Hello:

I don't know who closed History books - part I, but somebody did. However, I wasn't quite finished.

I think Texas is right. We should teach kids about Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy. But let's tell the whole story. I have the feeling that Texas, amongst others, is attempting to revise history by telling us that the Civil war was fought over states rights, and NOT slavery. They're WRONG!

So, along with the Jefferson Davis inaugural address, which Texas wants IN your kids schoolbooks, I suggest we also INCLUDE a reading of the Cornerstone Speech (http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=76) made by Alexander Stephens, the vice-president of the Confederacy, on March 21, 1861. With remarkable candor, Stephens pointed out that, whereas the United States was founded on the idea, enshrined in Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal," the new Confederacy was founded on the opposite conception:
---------------------

"The prevailing ideas entertained by [Thomas Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."
-----------------------------

If they included THAT, along with the other Confederate claptrap, I'd be happy. Fair and balanced. Isn't that a right wing thing?

excon

I agree . I said essentially the same thing in the original history book op when Fr Chuck brought up the Civil War.

I have to say that the country did attempt a reconcilliaton between the States after the war. So much of the history text and published reference of the time reflected this by understating the cause and masking it by bringing in a number of related issues as the true causes of the war.

Then what has been called revisionism was introduced into the texts . But revisionism in this case reflects a more accurate reading of the war.