The Myth and Reality of Abraham Lincoln

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Bonus issued as n withdrawable bonus bets, which expiireres seven days after receipt restrictions applies, see full terms at fan dou dot com slash sportsbook Gambling problem, call one eight hundred gambler or one eight hundred My reset Today's realal History episode is brought to you by Mount Titano Media, publishers of Finding Our Words, Words that made America a collection of the greatest speeches in American history, featuring the voices and words that built this country Go to mountitanoedia. comot to get your copy today On the night of january second, eighteen sixty four, Confederate General Patrick Clayburn was worried He warned his fellow southerners that surrender to the North quote It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers We'll learn from Northern schoolchbooks their version of the war. We'll be impressed by all the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision. Clayburn was only partly right. For most of the following century, non southerners were pretty fair about the war and openly respected the South's leaders, including Lee. We work top Americans in the past They are Franklin, Washington, Lincoln, and Leee The South erected statues and monuments to its heroes. Several were erected inside the United States Capitol. Even abroad, people respected the dignity, bravery, and brilliance of Robert E Lee. Winston Churchill described Lee as one of the noblest Americans who ever lived and one of the greatest captains known to the annals of war It was almost exactly one century after the war in the nineteen sixties, when things took a turn. But even then it wasn't immediate. In nineteen seventy seven, the Southern rock band Leonard Skinner performed in Oakland, California with the Confederate Battle flag as their backdrop. In nineteen eighty eight, Hank Williams, Junr. released a top ten hit called If the South W would have won But during the woke upheavs of the last decade, the story really changed And the statues and flags started coming down Even conservatives in the South had turned on Southern heritage. It's time to move the flag from the Capitol grounds. M fifty years after the end of the Civil War, the time has come. The retreat opened the floodgates for anti American radicals who literally desecrated the grave of Robert E. Lee's horse, melted his statues, and slandered his reputation onfederacy, the American Civil War, It was an act of rebellion. It was an act of treason at the time. The current understanding of the Civil War, as it's taught in Hollywood and schools and everywhere else, is a cartoon caricature The last ten years have been a master cllass in historical malpractice so jaw droppingly stupid that Honestly, most sane people would just change the channel and call it a day But here we are. obbligated to tell the truth So here it goes The Civil War is not nearly as black and white as the schoolmms wish it were It was one of the most complicated events in American history Its heroes, who existed on both sides were complex, multid dimensional people Over the course of this video, we're gonna prove it This is the real history of the Civil War. Imagine serving as an infantryman in a battle where your enemy outnumbers your side two to one. And not only that, your enemy is better trained. They're well rested and to make matters worse They've caught your regiment and your entire army in a pitcher. have a massive number of soldiers behind you and in front of you perfectly positioned As an infantryman in this scenario, all you could do is follow orders, march where you're told to march, and shoot when you see the enemy So that's what you do Then imagine that after a week of the most intense fighting of your life, you realize that your side has somehow emerged victorious. In fact, you've won decisively. You don't remotely understand how it happened You thought it was impossible. Well, that was the experience of a Confederate soldier named Darastus Myers during the Battle of Chancellororsville, which lasted from april thirtieth to may sixth, eighteen sixty three. On may eleventh, Myers, who served as a sergeant with the thirty third Virginia Infantry Regiment, wrote a letter to his brother and sister The Lord hath crowned our arms with another glorious victory. I think it was one of the hottest contests of the war. The enemy were strongly entrenched. We fought them on the left at Chancellorsville with forty thousand men against one hundred and ten thousand I never was under such a fire of grapeshell canister and musketry in my life, though the Lord spared my life Although the Confederacy lost more than thirteen thousand soldiers at Chancellor'ville, as well as several key officers, including Stonewallell Jackson, the battle is widely considered to be the greatest Confederate victory of the Civil War and one of the most impressive military victories of all time The historic victory was the result of the leadership of Robert Eee, the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. It's widely regarded as one of the most brilliant tactical victories in American military history Often called Lee's perfect battle It's referenced in books like the West Point Atlas of American Wars, and it continues to be studied in military academies today for its demonstration of outmaneuvering larger forces through