Or maybe the right questions are how does the teaching of American history vary from place to place in the country and how has it changed over the years? Those are the questions that came to me as I read Tyler Cowen’s opinion piece at Bloomberg, his thoughts on “revisionist history” for the 4th of July 2020. Here’s its opening:
True patriotism, especially of the American variety, comes from questioning the history you were born into. As July 4 approaches, we should all keep this in mind as we question some of the fundamentals of the American story — and we should ask ourselves not whether these reconsiderations are justified, but why there aren’t more of them. Revisionist history serves many useful purposes, and for the most part it should be encouraged — even though many particular revisionist claims turn out to be wrong.
For my part I think there’s revisionist history and revisionist history. I don’t think much of “revisionist history” that’s an outright lie, easily disproven, and does nothing but undermine any sense of common values. Keep in mind that the U. S. is distinctive among countries in that our nationhood is founded on shared values; without them we’re just a dormitory, a waystation.
Tyler is considerably younger than I am but I have known about racism, slavery, Jim Crow, the Tulsa race riots, the American Civil War and its foundations, and have considered American foreign policy skeptically since I was a kid. But some of that might be due to where I grew up, the schools I attended, and my family background.
Let’s consider one example of revisionist history: that Thomas Jefferson had an affair with a mulatto slave, Sally Hemmings, and sired several children by her. As I understand it the genetic evidence is unable to distinguish whether Jefferson or his uncle sired Sally Hemmings’s children and there is non-genetic evidence, e.g. letters that contradict the genetic evidence. We’ll never know. And yet it is taken as revealed truth by many. Why? I think it’s to undermine Jefferson’s contributions to our history and disrupt our shared values. To the extent that’s the case I think it’s harmful.
There’s another sort of revisionist history, for example, many people in the South do not believe that the American Civil War was fought over slavery. IMO there is sufficient evidence to conclude that the Civil War is not severable from slavery. I don’t think the view held by those Southern dissenters, that they were defending their homes against Northern invaders and the issue was one of states’ rights is healthy.
I don’t think much of Howard Zinn’s or Noam Chomsky’s revisionist histories and believe they are largely destructive. I think we’d be better off with Parson Weems than with them.
With regard to the Civil War, none of the Southern troops and very few of their officers had slaves, so why did they fight so long and hard? I think it evident that on the Southern side slavery was a side issue, important only to the plantation owners. The Rebel Army did think it was fighting against Northern aggression. The Northerners justified the War as a war of emancipation.
I also any old enough to remember the 60’s, even a bit of the 50’s. The big change now is the utter and complete perversion and corruption of the Civil Rights Movement. Today, most of its leaders are evil.
Stating that the Civil War was fought over slavery is a vast oversimplification and a distortion of reality. The North was not fighting to end slavery or emancipation. In fact, Northern politicians, including President Lincoln, went out of their way to avoid it being portrayed as such.
There were two issues – States Rights and succession. Slavery was the genesis of the issues, and slavery was about property and property rights. President Lincoln delayed issuing the Emancipation Proclamation because of property rights issues, and were it not a wartime edict, it most likely would have been ruled unconstitutional.
The surrender of the South established that States could not become ununited (succeed) and that the Federal government can enforce its laws in the States. While State Rights were not eliminated, they were extensively curtailed.
With passage of the 14th Amendment, no person in the US could become legal property, but seven years later, the Supreme Court legalized the caste system. So, a person could not be property, but he/she could be treated like property, or worse.
I have a gut reaction to modern revisionist history as it seems to be agenda driven. But history itself has so many faces it lends itself to that.
What I was presented in grade school was agenda driven. Patriotism was front and center. Names of Generals and dates of major battles came before (any) discussion of cause of conflict.
Native Americans say White people stole our lands, my retort is always that it’s unreasonable and inaccurate to sum up a 300 year clash of cultures in that manner.
Was Hitler a bad man? Anybody?
How about Eichmann? Otto Skorzeny? Hosni Mubarak, Yasser Arafat, or any of the other Nazi proteges we’ve supported over the years.
All depends upon your perspective and your needs at the moment.
Of course it’s an oversimplification. It’s an oversimplification that World War II was fought over Pearl Harbor. However, without two events: Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor we are unlikely to have joined. The former ended opposition to our participating in the war by the American left and the latter ended opposition to our participating in the war by the American right.
When Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois Republican, was elected president on November 6, 1860, it was a signal that slavery would be ended. In Illinois at least the Republican Party was an abolitionist party. About a month later on December 20, 1860 eleven southern states seceded. On March 4, 1861 Lincoln was inaugurated. Just about a month later Southerners attacked Fort Sumter. There’s your Northern Aggression.
Slavery was not the only issue but it was the necessary issue.
oversimplification:
Yes, but who holds the cards and what are their interests and objectives?
For Hitler, the complete extermination of a people he considered anathema to his aims.
For Arafat, the complete extermination of a people he considered anathema to his aims.
For Robert Louis Johnson, it’s 6 Trillion in old slavery reparations, yes, old. 150 years old.
My mother was a Slav. Where do we get our reparations?
