The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The "Great Truth" about the "Lost Cause" [Paperback]

James W. Loewen (Editor), Edward H. Sebesta (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 28, 2010 | ISBN-10: 1604732199 | ISBN-13: 978-1604732191

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.

These documents have always been there. 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. 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 co-editor, Edward H. Sebesta, to put in perspective the mythology of the Old South.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Resounding documentary proof that the original reasoning behind secession and subsequently myth-making was in defense of slavery and white supremacy

About the Author

Sociologist 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 co-editor of Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction. His articles have appeared in numerous journals.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (July 28, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1604732199
• ISBN-13: 978-1604732191
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #821,712 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 69 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent set of primary source documents November 23, 2010

By Kim

Format:Hardcover

In short, this book is a compilation of primary sources documenting southern perspectives on slavery, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction period. It focus is on prominent figures and government issued statements rather than on 'man on the street' diary entries and such. The gist is that many of us have learned through our US History classes in high school that the Confederacy seceded and fought the Civil War over the issue of States' Rights, and that their view on States' Rights was unwaivering and consistent for the entire century. Through the reading of primary source documents (such as the declarations of secession from southern state governments and speeches of prominent figures of the time) we can fairly easily establish that States' Rights evolved into the reason after the fact, that secession, at least for southern governments, was primarily about maintaining slavery as a system and anger over northern states refusal to accept that.

What I appreciate in this book (as a teacher) is that the compilation work has been done for me. I don't have to search for these documents and can now use them to assist my students in thinking critically about how interpretations of history can be altered, depending on time and place.

There is actually very little commentary in this book; Leowen lays out the basic premise and then gives a brief overview of each document and its author. It is up to the reader to actually read for the proof in the documents.

70 of 85 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Primary document evidence overturns myths October 22, 2010

By Dick Stanley

Format:Hardcover

Historians have long preached the need to go to primary documents (often eye-witness diaries and letters) to understand history. Moreover, they want us to know that the study of history is an ongoing plunge, as author Loewen wrote in his popular 1996 book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong into "arguments, issues and controversy."

In this book Loewen and his co-author collect and quote the original documents the seceding states and their prominent politicians issued in 1860-61 in which they expressly said that protection of slavery was their primary motivation for secession and that they were explicitly opposed to the "states rights" of Northen states to tamper with it by refusing to enforce the federal Fugitive Slave law.

Nor do you have to take the authors' word for it. All of the documents are available on the Web.

They also show that only long after the war did states rights become the "politically correct" motive for secession and still is taught in K-12, because textbook publishers, as Loewen reiterates what he wrote in "Lies...," try to avoid controversy for fear their books will be rejected by state approval committees.

You don't need to believe that all Rebel privates and junior officers were fighting for slavery (I don't) in order to understand that the politicians and many generals who ran the Confederacy were doing exactly that.

The authors also quote the repeated (primary document) words of those leaders refusing to contemplate enlisting slaves as soldiers, in order to debunk recent fantasies that thousands of black Americans fought for the Confederacy.

Once again, as he did so eloquently and above all evenhandedly in "Lies..." (with the notable exceptions of the Vietnam war and the Iraq campaign), Loewen wades into contemporary arguments with primary document evidence, which ought to challenge his detractors to come up with primary contradictory evidence, if they can.

23 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Set of Original Sources April 26, 2011

By Xenon77

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a superb collection of Confederate leaders' writings and speeches.

Do you want to know whether the Civil War was really about slavery? Read what Confederate leaders said when advocating secession. Read the resolutions state conventions adopted in 1860-61 when voting to secede. (The South Carolina resolutions are particularly thorough, carefully reasoned, and well written. What better source could you find?)

The Civil War left slavery in disrepute. So Confederates created the myth that they had seceded to uphold states' rights and defend themselves against "Northern oppression."

The original sources in this book tell a different story. Confederate leaders' words and deeds showed the overriding importance of slavery. The Confederates gave other reasons too: freedom, democracy, states' rights, and the rule of law. But protecting and expanding slavery was their highest priority. They favored states' rights as long as that benefited slavery. (The Confederate Constitution prohibited states from abolishing slavery.) They moaned about "Northern oppression" but offered little convincing evidence of it.

Complaints about the editors' "bias" tend to miss the point. The principal authors of this book are the Confederates themselves. The editors make their views clear, but they also let the Confederates tell their own story. If we find that story troubling, that's hardly the editors' fault.