by Gene Kizer, Jr.
A gentleman wrote me this past March stating that when arguing history, Northerners always use the four declarations of causes for secession as proof that the War Between the States was fought over slavery.
Those four declarations prove nothing of the sort.
Below, is our correspondence including the question posed by the gentleman, but first, here is some additional information:
THERE WERE 13 SOUTHERN STATES represented in the Confederate government. That 13 included Missouri and Kentucky, which were divided states that did not actually secede. They remained Union slave states – two of six Union slave states – the entire war (WHAT! UNION SLAVE STATES! I thought the war was fought over slavery with the Union fighting to end slavery! Man, they should have started with their own country. In fact, three of the six Union slave states – New Jersey, Kentucky and Delaware – had slavery several months after the war. It took the second 13th Amendment in December 1865 for slavery to end in those three Union slave states.).
Remember, the first 13th Amendment was the Corwin Amendment that left black people in slavery forever, even beyond the reach of Congress, in places where slavery already existed. It was passed by the Northern Congress and ratified by several states before the war made it moot. The Corwin Amendment was the true feeling of the North on the slavery issue though it is only one small piece of the massive evidence that the North did not go to war to end slavery. There is much more absolute proof, so much so, that it is irrefutable that the North did not go to war to end slavery. The North was fine with slavery.
Back to the six Union slave states: The Emancipation Proclamation deliberately exempted them as well as slaves in already captured Confederate territory. That prompted Lincoln’s secretary of state, William H. Seward, to state “We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.” It also gave Charles Dickens a good laugh at Lincoln’s phoniness and hypocrisy, especially since all of Lincoln’s life he favored sending blacks back to Africa or into a place they could survive. See Colonization after Emancipation, Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement by Phillip W. Magness and Sebastian N. Page (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2011).
All 13 states represented in the Confederate government produced a legal document such as an ordinance of secession that withdrew them from the Union. Tennessee’s was called a Declaration of Independence. Most of the ordinances of secession were straight-forward legal documents referring to their ratification of the Constitution and withdrawing the state from it, proclaiming their sovereignty, etc. Alabama and Arkansas did go a little beyond pure legalese in discussing some issues but nothing like a declaration of causes.
Only four of the 13 Confederate states issued declarations of causes. Nine did not.
Those four declarations are the basis for the entire argument against the South in most people’s minds though anti-South detractors often use the Marxist technique of simply ignoring substantial evidence they don’t agree with. They ignore the six Union slave states, the Corwin Amendment, the War Aims Resolution (war is being waged for Union, not to end slavery) and a ton of other evidence that slavery was not the cause of the war. The North was more interested in its economic power and wealth, not ending slavery, and they sure did not want a bunch of desperate freed slaves to come North with massive crime and social problems, and be job competition. That’s why so many Northern and Western states had laws forbidding free blacks from living there or even visiting for long, including Lincoln’s Illinois.
Anti-slavery in the North in 1856 and 1860 was political, to rally votes in the North so Northerners could control the Federal Government and continue their bounties, subsidies and monopolies for Northern businesses, and their massive tariffs like the Morrill Tariff. It was not morality for the benefit of the black man.
Even the slavery in the West issue was based, not on concern for blacks, but the opposite: Northern racism. They didn’t want slavery in the West because they did not want blacks near them in the West. Historians know this. It started with the Wilmot Proviso and is a clear fact.
The four declarations of causes are statements as to why states seceded, what their grievances were, and such. They are not declarations of war. Southerners expected to live in peace. After all, Yankees threatened to secede five times before Southerners finally did. Nobody questioned the right of secession, not even Horace Greeley during the time that South Carolina seceded in December, 1860. Greeley strongly supported the right of secession (“let our erring sisters go”) until he realized it would affect his money, then he wanted war like the rest of the North.
Wars are always fought over money and power, never because one country does not like the domestic institutions in another. Would you send your precious sons off to die to free slaves in another country? Hell no.