The book “Lies My Teacher Told Me” is an analysis of history textbooks and points out things they got wrong. While my 1995 edition is on the old side and textbooks have been updated, two of the important category of errors are that the textbooks minimize both history of racism and antiracism. The 1619 Project seeks to increase one and eliminate the other (or increase white racism and decrease white anti-racism).
The Republican Party was an anti-slavery party that united around a view of history (which was favorable of the founders) and observance of the Constitution as embodying the principle of “Freedom National, Slavery Local.” History books tend to see them as a status quo party, merely seeking to limit slavery’s expansion where few people reside, but they intended to use federal power where it was supreme (on the seas, in the territories, the nation’s capital, the federal courts and enforcement against fugitive slaves) to erect a cordon of freedom which would actively bring about the ultimate extinction of slavery. Many slaveowners understood what the Republicans were up to and the threat posed.
If one doesn’t take the Republicans seriously, then the Rebellion does not make complete sense, and the Republicans willingness to preserve the terms of the union seems like capitulation. Also, if one doesn’t appreciate Republican veneration of slaveowners like Jefferson and Madison, one skips a lesson in forging majoritarian consensus. It was the Slave power that denied the Declaration of Independence having any value. It was Madison’s notes on the Constitutional Convention (released in 1840) that confirmed that the Constitution recognized that there could be “no property in men.”
Since I attended Catholic grade schools and high school, the American history I was taught exaggerated the roles of priests and nuns in covered wagons. But I didn’t learn all of my history in school and television wasn’t as all-powerful as it is now. I learned a lot based on family lore, what my parents taught me, and outside reading. My great-great-grandfather Wagner, for example, had actually met Lincoln (he grew up not far from where Lincoln did). He was a Republican, presumably one of the founding members, and served throughout the Civil War with the Union Army. The notion that slavery was a side issue is odd to say the least.
I definitely believe that ordinary Southern working people have been sold a bill of goods about the war. Only a minority of Southerners owned slaves at the outbreak of hostilities (1%, 3%, 5%, 30% depending on how you calculate but still a minority) and of those only around 3% owned more than 50 slaves. It’s not too much to say that the Civil War was fought to protect the economic interests of a Southern aristocracy who promoted it as “defending our way of life” or “protecting our rights”.
I disagree with Dave on Sally Hemmings; I think there is a lot of evidence that was put together most recently in Annette Gordan-Reed’s book, which I have not read but have perused. She marshals the evidence like a lawyer, and whether or not in the end someone finds it persuasive would be for them to decide. She is not a critical race theorist or a radical, and has spoken out some against some of the 1619 project. She doesn’t hate Jefferson.
And if you read the case she presents, Sally Hemings had agency, that she could have stayed in France, but decided to return with Jefferson because he promised her freedom for her children, and that her story and those of her siblings constitute a fairly remarkable family. The more radical historical views tend to discount narratives of slaves or the reality of individual achievement within a degraded system, but the Hemingses do no appear degraded themselves.
My point is that we do not and cannot know what actually happened. And I believe that the purpose of dwelling on the alleged sexual encounter is primarily to challenge Jefferson’s authority. I have no opinion on Ms. Gordon-Reed’s motivations for making her case. Whether she is an exponent of critical race theory is moot. At least some of those who perseverate on the subject of Jefferson’s paternity of Sally Hemmings’s children have an agenda and it is not a uniting one but to expose Jefferson as a fraud and discredit him.
My daughter attended school in Virginia. One of the first things she did was go three weeks early and take an accelerated course in the history of the Civil War, or as she would wryly smile and remark, The War of Northern Aggression. It was not taught as fact. It was noted.
I think this is the closest to the truth:
“It’s not too much to say that the Civil War was fought to protect the economic interests of a Southern aristocracy who promoted it as “defending our way of life†or “protecting our rightsâ€.â€
Secession, states rights, a southern way of life, etc were all political posturing to justify the protection of economic interests. It wasn’t the first time, and such posturing remains the stock political game played today. Eg. Everyone can agree that Black Lives Matter. But that’s a political smoke screen for a campaign to gain power and economics.
The problem with revisionist history is that it muddies the waters and does not allow a clear assessment of issues. Propaganda is a powerful tool. And its use by people in authority, often under threat of penalty for “wrong thinking,†against young people is despicable.
Advocacy is OK in academia if presented in a Socratic process with full disclosures. Intolerant browbeating is not. See Dave’s later post on liberals vs progressives.
The problem is that the teachers are human complete with agendas, prejudices, and biases of their own.
I know. So I think the best you can do is require full disclosure, employ debate, encourage tolerance and have some sort of oversight that enforces that. That simply isn’t the dominant ethic on campus right now. Its closer to a pipe dream.
My daughter’s favorite class was one that dealt with ethical and topical issues of the day. The professor would divide the class into two sides and provide a background sheet and pose some questions. The students, no mater their real existing views, were to make the case assigned to them. Not exactly the Socratic method, but a way of forcing students to think and argue from alternative perspectives.
In the liberal arts especially, I doubt there is much of this going on in colleges today. Just ask the students. Its just cram down.