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.
Tenth Amendment Keepers 