In fact, the only really bad thing about the South are the just a tad too-rabid college football fans of SEC teams. 
Posted on 03/21/2008 5:22:11 AM PDT by bs9021
The South Rises Again
by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 20, 2008
Academics’ attitudes towards the South color their teaching about the region, particularly lessons on the Civil War, and their histories, thus, often project myth rather than reality. “Many historians, myself excepted, go in with an argument before they have done their research and seek to impose their present policy positions on the past,” University of Pennsylvania historian Walter McDougall said on March 11 in an appearance at the Cato Institute here. “I prefer to go in plug ignorant.”
McDougall is the author of the recently released Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era 1829-1879. “Truth versus error doesn’t make a lot of difference in academic circles now,” Herman Belz, a professor of history at the University of Maryland, said later in the same forum.
Despite his own admonition, McDougall finds an “irresistible parallel” “between “Reconstruction and Operation Iraqi Freedom.” “Reconstruction was America’s first experiment with nation-building,” he explains.
If that analogy holds, it does not bode well for the current effort abroad. “Reconstruction was a failure,” Belz avers. “Freed blacks did not get freedom.”
“Emancipation brought segregation,” and “the national government got bigger.” Although McDougall and company point to “wounded pride” as “the reason for secession,” the debate over the size and scope of the federal government, their evidence suggests, may have also been a motivating factor, even more than slavery itself was....
Both Rubin and McDougall agree that the proportion of southerners who actually owned slaves topped out at about one-third of the population below the Mason-Dixon Line, according to the census figures at the time. “But even the ones who didn’t own slaves wanted to,” Rubin says.
“Slavery did not cause secession,” Belz argues. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
LLS
A GREAT BOOK - The Politically Incorrect Guide to the South
What the liberal media don’t want you to know - and what they get plain wrong about the South and its history
PLUS: Why you’d probably be happier living there - if you’re not already
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the South
by Clint Johnson
http://www.conservativebookclub.com/products/BookPage.asp?prod_cd=c7003
If there’s anything the liberal media loves to hate,it’s the South. And thanks largely to them,today almost every reminder of Southern history and heritage is under attack: battle flags,soldier statues,even songs such as “Dixie.” Now,in The Politically Incorrect Guide to the South,Clint Johnson fights back against this media-led “hate the South” campaign. He reveals that,far from being the backwater of prejudice and hate that liberals would have you believe,the South has always been the center of American culture. Indeed,Johnson shows,from the Founding Fathers(Washington,Jefferson,Madison,Monroe,and many others) to the frontiersmen who tamed the West to the Country Music,NASCAR,Bible-thumping heart of “Red State” America,the South is the quintessence of what’s original,unique,and most-loved about American culture. And with its emphasis on traditional values,family,faith,military service,good manners,small government,and independent-minded people,the South is just plain more livable than the North - which is one reason why millions of Yankees,white and black,have been moving down there in droves.
OK, I'll bite. What exactly is "The Truth" with respect to this topic? This article doesn't say much except string together a bunch of quotes. What exactly is the great conspiracy that is making Southerners "victims" here?
It’s not just the South. The Corrupt Media (i.e. the “Mainstream Newsmedia) hates the entire U.S.A.
“...and independent-minded people,the South is just plain more livable than the North...”
Frankly, I was amazed at the incredible number of small, independent businesses here in SC. Entreprenuers are everywhere. Rural Michigan, with its boarded up businesses and for sale signs popping up like weeds, looks like a movie set for a depression era film by comparison.
It’s my belief that SC will weather any recession due to its diverse business base.
From the books back cover....
