As a native Southerner and someone who qualifies for the Daughters of the Confederacy (yee-haw!!) I somewhat sympathize with the CV over slavery being a cause of the Civil War. There is a big difference between the political cause and the social cause of the war. Certainly slavery was a big political cause linked to states rights but the majority of Southerners, including my ancestors, never owned slaves. I'd wager the average Southerner was fighting because he was either conscripted or was mad because some Yankee troops came through and pillaged and/or burned his house and property. Then you have the Shenandoah Campaign in VA where there were no clear dividing lines between Union and Confederate. People tended to fight against the side that raided their lands first. Even in the same family, people fought on both sides of the war. So again, if you asked the average Southerner why he was fighting, slavery would probably not be on his list of reasons. Yet if you asked the politicians, that would certainly be at the top of their list.
I compare it to Nazis vs. Germans. The average German wasn't a Nazi and may have even disagreed with them. German troops weren't Nazi troops yet history seems to lump them together. If I were German, I wouldn't want my child to feel ashamed of his German heritage because he only learned about Nazis in school. Likewise, I don't want to be lumped in with slave owners and racists because of my Southern heritage as well.
It's a complicated issue and certainly a tough one for school textbooks to cover in a fair and balanced manner, especially here in the South. There still is no excuse for relying on the Internet for source material. But sadly, history isn't the only subject that is being mangled by bad textbooks.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-10-22 07:19 pm (UTC)I compare it to Nazis vs. Germans. The average German wasn't a Nazi and may have even disagreed with them. German troops weren't Nazi troops yet history seems to lump them together. If I were German, I wouldn't want my child to feel ashamed of his German heritage because he only learned about Nazis in school. Likewise, I don't want to be lumped in with slave owners and racists because of my Southern heritage as well.
It's a complicated issue and certainly a tough one for school textbooks to cover in a fair and balanced manner, especially here in the South. There still is no excuse for relying on the Internet for source material. But sadly, history isn't the only subject that is being mangled by bad textbooks.