Lincoln sent his hostile flotilla to Charleston and Pensacola to start the War Between the States in April, 1861, because a free trade South with European military alliances and 100% control of the most demanded commodity on the planet – King Cotton – would rise to dominance in North America. The North would not be able to beat the South in such a situation. That’s why Lincoln wanted to use his enormous advantages at that point in history, and fight. He wanted to establish the North as the dominant cultural and economic region of our great country, and he did. It’s been that way for over 150 years though many of the big cities of the North today are on a death spiral thanks to liberal wokeness that permits violent crime and discriminates against the law-biding.
The four declarations of causes all mention several reasons for seceding. All mention the many constitutional violations of the North. The North was untrustworthy.
All mention Northern terrorism against the South such as John Brown who wanted to murder Southern men, women and children with a bloody slave insurrection like they had in Haiti. Brown was financed and organized in the North, then celebrated as a hero when brought to justice. His two sons were protected by Ohio and Iowa rather than being sent back to Virginia for trial as the constitution required.
South Carolina’s declaration is a fascinating constitutional and early American history lesson. It proves South Carolina’s sovereignty:
Under this Confederation the war of the Revolution was carried on, and on the 3rd of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definitely Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in the following terms: “ARTICLE 1– His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.” / Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE.
Georgia’s declaration goes into great detail on the economic causes of secession. As Robert Toombs said, the North was a suction pump sucking wealth out of the South and depositing it into the North constantly. The Georgia declaration states:
The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the South not at all.
This is a powerful statement as to why the Union was critical to Lincoln and the North, but was the antithesis of the States’ Rights philosophy of the South.
Even Mississippi’s declaration that begins with an assertion that it is identified with slavery as the basis of its economic well-being makes several critical points. It affirms the constitutional violations of the North but states about the North:
It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better. / It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives. / It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security. / It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system. / It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.
Texas’s declaration of causes includes:
By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States. / The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refused reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.
Read these declarations and especially know your own state’s if you live in South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia or Texas. As stated, they do mention slavery along with numerous other extremely important issues. Northern constitutional violations are extremely important. If you can’t trust the North to obey the Constitution, you can’t trust them with anything.
The Northern support for terrorists like John Brown was a huge issue. The North was already at war with the South. Would you stay in a country with people who sent murderers, thieves and arsonists into your peaceful towns to kill your family and neighbors, destroy your property, poison wells, encourage the unimaginable horror of bloody slave insurrections with rape and murder, from which there would be no survivors like in Haiti?
Nobody in the North, ever a single time, suggested a workable plan for gradual, compensated emancipation such as the Northern states and all other nations on earth used to end slavery. The reason why is that Northerners were not about to spend their hard earned sweatshop money to free the slaves in the South who would then go North with crime and violence, and be job competition. They would rather do as they did and just pass laws that forbid black people from settling or even visiting Northern states for long.
One can take the anti-South position and argue that the declarations of causes indicate slavery was one of many causes for the secession of four states, but only for those four.
The other nine did not issue declarations of causes, and four of the Southern states, in which 52.4% of white Southerners lived, seceded over nothing to do with slavery. Those states were horrified that the Federal Government would illegally and unconstitutionally invade other states, kill their citizens and destroy their property to force them to obey a Northern sectional majority. Those four were Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina.
Nothing the North or anybody else says matters anyway. The South had the right to secede and they did so properly. Among the conclusive evidence of the right of secession is the reserved right to secede demanded by New York, Rhode Island and Virginia before they acceded to the Constitution. All the other states accepted the reserved right of secession of New York, Rhode Island and Virginia, thus they had it too, since all states entered the Union as exact equals.
HI Gene, I love your history books. I have just one question. I agree that the majority of the reasons the Civil War happened had to do with economics, taxation, and an overbearing Federal Government. Lincoln and the North made it clear that the reason they went to war was to “preserve the union.” As for the South, many letters, speeches and papers talk about the economics of secession, but all of the States Declarations, start off with the Institution of Slavery and the election of Lincoln and his threat to Slavery as the reason they were pulling out of the Union. I just don’t understand why, when you clearly lay out that Lincoln never did or said anything about going after slaves, was the South so scared and put this in the top part of their reasons for secession? Why not just say, we are tired of being economically raped? We are not being represented at the federal government level, we want the right to free trade, our own currency, we don’t want to be part of this union. Thank you. Bill M.
