<p>The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same <em>word</em> we do not all mean the same <em>thing</em>. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatable things, called by the same name—liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatable names—liberty and tyranny.</p> <p>The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a <em>liberator</em>, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails to-day among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the processes by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty. Recently, as it seems, the people of Maryland have been doing something to define liberty; and thanks to them that, in what they have done, the wolf’s dictionary, has been repudiated.</p>

The key element in the equation used to be tariffs, but tariffs were barely mentioned in the fullest debates by the largest slave state in 1861 over whether to secede. A digital transcription of those Virginia debates shows that the word “tariff” appeared only eight times in weeks of debates. Words with the root of “slavery” in them, by contrast, were invoked 1,434 times. Virginia did not secede because it was agrarian, but rather because its economy was based on the buying, selling, and laboring of enslaved people.

The formula that we have taught for nearly a century is wrong. And it is wrong precisely because it is a formula. Formulas violate what history teaches us. Formulas replace people and their acts with pseudo-scientific abstractions such as “industrial” and “agrarian,” or “modern” and “traditional.” Formulas replace context, contingency, and change with fixity and predictability.

It is true that a lot of the bestselling and most important historical works are being produced by nonacademic historians. But that is all right, they are historians. I think that has always been true. Allan Nevins, for example, started out in journalism and did not have a Ph.D. Bruce Catton is another good example of a journalist who wrote history. In fact, quite a few of the people producing valuable Civil War and other kinds of history during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s came out of a nonacademic background. I think that the more the better. Let a thousand flowers bloom. You do not need a license to practice history. Instead, all you need to do is work hard, do research, go to the sources, make the past meaningful, and write in a way that attracts readers.

Coming out of the Civil Rights movement and the clashes of the 1960s and 1970s, there was a negative reevaluation of Lincoln because he did not measure up to modern ideas of racial equality. But you could say that about figures such as Thomas Jefferson and almost anybody else from the eighteenth or nineteenth century. But it is important to remember that Lincoln was a product of his time.

That kind of interpretation is the standard now.

cholars can agree that slavery, more than any other issue, divided North and South, there is still much to be said about why slavery proved so divisive and why sectional compromise ultimately proved elusive.

With funding and filming taking place in the late 1980s, “The Civil War” did reflect the time in which it was made. James McPherson’s <em>Battle Cry of Freedom </em>won the Pulitzer Prize in 1989, and Michael Shaara’s <em>The Killer Angels</em>, a best-selling novel from 1974 about the Battle of Gettysburg, still exerted obvious influence. Both of these popular histories were focused almost solely on military history – battles, soldiers, and life on the warfront, and they seemingly guided the general focus of both the editing and production of “The Civil War.”

At nine minutes into the first episode, the film’s only historian with a doctorate, Barbara Fields—now recognized as one of the world’s foremost scholars on race and racism—unequivocally stated that slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War. The bloodiest time in our nation’s history, she argued, was about “humanity, human dignity, human freedom.”

“The Civil War” skews towards propagating the idea of the Lost Cause, often venerating Confederate officers and soldiers if not the Confederacy itself. The first episode alone reveals how deeply this ran: Within the opening few minutes, narrator David McCullough literally attributes the cause of the war to states’ rights. In what would become a refrain among groups ranging from the Ku Klux Klan to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, his proclamation resonates: “What began as a bitter dispute over union and states’ rights..."

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Father said the Yanks made a clean sweep of everything, and we have lost all our worldly possessions except the few negroes here

Some beautiful imported wax dolls, not more than twelve inches high, raffled for five hundred dollars, and one very large doll I heard was to raffle for two thousand. "Why" as Uncle John says, "one could buy a live negro baby for that." How can people afford to buy toys at such a time as this! However I suppose speculators can. A small sized cake at the Tennessee table sold for seventy-five dollars.

My underclothing is of coarse unbleached homespun, such as we gave the negroes formerly only much coarser.

Hitchcocks Religion and Geology.

All day in our own household has confusion reigned too. The back parlor strewed with clothing etc., open trunks standing about, while a general feeling of misery and tension pervaded the atmosphere. Everything is to go that can be sent - houselinen, blankets, clothing, silver, jewelry - even the wine - everything movable of any value

What a night of horror, misery and agony! It is useless to try to put on paper any idea of it

They would enter houses and in the presence of helpless women and children, pour turpentine on the beds and set them on fire.

