The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader

Resounding documentary proof that the original reasoning behind secession and subsequent myth-making was in defense of slavery and white supremacy Most Americans hold basic misconceptions about the Confederacy, the Civil War, and the actions of subsequent neo-Confederates. For example, two-thirds of Americans--including most history teachers--think the Confederate States seceded for states' rights. This error persists because most have never read the key documents about the Confederacy. The 150th anniversary of secession and civil war provides a moment for all Americans to read these documents, properly set in context by award-winning sociologist and historian James W. Loewen and coeditor Edward H. Sebesta, to put in perspective the mythology of the Old South. When South Carolina seceded, it published Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union. The document actually opposes states' rights. Its authors argue that Northern states were ignoring the rights of slave owners as identified by Congress and in the Constitution. Similarly, Mississippi's Declaration of the Immediate Causes . . . says, Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery--the greatest material interest of the world. Later documents in this collection show how neo-Confederates obfuscated this truth, starting around 1890. The evidence also points to the centrality of race in neo-Confederate thought even today and to the continuing importance of neo-Confederate ideas in American political life. James W. Loewen, Washington, D.C., is the best-selling author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong and Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong. He is also the author of Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks; Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism; Social Science in the Classroom; and Mississippi: Conflict and Change. He is professor emeritus at the University of Vermont. Edward H. Sebesta, Dallas, Texas, is a coeditor of Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction. His articles have appeared in numerous journals.