Missing the Point
Several people, including Instapundit, have linked approvingly to this highly critical review of Thomas E. Woods Jr.'s "Politically Incorrect Guide to American History."
Frankly, I'm not impressed. I haven't read Woods' book, but I recognize his historical perspective, which the Weekly Standard reviewer rightly pegs as paleo-con (not neo-con, which is the label the book's publisher's seem to covet).
First, not every argument or observation is wrong, just because someone like Woods brings it up. Second, if you're going to counter-argue with this kind of writing, you need more than a superficial acquaintance with U.S. history.
I can think of few sadder testimonies to our neglect of history than this: the long and honorable career of John C. Calhoun has been distilled to a single adjective: "pro-slavery." But that's exactly what's wrong with this review.
This is invoked in the review article, but it is never addressed or contered. Whether it was the cause of the war is probably beyond the range of proof or disproof. The rest of the allegations, it seems to me, are true beyond argument.
Now, this happens to be one of the places where I seem to agree with Woods (at least based on what I read about his book). In fact, I've made a similar argument myself, and defended it for years in online debates. There are good angles of attack against this position. Believe me, I know. Invoking the Emancipation Proclamation isn't one of them.
To attempt to use it, as here, as a single-phrase smackdown is just plain silly. The war had been underway for a year and a half before Lincoln set pen to paper to write the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln had said explicitly, if he could preserve the union without liberating a single slave, he gladly would do so.
The place to make the argument that slavery was the cause of the war is in the South, not the North. The Southern states' declarations of causes for leaving the union are the ammunition you use. There are counter-arguments to that, but it's an uphill slog, compared to fighting against the Emancipation Proclamation. That's a cardboard sword. A juvenile snakehead could refute it. An AOL Civil War message board poster could refute it.
Once again, rather than trying to make an argument, he retreats into "you're taking the side of the people who had slaves, therefore you're wrong." Slavery was legal in the North throughout the entire duration of the Civil War. Slaveowners fought in the Northern army and even led it in some cases. As John B. Henderson, the Unionist senator from Missouri, reminded his colleagues, "there are numbers of loyal slaveholders in that state [Missouri], men who have been carrying the flag of their country from the earliest beginning of this rebellion, who have left their homes for the battle-field, leaving their slaves behind them, many of whom are in the service of the country today, and will continue there until the rebellion is over."
When the Civil War ended, 19 of 24 Northern states did not allow blacks to vote. Nowhere did they serve on juries before 1860. They could not give testimony in 10 states, and were prevented from assembling in two. Several western states had prohibited free blacks from entering the state. Blacks who entered Illinois and stayed more than 10 days were guilty of "high misdemeanor." Even those that didn't exclude blacks debated doing so and had discriminatory ordinances on the local level.
See above. The disqualifying factor, if you want to argue it, was treason, not slave-owning, which was legal.
The word "racism" in all its variants is a 20th century invention. Lincoln never heard it. What we would now call "racism" was so pervasive and universal in 19th century America -- North and South and West -- that no one felt a need to coin a word for it. It was a white man's country, north and south, in the mid-19th century. If you can't accept that fact, you can't argue reasonably about it.
To argue against some position about early 19th century America by slapping it with the "racist" tarbrush is a false attempt to apply modern moral standards to a time and place where they have no meaning. Don't mistake me: I like where we are much better than where we were. But I want to genuinely understand the past -- our past.
To grapple with slavery as a dynamic force between North and South in America, you have to think of it in terms of its meaning to two groups of white people. To do that does not ignore the humanity of the slaves, or the fact that slavery was the central aspect of a slave's life. But it does set it aside for the duration of the argument.
That "setting aside," after the 20th century, is something we feel as horrible. It is a mental process akin to the one that allows genocides. I suspect it is a natural muscle in the human mind, but it is one we're desperately trying not to exercise.
Frankly, I'm not impressed. I haven't read Woods' book, but I recognize his historical perspective, which the Weekly Standard reviewer rightly pegs as paleo-con (not neo-con, which is the label the book's publisher's seem to covet).
First, not every argument or observation is wrong, just because someone like Woods brings it up. Second, if you're going to counter-argue with this kind of writing, you need more than a superficial acquaintance with U.S. history.
Soon enough, however, the guide starts to slip from conventional history into a Bizarro world where every state has the right to disregard any piece of federal legislation it doesn't like or even to secede. "There is, obviously, no provision in the Constitution that explicitly authorizes nullification," the author concedes, but Woods nevertheless is convinced that this right exists. His source? Mainly the writings of the Southern pro-slavery politician John C. Calhoun.