audacity and tactical ingenuity In other words Robert Lee was a genius So who was this man who more than one hundred and fifty years after his death is still so frequently talked about? Robert Lee was born in eighteen oh seven into a prominent Virginia family as the son of revolutionary war hero Henry Lighthorse Harry Lee From young age, it was obvious that he was a military genius. He graduated second in his class from the United States Military Academy at West Point with zero deerits over four years and was commissioned into the elite U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. For over two decades, he served as an exceptional military engineer overseeing critical infrastructure projects for the federal government He served in the Mexican American War, where he performed so well under fire promoted to Cern After the war, he ran West Point and later commanded cavalry units. Texas. A decade later in eighteen sixty three, he found himself fighting the very army that he spent three decades serving. Many of the officers he commanded and fought against were students at West Point when he ran it He needed a victory at Chancellor'sville because he needed European support to break the naval blockade His enemies sought to destroy Lee's army and reunite the country The odd were in favor of the union Lee's men were facing starvation in Fredericksburg and he had just split his forces up, sending General James Longstreet and roughly twenty thousand soldiers away to Suffolk to defend Richmond and secure war supplies. As the Union Army converged on Chancellorsville that a substantial numerical advantage Union forces began crossing the Rapahanic River in late April, laying pontoon bridges just south of Fredricksburg At the same time, another Union column was marching east, crossing the Rapidan River roughly seventy thousand Union soldiers ultimately convergge that the chances were crossroads Moving towards Fredericksburg and the rear of the Confederate Army Meanwhile Hooker left a force in front of Lee at Fredericksburg under General John Sedgwick It was clear that a massive battle was growing On the evening of april twenty ninth, Jedediah Hotchkiss, a topographical engineer on Stonewell Jackson's staff remarked tomorrow, tomorrow. Death will hold high carnival. Faced with a vastly inferior strategic position, Lee had three options. Option one, he could attack Sedgwick's forces roughly forty thousand men along with artillery that were directly in front of him at the Raponick River. But if the fighting lasted too long, the Union could move from the west and destroy the rear of the Confederate Army. Option two He could retreat and head south to consolidate his forces. This was the safest maneuver at least in the shorterm Option three you could split his forces and send Jackson's corps to the west while leaving some small divisions at the front line holding Sedwick at bay At the time, there were seventy thousand Union soldiers over four corps who had moved into the Virginia wilderness facing east If Lee divided his army to attack those advancing Union forces in the woods The main risk was that Sedgwick would advance and crush the small number of troops he left behind L decided to take that risk He ordered Jackson to lead the troops to the west Troops in the dead of night were unsure of what exactly was going on William Calder, a soldier in the second North Carolina infantry, recorded the movement this way We had no idea where we were going. A soldier never knows where he's going nor what he's going to do until the moment for action comes only to trust in their commanders All we went through mud and over stumps Stumbling out in the dark. To the great danger of our heads and our shins All the while Union generals were congratulating one another. Bands played upbeat songs as soldiers cheered But by the morning of may first, the mood changed. Jackson's army advancing to the west ran into Union brigades from the fifth Corps and twelfth Corps catching Hooker off guard Although the Union maintained a numerical advantage, Hooker ordered his soldiers to pull back Union generals couldn't believe Hooker's orders. In fact, Major General Henry Sloum, who was in charge of the Telfth Corps, called the orders crazy and threatened to shoot the messenger who delivered the news. But ultimately, the generals obeyed Hooker was still convinced that he was in a superior strategic position, but Lee was not done yet. Jackson opposed yet another secret flanking maneuver taking his entire corps and leaving behind only fourteen thousand men Around five AM on may second, Lee authorized Jackson to take the entire second court fifteen infantry brigades consisting of thirty thousand soldiers and more than a hundred cannon around the Union's right flank In the fog of war, Jackson was able to snake around the Union forces undetected With the help of scouts and locals who mapped out a route in the wooded terrain In his final dispatch to General Lee, Jackson wrote, The enemy has made a stand at Chancellor's which is about two miles from Chancellor'sville. hope as soon as practable to attack I trust that an ever kind Proidence will bless us with great success. respectfully TJ Jackson The five thirty PM horse artillery positioned near the turnpike fired off two signal shots, which were followed by bugle calls Jackson's core emerged suddenly from the woods twelve thousand