Bill, Good to hear from you! Your question is a great one and easily answered.
Only four out of 13 Southern states issued declarations of causes for their secession along with their ordinances of secession. Those states were: South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas. The other nine had ordinances of secession but no declarations of causes.
The four declarations of causes do mention slavery, as you say, along with numerous other things including much grievance over tariffs and taxes, and the money flowing constantly out of the South and into the North because of Northern bounties, subsidies, monopolies, etc.
They all also state that Northern hate and promotion of terrorism is a prime reason for their secession, as well as Northern violations of the Constitution. Southerners did not trust Northerners and for good reason. If somebody sent terrorists into your country to kill your citizens and poison wells, etc., would you want to stay in the same country with them? Or leave, peacefully, as Southerners did? Remember, John Brown hacked Southerners to death in Kansas, he was financed in the North, then came to Harper’s Ferry to start the kind of mass murder that had taken place in Haiti. When Brown was executed, he was celebrated in the North as a hero. Brown’s two sons were protected from prosecution by Ohio and Iowa. So, Northerners sent terrorists into the South to murder Southerners then they martyred the terrorists when they were brought to justice. The country was already at war. Southern secession was the South dealing with it in their way, which was to leave peacefully.
Those four declarations of causes form the entire argument against the South yet all they do is establish the grievances that led to secession. Southerners unquestionably had the right to secede. Three states – New York, Rhode Island and Virginia – had reserved the right of secession before joining the Constitution, and all the other states accepted the right of NY, RI and VA to secede if they saw fit. That gave the right of secession to all the states because they all entered the Union as equals.
Slavery as the cause of the War Between the States is such an absurdity.
No Northerner said, before the war, that they should march armies into the South to free the slaves. They could care less about the slaves as was proven by the Corwin Amendment (leave blacks in slavery forever even beyond the reach of Congress), the War Aims Resolution (the war is being fought for Union, not slavery) and legion other documents and statements.
Yankees were making money hand over fist manufacturing for the South and shipping Southern cotton. They were draining the South dry with tariffs and taxes. They weren’t about to give that up then have to face the South as a major competitor with European support and 100% control of the most demanded commodity on the planet: Cotton.
The imminent collapse of the Northern economy because of Southern secession is what caused Lincoln to start the war. That, and the fact that they had the South outnumbered four to one, and outgunned 100 to one. I’ll guarantee you if the North only had the South outnumbered two to one, and certainly if it was even, there would have been no war.
When the guns of Fort Sumter sounded, there were more slave states in the Union than in the Confederacy because Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee had not yet seceded. Those four states seceded immediately after Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to invade the South, and their clear reason why had nothing to do with slavery. It was their abhorrence of Lincoln using the Federal Government to invade a peaceful part of the country and kill its citizens for the benefit of Northern wealth and power.
In those four states, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee, lived 52.4% – a majority – of white Southerners, so it is a fact that a majority of white Southerners seceded over nothing to do with slavery.
There is a ton more evidence but this is the short answer.
As stated above, when the war started, there were eight, soon to be nine slave states in the Union with the admission of West Virginia as a slave state during the war (think about that) VERSES the seven Cotton States.
That’s eight Yankee slave states verses seven Southern slave states though that number was soon to be nine Yankee slave states.
The Emancipation Proclamation did not touch the slaves in the Union slave states or in captured Confederate territory. Yankee slaves were to remain in slavery.
Unquestionably, Yankees did not go to war to end slavery; and unquestionably, Southerners did not go to war to preserve it.
Southerners went to war because they wanted to be free and independent of people who hated them and who had sent terrorists into their country to kill them.
The most quoted phrase in the secession debate in the South in the year before the war was from the Declaration of Independence: Governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . .
Thank you for posing this excellent question. I have a lot more coming out in the next year or two solidifying even more my already irrefutable argument.
Are you on my email list? If not, give me your email address and I’ll add you. I send out a blog article every week with history, defense of monuments, etc.
Good to hear from you.
