Debunking the myth of the Lost Cause: A lie embedded in American history - Karen L. Cox

"Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter." -African proverb

Denying history makes it easier to be repeated

Whenever Im confronted in discussion with the States Rights BS I point out that the folks who promoted the separation and war actually wrote down why. There is no need to speculate. Slavery is mentioned more often than any other reason

It is sad how far this myth has spread, all the way to our history curriculum in India.

Can't wait for the first comments being like "I used to like TED-Ed but now they just want to push an Agenda"

"If this war is to be forgotten, I ask the name of all things sacred, what shall men remember?" Damn. What a great quote.

The funny thing about the states rights arguments is it leads to the question of why the Confederacy was worried about states rights and what particular States right they were worried about. Apparently that right was the right to regulate or prohibit slavery. It seems like the states rights argument’s logical conclusion was that slavery was the reason for the civil war.

The Confederate leaders told us explicitly that slavery was the cause of secession and war so there is no question

"defending our right to ignore human rights if we wanted" - the lost cause

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." - Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) Thanks for 1.7 K likes! I never got so many!!! Thank you!!!

I began school in Illinois and Minnesota. I never heard the term states rights as the reason did the civil war until I moved to Missouri. Then I was treats with shock and horror that I stated slavery as the reason for the civil war. This was in the nineties

In the 80s I was taught in public school that the Civil war was fought over slavery. That slavery was the foundation of the cotton economy and the states that were practicing slavery feared losing their economic and political power. I never even heard the idea of "states rights" until about 15 years ago. In a Ted talk or something where Texas was approving textbooks that called the KKK civic leaders, erased Thurgood Marshall from the curriculum, claimed that the Civil War was fought over states rights and referred to slaves as "imported labor." The whole thing made my skin crawl.

I am now 57 and when I was young I was taught that the Civil War was about state's rights. I grew up in Wisconsin. Over the years my cousin learned German and translated many of the letters of our ancestors who were German Lutherans. Our great grandfather fought in the Wilderness. In his letters he never mentions states rights, but talks a lot about the inhumanity of slavery. He was elected sergeant of their company. Fun fact, none of them spoke English, only German.

Confederates: "We didn't lose, We merely failed to win!"

I attended school in a rural southern town in the 90s. The history being taught was very dependent on who was teaching. I definitely had teachers that tried to downplay slavery's role in the Civil War, but I heard far more Lost Cause rhetoric from older members of the community. There are plenty of younger people that believe these lies because that's what they were told by their family.

I grew up and still live in Kentucky and was taught the Civil War was about states rights and not about slavery. It wasn’t until I grew up and read more that I know the truth about the war starting over slavery. There are signs to this day at historic sites that read, The War of Northern Aggression!

I guess I had a lot of good history teachers. We were taught everything horrible about slavery. The selling that seperated family members, the labour that sometimes exhausted those poor people to death, the punishments that they endured, and the dangerous jobs that sometimes left them with gruesome injuries. It makes me sad to hear that some schools didn't teach this.

Wait a freaking second... THE UDC IS STILL AROUND?!?!?!

It's been said that the North fought to free the slaves (wrong) and that the South fought for states' rights (wrong). What I think is that it was actually the inverse: the North fought against a state's right to unilaterally secede from the Union, and the South fought against the abolition they were sure would be forced on them if they remained in the Union.

As a kid we were taught the Civil War was all about the south not wanting to give up slavery. Our small town even had some tunnels used by the underground railroad to help escaped slaves. We had field trips to underground railroad sites and there was never any talk about so called states right revisionist history. Even though I grew up in rural WI in a place where all kids looked alike (mostly blond hair, blue eyes, germanic ancestry) and not a single minority in our school. The education system in rural WI at least didn't mince words about the civil war and taught about the atrocity of slavery in the southern states and their inhumane treatment of their fellow man.