soldiers from the Union's eleventh corps We were taken completely by surprise, many of their trenches were facing the south, not the west where where the Conferate surprise attack was coming from Very quickly, the Union forces were pushed back about three miles But they weren't completely defeated. It was dark and they were in the woods which complicated Jackson's efforts to crush them Jackson decided to push forward anyway and headed north to cut off the Union retreat. In fact, Jackson himself, along with some other officers, rode out ahead of the Confederate line to get a better sense for what the Union Army was doing. Jackson was wounded by friendly fire died eight days later Jackson's profound final words were documented by the historian Shelby Foot. And he call the doctor and he says, doctor McGuire, my wife tells me, I'm going to die day, is that true? And the doctor said Yes, it is. he said Good. Very good I always wanted to die on a Sunday Lee appointed Jeb Stewart to replace Jackson, ordering him to press the attack. And as Lee put it, quote, it is necessary that the glorious victory thus far achieved be prosecuted with the utmost vigor and the enemy given no time to rally As soon, therefore, as it is possible, they must be pressed so that we may unite the two wings of the army. Endeavor, therefore to dispossess them of Chancellorsville, which will permit the union of the whole army I shall myself proceed to join you as soon as I can, make arrangements on this side, but let nothing delay the completion of the plan of driving the enemy from his rear and from his positions. I shall give orders that every effort be made on this side at daybreak to aid in the junction On may third, Stewart led brutal frontal assaults on critical positions, including the high ground of Hazel Groth with the goal of reuniting the Confederate Army The attack was immediately effective. In order to prevent another Confederate flanking maneuver, Hooker made the fateful decision to abandon the high ground on Hazel Grove, ordering sickles to fall back with the rest of the Union forces. was a pivotal bluter. And yet another cautious decision while Lee was pursuing a much more aggressive strategy It's important to emphasize how important Hazel Grove was as an artillery platform As Chris Mckowski writes in that furious struggle, quote In the seventy square mile sea of trees that made up the wilderness, there were few open plots of ground, making the wilderness a terrible place to deploy artillery Open ground like Hazel Grove was invaluable Being on higher ground increases a gun's range while also making the gun harder to hit with counter battery fire. The Confederates immediately rushed dozens of guns onto Hazel Grove and unloaded on the Union lines, forcing them to pull back The cover fire allowed the Confederate Army to reunite, as Leig had ordered. It also had a direct impact on the leadership. of the Union Army. Hooker was injured when a Confederate cannon ball struck the porch where he was standing at his command center, splintering a piece of wood that fell and hit him. Booker was never removed from command, nor did his subordinates attempt to replace him. But he was clearly dazed at the worst possible moment right when his forces were divided And the fighting was fiercest. But at the same time, Sedgwick broke through the Confederate battle lines at Fredericksburg, specifically Mary's Heights, posing a direct and unopposed threat to the rear of Lee's lines When we heard the news, he was stoic in response to a chaplain who was panicking after brringing word of the advancing Union army. Lee said simply, Thank you very much Both you and your horse are overheated. Take him to that shady tree yonder Rest a little Lee ultimately decided to split his army for a third time He sent the secondcond Corps under Brigadier General Raleigh Colston to strike Hooker, and he ordered McLaw's division to march east to fight Sedgwick The fighting had broken out in three key areas, Salem Church, Fredericksburg, and the Chancellorsville Crossroads. Eventually, Lee rode out to Salem Church to lead the counteratack on Sedgwick directly He successfully prevented the Union Pincer movement once again by dividing his forces. How maneured stunned and physically injured. Hooker ordered a full retreat on the night of may fourth Lee by repeatedly dividing his forces when conventional wisdom called for retreating each time had managed to defeat a much larger army at a time when both the Union and the Confederacy were eager for a major victory Leeeses tactics are still studied today in military academies He recognized his opponent's strategic weakness and his opponent's fear, and he exploited them both. When the war broke out, no one thought it would last long. One person who knew it wouldn't be short was Robert E Lee In early eighteen sixty one, while still in the U.S. Army at Fort Mason, Texas, he correctly predicted that if it came to armed conflict, quote The war will last at least four years He was right. Lee's foresight in recognizing the civil War's potential for protracted devastation, unlike the naive optimism of many on both sides, underscored his wisdom and his realism His perfect battle at Chancellorsville showcased Lee's military prowess. The South didn't have the North's industrial capacity, railroads, wealth, or population. but had some of the greatest military leadership