The Firemen attempted to use their engines, but the hose was cut to pieces and their lives threatened.

. One expects these people to lie and steal, but it does seem such an outrage even upon degraded humanity that those who practise such wanton and useless cruelty should call themselves men. It seems to us even a contamination to look at these devils. Think of the degradation of being conquered and ruled by such a people! It seems to me now as if we would choose extermination.

<i>How</i> I <i>hate</i> the people who have done this!

Somehow I am still as confident as I ever was. If only our people will be steadfast. The more we suffer the more we should be willing to undergo rather than submit. Somehow I cannot feel we can be conquered. We have lost everything, but if everything - negroes, property - all could be given back a hundredfold I would not be willing to go back to them. I would rather endure any poverty than live under Yankee rule. I would rather far have France or any other country for a mistress - anything but live as one nation with <i>Yankees</i> - that word in my mind is a synonym for <i>all</i> that is <i>mean</i>,

door, to find my eager hope realized. With a cry of joy I threw myself in father's arms and clung to him kissing him. He was wet through - hair and beard dripping. After a few moments he went back to Aunt Josie's and fetched Sallie over, who received a glad welcome home. Then such talking! But anoth

There was a rumor afloat yesterday that a <i>negro</i> regiment was marching from Branchville to garrison Columbia - Heavens - have we not suffered enough? I do not believe it but the very thought is enough to make one shudder.

I suppose the Yankees are holding a great jubilee in Charleston today. Not long ago they had a most absurd procession described in glowing colours and celebrating the Death of Slavery - Abolitionists delivered addresses on the superiority of the black race over white - Adam and Eve were black so were Cain and Abel, but when the former slew his brother his great fright turned him <i>white</i>! Also, "As Christ died for the human race, so John Brown died for the negroes", etc., etc.. Today they intended raising their wretched flag over noble old Sumter and there was to be a great to-do and fuss. Poor old Sumter - dear old fort! What a degradation! This day four long years ago! - the joy - the excitement - how well I remember it. For weeks we had been in fever of

Why does not the President call out the women? If there are enough men? We would go and <i>fight</i> too - we would better all die together. Let us suffer still more - give up yet more - anything, anything that will help the cause - anything that will give us freedom and not force us to live with such people - to be ruled by such horrible and contempible creatures - to submit to them when we hate them so bitterly. It is cruel - it is <i>unjust</i>.

Hurrah! Old Abe Lincoln has been assassinated! It may be abstractly wrong to be so jubilant, but I just can't help it. After all the heaviness and gloom of yesterday this blow to our enemies comes like a gleam of light.

was lying on the lounge alone in the library when father came in looking very sad. "Emma" he said gravely, "Stonewall Jackson is dead." How I loved him! He was my hero. I then admired Lee as grand, magnificent - but Jackson came nearer my heart.

I will <i>never</i> believe another French rumor nor any other rumor that means hope to this unhappy land.

ble and clearly defined in the spirit of that declaration which rests the right to govern on the consent of the governed, but because I foresaw that the wickedness of the North would precipitate a war upon us. Those who supposed that the exercise of this right of separation could not produce war, have had cause to be convinced that they had credited their recent associates of the North with a moderation, a sagacity, a morality they did not possess. You have been involved in a war waged for the gratification of the lust of power and of aggrandizement, for your conquest and your subjugation, with a malignant ferocity and with a disregard and a contempt of the usages of civilization, entirely unequalled in history. Such, I have ever warned you, were the characteristics of the Northern people--of those with whom our ancestors entered into a Union of consent, and with whom they formed a constitutional compact. And yet, such was the attachment of our people for that Union, such their devotion to it, that those who desired preparation to be made for the inevitable conflict, were denounced as men who only wished to destroy the Union. After what has happened during the last two years, my only wonder is that we consented to live for so long a time in association with such miscreants, and have loved so much a government rotten to the core. Were it ever to be proposed again to enter into a Union with such a people, I could no more consent to do it than to trust myself in a den of thieves.

The issue then being: will you be slaves; will you consent to be robbed of your property; to be reduced to provincial dependence; will you renounce the exercise of those rights with which you were born and which were transmitted to you by your fathers?