I can think of few sadder testimonies to our neglect of history than this: the long and honorable career of John C. Calhoun has been distilled to a single adjective: "pro-slavery." But that's exactly what's wrong with this review.
Woods is only getting warmed up. Next he comes to the origins of the "Civil War" which, it seems, was pretty much the fault of Northern abolitionists whose writings "seethed with loathing for the entire South" and "only served to discredit anti-slavery activity in the South."
This is invoked in the review article, but it is never addressed or contered. Whether it was the cause of the war is probably beyond the range of proof or disproof. The rest of the allegations, it seems to me, are true beyond argument.
According to Woods, the war wasn't really about slavery (no mention of the Emancipation Proclamation). It was really about the desire of Northern plutocrats to protect themselves from the threat of commerce being diverted to "the South's low-tariff or free trade regime."
Now, this happens to be one of the places where I seem to agree with Woods (at least based on what I read about his book). In fact, I've made a similar argument myself, and defended it for years in online debates. There are good angles of attack against this position. Believe me, I know. Invoking the Emancipation Proclamation isn't one of them.
To attempt to use it, as here, as a single-phrase smackdown is just plain silly. The war had been underway for a year and a half before Lincoln set pen to paper to write the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln had said explicitly, if he could preserve the union without liberating a single slave, he gladly would do so.
The place to make the argument that slavery was the cause of the war is in the South, not the North. The Southern states' declarations of causes for leaving the union are the ammunition you use. There are counter-arguments to that, but it's an uphill slog, compared to fighting against the Emancipation Proclamation. That's a cardboard sword. A juvenile snakehead could refute it. An AOL Civil War message board poster could refute it.
He approvingly quotes H.L. Mencken's comment that Union soldiers "actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves." Well, not quite all their people. But the plight of African-Americans does not concern Woods any more than it did Mencken.
Once again, rather than trying to make an argument, he retreats into "you're taking the side of the people who had slaves, therefore you're wrong." Slavery was legal in the North throughout the entire duration of the Civil War. Slaveowners fought in the Northern army and even led it in some cases. As John B. Henderson, the Unionist senator from Missouri, reminded his colleagues, "there are numbers of loyal slaveholders in that state [Missouri], men who have been carrying the flag of their country from the earliest beginning of this rebellion, who have left their homes for the battle-field, leaving their slaves behind them, many of whom are in the service of the country today, and will continue there until the rebellion is over."
When the Civil War ended, 19 of 24 Northern states did not allow blacks to vote. Nowhere did they serve on juries before 1860. They could not give testimony in 10 states, and were prevented from assembling in two. Several western states had prohibited free blacks from entering the state. Blacks who entered Illinois and stayed more than 10 days were guilty of "high misdemeanor." Even those that didn't exclude blacks debated doing so and had discriminatory ordinances on the local level.
But first Woods gives a Gone With the Wind version of Reconstruction, with evil Republican carpetbaggers trying to rape the virtuous South. He is particularly upset about the 14th Amendment (he claims it was never lawfully ratified) because it barred former Confederates from holding political office. "Thus," Woods laments, "the natural leadership class of the South would be disqualified from office and disgraced forever by having been dishonored in a constitutional amendment." It never occurs to Woods that "the natural leadership class" may have disgraced itself already by holding fellow human beings in bondage.
See above. The disqualifying factor, if you want to argue it, was treason, not slave-owning, which was legal.
The word "racism" in all its variants is a 20th century invention. Lincoln never heard it. What we would now call "racism" was so pervasive and universal in 19th century America -- North and South and West -- that no one felt a need to coin a word for it. It was a white man's country, north and south, in the mid-19th century. If you can't accept that fact, you can't argue reasonably about it.
To argue against some position about early 19th century America by slapping it with the "racist" tarbrush is a false attempt to apply modern moral standards to a time and place where they have no meaning. Don't mistake me: I like where we are much better than where we were. But I want to genuinely understand the past -- our past.
To grapple with slavery as a dynamic force between North and South in America, you have to think of it in terms of its meaning to two groups of white people. To do that does not ignore the humanity of the slaves, or the fact that slavery was the central aspect of a slave's life. But it does set it aside for the duration of the argument.
That "setting aside," after the 20th century, is something we feel as horrible. It is a mental process akin to the one that allows genocides. I suspect it is a natural muscle in the human mind, but it is one we're desperately trying not to exercise.