in human history In other words, Lee and the South There were no losers When the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter in april eighteen sixty one, an immediate question arose What should the conflict be called Now, the answer wasn't obvious. On april fifteenth, President Lincoln issued proclamation eighty. which referred to the attack on Sumpter and various state secessions as, quote, combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings in a july fourth message to Congress Lincoln referred to the war as, quote, a case of rebellion He continued to use the term rebellion throughout the war, including in the Emancipation proclamation. where he mentioned the rebellion against the United States The words were political in nature. The Constitution conferred Lincoln' emergency powers if he called it a rebellion. It also denied legitimacy to the South implying that they were still part of the country In eighteen eighty when the warar Department released the official records of the war They titled it The War of the Rebellion, a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate Armies. During the war, the South had its own preferred terms, like the War for Southern Independence and the War betweenween the States After the first Battle of Manassas, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson, Tld us troop I hope by your future deeds and bearing, you'll be handed down to posterity as the first brigade in this our Second War of Independence. Farewell Harris von Bork, Chief of staff to Confederate General Jeb Stewart title his book Memoirs of the Confederate War for Independence Now, whether it was rebellion or a war for independence depends on who you ask. It certainly was not a civil war Civil wars are between two sides that want to control the country The Russian civil warar was between whites and reeds over who would control the Russian emmpire The Chinese Civil War was between communists and nationalists over who would control China The English Civil Wars between parliamentary forces and the King over who would have supreme power over England There's no evidence whatsoever that South had any interest in occupying or controlling Boston or New York or the entire country They wanted to leave the Union for various reasons. which they believe they had the legal right to do The matter at hand was whether the United States Was a collection of sovereign states or a centralized union of subordinate states? That wasn't really a question in the early years of the Republic. According to Catherine Drinker Bowen's book, Miracle Philelphia. When the Constitutional Convention's Committee of Styyle and Arrangement originally drafted the preamble, it had no reference to we the people of the United States. What the articles drafted by the Convention had said was quote We the uersigned delegates of the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Bay, etcera and so on down the list of the thirteen. But they scrapped that idea because it was unlikely that they would get all thirteen states to ratify the new Constitution. The real history of how the term We the people was born is that it was a technicality Back then You wouldn't have said The United States is a place. You would have said These United States are a place. And that is a very important distinction In that context, it's not surprising that by seventeen ninety four justust six years after the Constitution's ratification. Tw U. S. Senators, Rufus King of New York and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, approached Senator John Taylor of Virginia and informed him They wanted to break up the union already. They recognized a huge divide between the Northern and southern states, and it wasn't just cultural differences between the agrarian South and the urbanized North. They noticed major political and economic differences too In eighteen eighty three, more than two decades after the outbreak of the war, Henry Cabott Lodge of Massachusetts acknowledged everybody involved in the ratification of the Constitution would have assumed states could leave writing quote. When the Constitution was adopted by the votes of states at Philadelphia and accepted by the votes of states and popular conventions. It is safe to say that there was not a man in the country from Washington and Hamilton on the one side to George Clinton and George Mason on the other who regarded the new system, as anything but an experiment entered upon by the states. and from which each and every state had the right peaceably to withdraw, a right which was very likely to be exercised Their historical record proves this point Between the founding of the country and eighteen sixty one Northern states threaten to secede at least five times In eighteen oh three, a group of Massachusetts based federalists known as the Essex Junto threatened to secede because they feared the Louisiana purchase would dilute their political power Aaron Burr, who was Thomas Jefferson's vice president, was their leader In eighteen oh seven, they threatened to leave again after Jefferson put an embargo on Great Britain and France During the warar of eighteen twelve,ew England once again threatened to secede because of the British blockade of their ports Some states consider independently making peace with the British Massachusetts and Connecticut refuse to place their militias under federal command