19th Century Fake News
While Fake News may be a new term, the concept has a long history. We have been taught that a free, independent, and ethical press is essential for a free society to function and thrive;… »
Franklin Pierce, Political Protest, & the Dilemmas of Democracy
On the stump in New Boston, New Hampshire in early January 1852, Franklin Pierce gave a long oration during which free-soil hecklers forced him to address his ideas on slavery. “He was not in favor… »
Was the South Poor Before the War?
This essay was written in 1982 under the direction of Emory Thomas at the University of Georgia and was originally titled, “The Affluent Section: The South on the Eve of the War Between the States.”… »
The Abolitionist Secessionist?
“To live honestly is to hurt no one, and give to every one his due.”-Lysander Spooner Lysander Spooner was a Boston legal scholar and philosopher during the nineteenth century. What makes this man of Massachusetts… »
The Plundering Generation
This piece was originally published in Southern Partisan magazine in 1987-88. A few years ago I was shuffling through accumulated litter in my garage attic when I came across some clippings dating from the 1960s.… »
The Cruel Winter of 1865 in South Carolina
January 2015 ushers in the last year of the sesquicentennial of the War for Southern Independence. One hundred and fifty years ago, the first month of 1865 was the beginning of a cruel and catastrophic… »
Northern Resistance to Abolitionists
Reprinted from Circa1865.com Anti-abolition sentiment was often found north of Mason and Dixon’s line and evidenced by incidents like the 1837 shooting death of abolitionist Elija Lovejoy in Alton, Ohio. The local citizenry tried to… »
Steady Habits and Chivalry
The burden of our endeavour in this conference is to examine the great morality play of Northern Good versus Southern Evil that is the conventional history of anti-slavery in the United States. This convention dominates… »
John C. Calhoun and Slavery as a “Positive Good:” What He Said
The “positive good” speech of February 6, 1837, is vintage Calhoun, an exercise of his conception of the proper role of a statesmen placed in the highest deliberative body of the Union. That role was… »
Centennial Wars
Fifty years ago the master narrative of the Civil War Centennial failed to synchronize with the momentous 1960s Civil Rights movement. It minimized the roles of slavery and race. Instead the War was characterized as… »
