Donald Rumsfeld is from Illinois gotta problem wit dat? No. Not everyone from Illinois is close-minded. My brother lives there.
Of course, your irrelevent remark is just further indication of the paucity of your ideas...
No, it merely expresses my exasperation with those who have entirely swallowed the party line one is fed in Illinois schools. I too remember being taught the Official Doctrine when I was a child in Illinois: St. Lincoln, the evil Southern traitors who inexplicably wanted to spend their days whipping the noble black man, etc. Fortunately I began reading original documents at the Chicago Historical Society and sometimes at Regenstein, and changed my views.
...or the inability to understand the meaning of treason. Only by claiming it has NO meaning could your position be upheld.
There is no way for any debater to persuade one who refuses to admit that when a large group of people wish to govern themselves, they should be permitted to do so. On this premise our nation was founded. What the Confederacy did might be treason, but so then was what Washington did.
I haven't heard another view from you, merely pathetic attempts to re-write American social history. Since I lived through much of last century I know what the reality of the era was like. You, on the otherhand, get your views from those who would deny the truth for a policical agenda.
Don't jump to conclusions. I am only six years younger than you are. I too recall the last half of the twentieth century, and I too studied history at the graduate level. In fact, I studied at some of the same institutions you did. Perhaps the difference is that I was able to broaden my study and thus expand my vision.
"Party" line of the Arkansas schools was essentially the crap Lincoln haters here spout and based upon the same lies.
My conclusions on any matter are not the result of Illinois schools since I never studied either American history or the Civil war in them. They are, however, the result of extensive reading outside the schools. Original documents relevence to any matter depends on who wrote them your comments appear to have been based without considering that simple fact. What documents did you see which show slavery NOT to be a brutal de-humanizing tyrannic abomination?
Nothing wrong with large groups of people wanting to govern themselves but secession was illegal from the beginning of the constitution as was pointed out in 360. Should an amendment been ratified allowing secession I would have nothing to object to morally but that never happened so treasonous revolt was tried. Proper distinctions are appropriate. Revolt against the King (who was the sovereign of the colonies except for Pennsylvania) is not the same as revolt against the document the American People created to govern it. Revolt against the People's government is Treason just as revolt against Virginia's government in 1860 would have been a form of treason.
If your study is such, how can you deny the persistent and on-going activity against Black people in the South? How can you pretend that there was equal justice or equal opportunity for Blacks and Whites? How can you deny the murders, beatings, forced exiles of politically active Blacks or the ease with which Black men were railroaded to prison for "offenses" against white womanhood. The riots in Tulsa, New Orleans, Arkansas directed at murdering Blacks. Did your historical studies leave you ignorant of these things. Events which form the background of TKaM and which, without knowledge of, the book loses its relevence and appeal. You don't have to like the book and it is not one of the greatest novels ever written but it is not un-real or trite except ex-post facto.