They claim the federal government didn't have the power to do it In the eighteen forties, Northern politicians published A solemn appeal to the peoples of free states arguing that the annexation of Texas will be, quote, so injurious to the interests and abhorrent to the feelings of the people of the free states as, in our opinion notot only inevitably to result in a dissolution of the union, but fully to justify it Formmer President John Quincy Adams, Massachusetts signed that document After the eighteen fifty passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, New England threatened to nullify the law And some leaders called for secession again Before the Civil War, the North issued credible threats to secede. At least five separate times As the Great Civar historian Selby Foot put it quote If the states had known that they couldn't get out They never would have gotten in. You've seen how history gets rewritten. We're not the only ones fixing the historical record Mount Titano Media is setting the record straight with finding our words Words that madeade America. A collection of the greatest speeches in American history, many of them nearly forgotten from the people who actually built this country It includes speeches from Frederick Douglas and Booker T. Washington two of the greatest orators America has ever produced, whose words inspired generations We're almost never taught in schools anymore. In a moment when everyone's debating what this country is supposed to be, these words matter more than ever read it or listen to the new audible edition Faturing voices you'll recognize Michael Knles, Andrewlan, Spcer Clavan, US Army generenals and leaders in classical education Every speech comes with an essay by journalist Tracey Lee Simmons. giving you the full historical context This is the history worth knowing. Go find it Go to mount TatoMedia. com to get you your copy of finding our words, Words that madeade America. A, that's Mount Titano Media Robertie Lee witnessed the eighteen sixty election results from a US Army post in San Antonio, Texas As the fervor over secession began to boil over, Lee wrote his father in law, quote, If the union is dissolved, which God in his mercy forbid, I shall return to you. Corne historian Alan Guelzo As the states of the deep South left the Union, Lee complained that the behavior of the cotton states was wholly beyond any justification And he was worried that theirir selfish and dictatorial bearing would make life for Virginia miserable Sould she determine to coalesce with them In a letter to one of his cousins, he wrote Scession is revolution He wrote that, quote, Our people will destroy a government inaugurated by the blood and wisdom of our patriot fathers that has given us peace and prosperity at home Power insecurity abroad. and under which we have acquired a colossal strength unequal in the history of mankind According to Guelzo Lee wished to live under no other government and to have no other flag than the Star sppangled banner. But if that government was now going to disappear, then the only alternative was to Go back in sorrow to my people and share the misery of my native land Like so many Americans from this period, Lee was a patriotic American. and a war hero But he saw himself first and foremost as a Virginia On february sixth, eighteen sixty one, David Twiggs, the commander of U.S Army's Department of Texas surrendered his entire command to the Confederates and ordered all federal troops to abandon their posts Lee refused to leave Fort Mason and pledged to defend his post at all hazards This is because the legality of secession mattered to them And because his native Virginia hadn't secceded yet As he left Texas, Lee declared he was returning to Virginia to resign and go to planting corn And though he would never bear arms against the U.S He might carry a musket in defense of my native state, Virginia Thank Lee's attitude tells us a lot about why not one single Confederate leader was ever convicted of treason because it was commonly understood at the time that it was not treason The legal case for secession goes back to before the Constitution, when thirteen U. S. colonies decided to secede from the British crown After winning their war for independence, those colonies then formed the Articles of Confederation, which required that any changes to the Union be adopted by the Congress in all the states But that never happened, and most states just seceded The background led historian Charles Francis Adams Jr., who served as a colonel in the Union Army to say quote If Robert Lee was a traitor, so also indisputably, were George Washington, Oliver Cromwell, John Hamdon William of Orange Adams goes on George Washington furnishes a precedent at every point. A Virginian like Lee He was also a British subject He had fought under the British flag As Lee had fought under that of the United States. When, in seventeen seventy six, Virginia seceded from the British Empire, he went with his state. Just as Lee went with it, eighty five years later Subsequently, Washington commanded armies in the field designated by those opposed to them as rebels and whose descendants now glorify them as The Rebels of seventy six as Lee later commanded and at last surrendered. Much larger armies also designated rebels by those they confronted Except in their outcome, the cases were therefore precisely alike