Gene
Gene Kizer, Jr.Thank you very much Gene. FYI. I agree with you about why the South went to war. I feel the same way today. I agree with Hank Williams Jr, had the South won we would have a free country. Not an overbearing corrupt Federal Government and court system. We would have had a chance. Reason I ask is because I read those 4 states and Florida’s. And they seemed to focus on Lincoln’s election and slaves. Liberals and do-gooders always bring that issue up to me when I tell them today is the same as 1860. It is not and was not about slavery. I am not on your email list. I am familiar with many of the facts you listed. They are in your book. I need to re read all the declarations from the states again. Thanks
Bill, Got you added to the list! There will be a blog article in your inbox Thursday morning. There are a lot of articles on the website (www.CharlestonAthenaeumPress.com) you will enjoy. In fact, I might use this correspondence we’ve had here as a blog post since it is concise and your question an excellent one. A lot of people would benefit from that. I would keep your identity and contact information private. I don’t know that I definitely will post it but it would be the basis of a good post. I agree with you 1000% about old Hank Williams, Jr.! I love that song If the South Woulda Won. All the best to you! Gene
Thanks Gene. That is fine. I love Hank Williams Jr. And your books. Was born in the North but raised in the South when it was still the South. I read the Constitution in Law School along with all the Founding Fathers’ notes. There is no doubt in my mind they would have supported the South. I worked on Wall Street and the most evil creation on the planet is the Corporation. The fact is. They were banned under the original laws in our Country. To me, the civil war was about the greed of the North Bankers, Industrialists and RR barons power over the Republicans. They wanted all the $ and power. They smelled blood. What we have and what the world has today is the Military Industrial Complex and the Corporations have merged with the Entire Federal Government including the judiciary. Outside of states pulling out of the Union, I don’t know what else can stop what we are heading for. You can use my blog. I am sick of liberals telling me that the war was all about slavery cause that is what CNN says.
Bill, Thanks for your excellent message! I haven’t been on FB in the past few days. I’m with you all the way. You are so right. I had a blog article a few weeks ago by Lysander Spooner, the abolitionist, and he said basically the same thing you just said. You are right about corporations. They are whores for money and will sell out the USA to China and others just like the NBA, Nike, Google, FB and the rest of them. Big tech is the worst. I think a lot of good people like you and me are aware of everything going on and are very concerned about it. We are at a crossroads in America and there are truly some bad people who want to take us in a horrible direction, the opposite of what we were founded on. One good thing: It will be our states that preserve something of our founding. They were supposed to be sovereign and have all the power anyway, and they might have to use it to save the country. If HR1 passes and somehow SCOTUS allows it to stand, all bets are off. I would have never in a billion years thought the Supreme Court would even consider letting an obviously unconstitutional abomination such as HR1 stand, but SCOTUS let us down badly with the election law suits the past couple months. They should have heard the Texas case as Alito and Thomas wanted. Roberts is a coward and the worst chief justice in American history so no telling what his court might do. I am so surprised at Kavanaugh and Barrett. Hopefully an election case can come up. I think Gorsuch is with Alito and Thomas now. We’ll see. A lot is going to happen in the next few months. Thanks for writing! Agree with you 100% Gene
Hi Gene. We are in 100% agreement. I think that the Supreme Court has been compromised. Our only hope is the states. I know many of us feel the same way. Question is. How to we unite to form a coalition like the corporate communist left has?
1 Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., It Wasn’t About Slavery, Exposing the Great Lie of the Civil War (Washington, DC: Regnery History, 2020), 103.
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I loved your article and totally agree. Some of the statements in the 4 Declarations are tough to defend. Can you help me respond to the? Most of the argument goes around them. Can you hit them head on? It would help me a lot. Our SCV camp has been defending a CSA monument every weekend for 3 years in Williamson county Texas. I speak to scores of people and would like to make a solid defense of those 4 states.
Gene:
Would you please add me to your E-Mail list. Thank you!
Got you added, John. Thanks!
Gene
I appreciate your insight. put me on your E. list
Dear S A Organ,
Welcome to my blog list!
