The myth of the lost Cause.

among 1860 and 1861, eleven southern states withdrew from the us

and shaped the accomplice States of the united states.

They left, or seceded, in reaction to the developing motion

for the national abolition of slavery.

Mississippi said,

“our function is very well identified with the group of slavery.”

South Carolina referred to “hostility on the a part of the non-slaveholding states

to the organization of slavery.”

In March 1861, the vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stevens,

proclaimed that the cornerstone of the brand new accomplice authorities

changed into white supremacy, or as he put it,

“slavery” and “subordination” to white people

become the “natural and everyday condition” of Black humans in the united states

and the “immediate motive of the late rupture and gift revolution.”

three weeks after the now-infamous Cornerstone Speech,

the yankee Civil war started.

The warfare lasted 4 years, had a death toll of about 750,000,

and ended with the Confederacy’s defeat.

by way of 1866, slightly a yr after the battle ended,

southern assets commenced claiming the struggle wasn’t definitely about slavery.

meanwhile, Frederick Douglass,

a distinguished abolitionist and previously enslaved individual, counseled,

“the spirit of secession is stronger today than ever.”

From the words of confederate leaders,

the reason for the warfare couldn't had been clearer— it was slavery.

So how did this revisionist history come about?

the solution lies inside the lost motive— a cultural fable about the Confederacy.

The time period became coined via Edward Pollard, a seasoned-confederate journalist.

In 1866, he posted “The lost reason:

a new Southern history of the struggle of the Confederates.”

Pollard mentioned that the U.S. constitution gave states

the right to control themselves independently in all areas

besides the ones explicitly specific to the country wide authorities.

in line with him, the Confederacy wasn’t defending slavery,

it turned into protecting each kingdom’s proper to pick out whether or not to allow slavery.

This rationalization effectively grew to become white southerners’ documented defense

of slavery and white supremacy right into a patriotic protection of the charter.

The Civil war had devastated the u . s .,

leaving those who had supported the Confederacy

greedy to justify their moves.

Many pro-accomplice writers, political leaders, and others

have been brief to adopt and unfold the narrative of the lost purpose.

One corporation, the United Daughters of the Confederacy,

played a key function in transmitting the ideas of the misplaced purpose

to destiny generations.

based in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1894,

the UDC united hundreds of center and top class white southern ladies.

The UDC raised thousands of dollars to construct monuments to confederate soldiers.

these had been often unveiled with huge public ceremonies,

and given prominent placements, mainly on courthouse lawns.

The Daughters also positioned accomplice pics in public schools.

They monitored textbooks to decrease the horrors of slavery,

and its significance within the Civil conflict,

passing revisionist history and racist ideology down via generations.

via 1918, the UDC claimed over a hundred,000 individuals.

As their numbers grew, they increased their have an effect on out of doors the South.

Presidents William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson

both met with UDC individuals and enabled them to memorialize

the Confederacy in Arlington national Cemetery.

The UDC still exists and defends confederate symbols

as part of a noble history of sacrifice by using their ancestors.

despite the wealth of primary assets

showing that slavery become the root reason of the Civil conflict,

the myth about states’ rights persists these days.

inside the aftermath of the war,

Frederick Douglass and his abolitionist contemporaries

feared this erasure of slavery from the records of the Civil warfare

should make contributions to the government’s failure

to protect the rights of Black americans—

a worry that has time and again been tested legitimate.

In an 1871 cope with at Arlington Cemetery, Douglass said:

“we are on occasion asked within the name of patriotism

to overlook the merits of this nervous battle,

and to take into account with equal admiration folks that struck at the state’s life,

and those who struck to store it—

people who fought for slavery and those who fought for liberty and justice. [...]

if this war is to be forgotten, I ask within the call of all things sacred,

what shall guys recollect?”