fact, few Southerners at the time had an economic interest in slavery. Scruggs points out that an average of 26% of Southern households owned slaves and that about 20% of Confederate soldiers owned slaves. Furthermore, Scruggs points out slave-owners were more than willing to do away with slavery if it did not involve “extreme economic hardship,” as the South’s agrarian and export dependent economy was inextricably tangled with slave (that is, cheap, imported) labor. Indeed, the South’s agricultural exports, including cotton, made it the “richest section of the country in 1860.” There were calls well before 1861 for gradual emancipation and compensation to slave-owners. What extremist abolitionists and their Republican allies had in mind, however, was immediate emancipation of all black slaves. What the newly freed but under-educated and unemployed blacks were to do after that was not fully spelled out by Republicans.

For President Lincoln, Scruggs points out, freed blacks were to be deported, either sent back to Africa or to colonize Central America; Lincoln did not see any hope of blacks and whites living together. Lincoln was hardly alone in this line of thinking—Northern states such as Indiana, Ohio, Oregon, and Michigan enacted laws that pointedly excluded blacks from white society. Northern states had long-standing laws against interracial marriage. As a member of the state legislature, Lincoln “fully approved” of prohibiting blacks entry into “free state” Illinois.

Was slavery ever an issue before the outbreak of the so-called Civil War? Before becoming president, candidate Lincoln campaigned on leaving slavery as is in states that allowed it but for prohibition of slavery in the new Western territories. A constitutional amendment (what Scruggs calls the “first Thirteenth Amendment”) that prohibited Congress from interfering with slavery in any state was introduced and passed the U.S. House on February 28, 1861 and then the Senate on March 2, 1861. This amendment was proposed at the time to “reassure Southern States that were threatening to leave the Union that there was not and never would be any danger of any Congressional or Federal interference with slavery in the States.”

Did anyone at the time think that slavery was the key war issue? Following the outbreak of hostilities in April 12, 1861, President Lincoln ordered state governors to supply an army of 75,000 to “put down the Southern rebellion.” A joint Congressional resolution of July 22, 1861 stated that the war was not for the purpose of “overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions [i.e. slavery] of those [Confederate] states, but to … preserve the Union.” In fact, “Northerners actually feared that emancipated Southern slaves might emigrate to the North.” Scruggs points out that even the purpose of the war was clear even to Karl Marx in October 1861: “The war between the North and South is a tariff war. The war is further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for power.” Lincoln himself stated in 1861 to abolitionist Horace Greeley that his main goal was to save the Union: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it…”

Rather than slavery, Scruggs shows that the conflict was due to Northern imposition of economically crushing tariffs. American government revenue at the time was derived largely through tariffs. While the South economically dominated the rest of the US through its exports, the South was heavily dependent on the North and Europe for manufactured goods. Tariffs instituted by Northerners, usually over the strenuous objection of Southerners, not only brought in money to fund the government but also protected Northern manufactures from foreign competition. Furthermore, Scruggs points out that revenues from tariffs benefited mostly the North – “80% or more of these tax revenues were expended on Northern public works and industrial subsidies.”

Tariffs on foreign imports in the first half of the 19th century ranged from 15% to a high of 50%, which, in 1832, evoked the “Nullification Crisis.” South Carolina “called a state convention and nullified the… tariffs as unjust and unconstitutional.” A compromise was eventually worked out, which forestalled armed conflict, with the tariff reduced to 15%.

The newly-formed Republican Party, apparently bereft any historical insight, adopted high protective tariffs as major part of its platform. In 1860, the Republican-dominated House approved a tariff bill, sponsored by Republican Representative and “steel manufacturer” Justin Morrill of Vermont, which raised the tariff from 15% to 37%, with an increase to 47% in three years. During the 1860 presidential campaign, candidate

Lincoln supported the Morrill Tariff. With such a tariff, Southerners saw Washington, D.C. and Northern industries raking in economic windfalls at their expense. At the very least, this goes against the spirit of the Constitution wherein it states that “Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes… and provide for the … general welfare … but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”

By the time the Senate approved the Morrill Tariff bill on March 2, 1861, seven Southern states had seceded from the US and none of the remaining Southern Senators voted for it. President James Buchanan signed the bill into law and President-elect Lincoln vowed to “enforce it even on seceding Southern states.”

Scruggs notes a lesser-known but insidious by-product of the war: the rise of the Union League of America (also known as the “Loyalty League”). Union Leagues were formed in 1862 by Republicans throughout the North in response to early Confederate victories and to counter rising pro-Democratic sympathy in the North. At first, the goals of the Union League were to “support the war, the troops and the Republican Party.” Towards the end of the war, local Unionists in Southern states formed Union Leagues. Key leadership positions in these Southern groups transitioned to Northern “carpetbagger politicians and Federal Army officers.” Membership was “almost exclusively of former slaves and black soldiers of the Federal Army.” Indeed, carpetbaggers installed as governors in former Confederate states during Reconstruction used Union Leagues as their own “black militia” to keep themselves in power. The goals of the Southern Union Leagues were to ensure that blacks registered to vote and to vote Republican. Newly freed blacks were a substantial electorate in many former Confederate states, ranging from about 25% in Tennessee to almost 60% in South Carolina. Union Leaguers resorted to terrorism, including lynching, against blacks to ensure that they voted “correctly.” Union Leaguers also used their newly found privilege as the Republicans’ militia to wreck revenge on Southern whites, with looting, arson and murder.

Scruggs presents for the historically curious other hard facts about the so-called American Civil War. Thinking broadly, one should wonder why it is that demonstrable falsehoods are passed off as genuine history and why unpleasant but true history is diligently ignored.

In the end, based on a distorted view of history, ostensibly intelligent Americans meekly yield to the political and economic demands of supposedly victimized ethnic minorities. In fact, Americans are now willing to yield their own rights and dignity for the sake of social harmony. As Scruggs notes: “… Even in the South there are those who are willing to accept an ignominious degradation of truth and venomous slander against the honor of the Confederate soldier in order to maintain social peace.” Such is the effect of a masochistic view of history. We should take heed that this thinking is not unique to Americans.

Reference: http://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/CivilE.pdf   AND https://faculty.weber.edu/kmackay/statistics_on_slave