Gene
Gene Kizer, Jr.
http://www.CharlestonAthenaeumPress.com
I always say that part, and only part, of secession was about slavery, but the war was not about slavery, at least not for two years. And even then Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was more about disrupting the South's ability to make war and not about freeing slaves. As Lincoln stated in his EP that it was a "war measure" and a "military necessity".
Tom,
You are right, especially about the Emancipation Proclamation being a war measure and no proof that the war was fought over slavery. The war was fought because the North wanted financial control for their tariffs, bounties, subsidies, monopolies, etc. It was fought for money like all wars are.
It was also fought because they thought they could win easily, with four times the white population, 100 times the armaments, a pipeline to unlimited immigration, and other enormous advantages. At least 25% of Lincoln's army were new immigrants.
No matter how money grubbing the North was, if they only had a three to one advantage, or two to one, they would have never fought. They would not have been able to win.
Lincoln started the war because the South, with European trade and military alliances, would have been unbeatable by the North. The South would have risen to dominance in North America with 100% control of King Cotton. Lincoln knew all this and used his enormous advantages at the time to establish the North as the financial and cultural capital of the country. That's what they were fighting for. They could care less about freeing the slaves and sure did not want them to come North and be job competition.
I disagree that the Emancipation Proclamation meant the North was then fighting to free the slaves. A country has to state in the beginning why they are going to war, and ALL of the North's statements in the beginning are about Union, because that's where their wealth and power was.
What they said later, after hundreds of thousands of men were dead, are typical partisan lies and excuses to cover their crime and make themselves look noble when they were anything but.
Thanks for writing!
Gene
Stumbled upon this article in college. Wonder what your thoughts on the subject are. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27567319?seq=1
John,
Yes, no question about the large number of black slaveowners from the
beginning, and I've head some of them were the worst. William Ellison, in
South Carolina, in Sumter County, was one of the largest slaveowners in
South Carolina. His house still stands. He was a famous cotton gin maker.
There is a lot out there on black slave owners.
Gene
Great article keep up the good work. As a native of the South the thing that bothers me the most is number of southern people who have thrown away their heritage. At one time I thought the one reason for this was the effect of television however I now realize several factors are involved and one of the big factors is church. Being a Christian it has been somewhat hard to realize or at least admit this but it's true. I really hope Southern people wake up---and soon. You are certainly helping the cause with these articles as well as your books.
David,
The public has gotten nothing but leftist propaganda since the '60s so a lot
of people have no idea of their great history.
The attacks on all of American history have made it clear that the earlier
attacks on the South have been the same old fraud by the same people, many
of whom are hate-America Marxists, liberals in academia, ad nauseam.
The 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory will destroy our enemies
eventually because they are all such frauds.
We'll help their destruction along!
Gene
SCOTUS is the biggest eh fing failure in the universe and it all started with John Roberts who must be a closet communist along with Soto, Kagen and now we have Kavanaugh and Barrett who are questionable. We must convince them that they are the only things standing between the U.S. and an armed citizenry. I fear the worst is going to happen.
Mike,
I completely agree that John Roberts is a cowardly POS. They should have
taken the Texas suit after the fraudulent election.
The next couple years are going to be critical in American history. Can't
believe we are this perilously close to losing our country but the
Marxist Democrat Party and all their media and academia allies are committed
to it, and Republicans are chickesh_t.
Somehow, we'll prevail. Come on Trump and DeSantis!
Gene
Please correct "VERSES" it is "versus".
Thanks so much for pointing that out! I will look up where "verses" is used
and correct it to versus!
Gene
Gene, I wrote to several commentators from Conservative networks who constantly opine that the "Civil War" was fought to end slavery and included a short, concise synopsis which include all of the information in this article, plus a few you left out. Of course, I have heard from none of them and the disinformation continues. I am afraid it is too ingrained in our national psyche and I do not think it is ever going to change. If HR1 passes, none of this will matter because the Marxists will have gained perpetual power, history will be permanently revised and we will go the way of China. Perhaps they will be kind enough to teach us to say "comrade" in Mandarin. garry
Garry,
You probably won't hear from any of them. Conservative outlets, Fox News, and others, are great on American history in general, but horrible on Southern history. Even Trumps 1776 Commission Report was terrible on Southern history though that was not a focus. It was fine overall and excellent in some places like explaining racist Critical Race Theory and the other hate-America doctrines from the left we have to fight.