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the South gives you the facts behind scores of revelations like these:
The first of the 13 colonies to formally legalize slavery? (Hint: it’s not in the South)
How Georgia banned slaves - and lawyers - in its founding charter
Why the South is more important to the American Founding than the North
Throw away those history textbooks: How the South,not the North,started -and won — the American Revolution
How Southerners led the way in drafting the Declaration of Independence,the U.S. Constitution,and the Bill of Rights
Why Northerners - not Southerners - wanted slaves to be counted as property instead of people in the Constitution
Peculiar fact about the wealthy slaveholder whose court cases helped legalize slavery in Virginia: he was black
How Virginia militiamen created the American Midwest
Why Northern states threatened secession long before the Confederacy - and why they considered it Constitutional
How the expansion of the U.S. across the continent from 1830-1850 - which gave us the term “Manifest Destiny” - was largely a Southern achievement
Lewis & Clark? Southerners,of course
The first two Jewish members of the U.S. Senate? Yep,you guessed it
How Southerners outnumbered Northerners almost four to one among the heroes of the Alamo
Why slavery,which spread across all thirteen colonies,was far crueler in the North than the South
How the Northern colonies grew rich on slave trading - and revived slavery in the South just before it collapsed
New York City’s largest industry in 1860? The outfitting of slave ships
The site of a mass grave for slaves who were literally worked to death? Hint: it’s not in the South
Why economics - not slavery - was the driving force behind the War Between the States
How Lincoln twice refused — or actually revoked — orders for emancipating slaves
How Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation left more than 800,000 slaves in bondage in states aligned with or occupied by the Union
Black heroes of the Confederacy - and other great Southern blacks you won’t hear about during Black History Month
How the more civilized Southern way of war contributed to its defeat - in contrast to the North’s brutal “total war” against civilians and property
How the Northern victory dealt a death blow to states’rights - leading eventually to today’s all-powerful federal government
Why “Reconstruction” is the most misnamed period in American history
Why segregation,which didn’t exist in the antebellum South,was a legacy of Northern-imposed “Reconstruction”
How virtually all of America’s highest-ranking World War II generals had Confederate roots
How Southerners won World War II in the Pacific theater
How the South was making movies when Hollywood was nowhere
Why race relations in today’s South are much better than in the North - or anywhere else in America
What Yankee reporters don’t understand about the South
Why faith and family come first in the South
Why the South is naturally conservative (and the North is naturally liberal)
Why limited government and low tax rates are a Southern tradition
Why Northerners - white and black — keep moving South
Statistics show Southerners are happier than people in other regions - Clint Johnson shows you why
It’s a fact: Southern women dominate beauty pageants,and Southern men dominate in sports
Why blacks have been moving back to the South in droves
How American jazz,blues,and rock ‘n’ roll (when it was still music) all came from the South
Why blacks hold more - and more powerful - political offices in the South than in the North
Why Southern industry is booming,while the North’s is going bust
The second war against the South — the campaign to erase memory and history - and how it serves liberal interests
Why Southerners are overrepresented in the military - and no,it’s not poverty
The best American literature? Southern,of course - and our high school and college reading lists confirm it
10 Things Southerners Don’t Understand About the North (#1: Why isn’t Ted Kennedy in prison?)
Sounds like a real feel-good book.
Excellent post!
Socialism is Slavery by Givernent,, Democracy causes socialism and north eastern States have and do push the socialism that democracy causes.. Democracts are for democracy but republicans(historically) are for the republic
THE REAL LINCOLN and LINCOLN UNMASKED by Dr. Tom DiLorenzo are excellent histories of what really happened in that era. Of course, members of the Church of Lincoln would disagree.
It was an abysmal failure...radical Republican disenfranchisement of former Confederates doomed it from the start. The corrupt Freedman's Bureau and more corrupt (carpetbagger/scalawag) politics emanating from the Grant administration added fuel to the raging doom and set up a climate of racism that would last a century. Had Lincoln lived, with his vision or reconciliation and implementation of Civil Rights for former slaves without northern bayonets and with full states rights concurrence, it would have been different.
Well think about this... Is it really north eastern states or is it urban living? As people live in closer proximity it would make sense that they would seek more restrictive rules. For example have you ever been in a city during a garbage strike? Assigning all your boogie monsters to north eastern states I think it just as bad as northern stereotypes about southerners (IMHO).
Um... the Klan was less than helpful too as were the calls to cut and run in Washington.
I do not bash Lincoln like some Southern Patriots around here do. I am glad the USA is one country. It's good to hear that the Southern part of the USA had a positive effect on the rest, for not only is this true, but it shows that the South is a decent part of the country.
Back to Lincoln. He did what he had to do. The changes in warfare that occured while not just, were natural given the superiority of Southern military know-how versus Northern might in armarments and men. In war things escalate and get out of hand. I'm sure the commandant of Andersonville didn't want to mistreat his prisoners but ugly things happened on both sides.
Had I been alive then I would have first plead to not dissolve the Union, but, like Robert E. Lee, once Alabama had seceded I would have fought for my native land. And had I lived through that terrible conflict, I would have supported Lincoln's version of reconciliation.
Lincoln's assassination set the South back 100 years. It was a devastation for us.
Some great and ironic points in your post. Thanks. However, I’m not sure Lincoln could have rescued Reconstruction as it extended for many more years than Lincoln’s power had he lived beyond assassination.
Another good book on this subject is
The Last Generation: Young Virginians in Peace, War, and Reunion By Peter S. Carmichael
LLS
In fact, the only really bad thing about the South are the just a tad too-rabid college football fans of SEC teams.
Oh geeze, I was afraid you were going to go down that tired and dusty old road...give it up. Of course there were many many factors that led to the War. Of course northerners and southerners can both be accused of making stupid moves. However, it was the slavery issue that brought the states rights versus individual civil rights issue to the forefront in the minds of the people of the day. To say slavery was the only reason the war was fought is idiotic. To insiste that slavery was no factor at all is equally as idiotic.
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