As Eugene Genovese said, Southern history since the 1960s has been a "cultural and political atrocity."
Gene
Gene,
Great article. I love your book, "Slavery Was Not The Cause Of The War Between The States". Do you have any articles explaining why the first 23 black Congressmen were Republicans? I know it was during Reconstruction (Occupation) and that the Radical Republicans disenfranchised the Confederate veterans and supported the election of blacks over whites to create racial tensions. A guy keeps posting a meme on Pro America Only stating that history does not teach that the first 23 black Congressmen were Republicans. He seems to know the truth, or a lot of it, about history, but not all of it. I know you can explain it better than I can and would like to post something from you on this subject.
Keep up the great work.
Thank you,
Jeff Paulk
Jeff,
Excellent response. You nailed it. Keep it up!
Gene
From: Jeff Paulk
Sent: Friday, May 28, 2021 7:12 AM
To: Gene Kizer, Jr. - Charleston Athenaeum Press
Subject: Re: The first black congressmen
Gene,
Below is my reply to that guy.
History that is not taught is the fact that during Reconstruction (Occupation) the former Confederate soldiers were disenfranchised and not allowed to vote. The Radical Republicans put blacks in positions of authority over whites to create racial tensions where none had existed before. (Divide and conquer) We are not taught that the Radical Republicans of that day wanted to keep the blacks in the South and did not want them in the North or West competing with whites for jobs. Jeffersonian Democrats were the conservatives of that time, while the Republicans were the party of big government and liberalism. The South was divided into five military districts and carpetbag governments were set up that economically raped the Southern population. (Physical raping of blacks and whites was not uncommon either, but we aren't taught about this.) The Union League and Freedman's Bureau beat, tortured, and murdered blacks and whites who would not vote for the Radical Republicans. This led to the creation of the original KKK which used intimidation and violence to protect the citizens since they had no legal recourse. Most atrocities credited to the KKK at that time were actually committed by the Union League and reported in Northern papers putting the blame on the Southerners. Marxist tactics. Blame others for what you yourself are doing while you are doing it. Our schools and universities are a joke when it comes to teaching history.
Jeff Paulk
On Thursday, May 27, 2021, 10:42:07 PM CDT, Gene Kizer, Jr. - Charleston Athenaeum Press wrote:
Appreciate that, Jeff! We’re getting stronger and stronger with organizations like the AbbevilleInstitute.org. We will win this history fight. Ours is the most dramatic story of blood, valor and honor in the history of the world. People will embrace it.
Gene
From: Jeff Paulk
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2021 9:28 PM
To: Gene Kizer, Jr. - Charleston Athenaeum Press
Subject: Re: The first black congressmen
Thanks Gene. Yes, I have Phil's book on Reconstruction (Occupation). It is good and I learned some things from it.
I am proud to have books from both of you in my little "library".
I appreciate what both of you do in telling the truth about our history and putting the truth out there. You do a great service
in honoring our Confederate dead by passing along the true accounts of what they really fought for.
Thank you,
Jeff Paulk
On Thursday, May 27, 2021, 05:31:32 PM CDT, Gene Kizer, Jr. - Charleston Athenaeum Press wrote:
Jeff,
Thanks for writing!
Historian Phil Leigh is the one to talk to about Reconstruction. He wrote an excellent book on it. Check out his website and blog where he has hundreds of articles: https://civilwarchat.wordpress.com/
I can tell you that Reconstruction was the most corrupt time in American history. Not only were Confederates disenfranchised much of the time, Republicans used hate and violence to keep blacks voting Republican even though most of them had no idea who they were even voting for.
My thoughts on the first 23 black congressmen is that they were illegitimate, elected by violence and corruption. How could it be otherwise?
It was only at the end of Reconstruction, after whites reached out to blacks to get them to vote with the whites, that the horrors of Reconstruction ended. Wade Hampton and his Red Shirts are the heroes of all that though the left lies about that like they lie about everything else.
Check out Phil Leigh.
Gene