And logic is logic. So the only difference is that Washington won his war and Lee lost his. The courts basically agreed with that analysis After the Civil War, many Northern newspapers, including the Boston Daily Advertiser and the New York Times, published materials encouraging the government to put Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. O trial for treason. And for their part, the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that a trial would quote render traitors infamous and have it judicially settled that secession is illegal. We would have learned a lot about the country if they would have done it According to University of Virginia, laaw professor Cynthia Nicollltti, no one knew for sure whether secession was legal and that any treason prosecution would rise and fall on that question. Indeed, she quotes, George Washington Woodward, Chief justustice of Pinsan Spme Ct He wrote in a letter to a lawyer representing a confederate Senor quote, The doctrine of state rights Well have a severe test and may find a strange vindication in that trial Scession has yet to be defined. Hitherto been a toy of politicians and they have dodged everything like a definition What is a session treason That's a grand question. If it is not, war in support of it cannot be If the right to withdraw existed must have included the right of defense so that levying war to defend a Confederacy founded in secession not be levying war against the government of the U.S.. But this is on the assumption that the session is something less than treason which I neither aver nor deny. Many Northern politicians were certain the government would lose. Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, who was most famous for getting caned on the Senate floor, said to try Jefferson Davis would be the neay plus ultra of foolly. The Supreme Court's chief Justice said, If you bring these Confederate leaders to trial, it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution, secession is not rebellion Nicoltti writes that even Lincoln himself was concerned about the possibility that a trial might backfire,ote Before his untimely death, President Lincoln had remarked that Davis' flight from Richmond in April was a good thing because it forestalled the political and legal difficulties that might attend a high profile treason prosecution I'm bound to oppose the escape of Jeff Davis. Lincoln had reportedly told General William T. Sherman. If you could manage to have him slip out unbeknownst like I guess it wouldn't hurt me much At a cabinet meeting at the White House on july eighteenth, there was no consensus at the White House as to how to proceed President Andrew Johnon who assumed office after Lincoln's assassination pressed for a clear answer but he't one The Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton stated that there was, quote, a great diversity of opinion in the matter as to whether Davis should be tried first for the crime of high treason Ultimately Andrew Johsn opted to proceed tentatively with a treason prosecution Frasepart Davis was eager for trial because he believes the session was legal and he wanted vindication in court Davis, in fact hoped that he would be arrested in eighteen sixty one after his home state of Mississippi seceded so that he could demonstrate the legality of secession No one arrested him. Manny instead was chosen to be president of the New Confederate States of America That's why Davis, unlike Robert E Lee, never requested a presidential pardon. He genuinely thought that he'd be vindicated in court Jefferson Davis was charged with treason and held for two years at Fort Monroe in Virginia, but never got his day in court Over time, popular support for prosecution waned, and the Johnson administration far from certain that a Virginia jury would convict Davis or even that the Supreme Court would definitively rule that secession was illegal Davis took the surrender As an unequivocal win, quote, A sovereign state cannot commit treason, he wrote The government early discovered that if this issue came before the Supreme Court It would lose its case And I should be acquitted So none of the indictments were ever tried. Shortly after Davis's case was dropped in April of eighteen sixty nine, the Spreme Ct ruled in a separate unrelated case, Texas v. White That secession is indeed unconstitutional As a court put it The Constitution, and all its provisions looks to an indestructible union composed of indestructible states. But it was a thraay line in a case about bonds There wasn't any significant discussion of secession during oral arguments or briefing and the ruling attracted virtually no media attention because by that point, it seemed like a dead issue In short, the Supreme Court snuck in a ruling about the unconstitutionality of secession years after the lengthy public debate over Davis' trial made clear that in fact, there was no consensus on that point in the country there still isn't, by the The America of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was very different from the United States we know today At the time, even many northerners would have conceded that At the minimum, the constitutionality of secession was a close call and that it would be a gross oversimplification, if not an outright falsehood callall these men traitors One of the great myths of the Civil War is that the South was somehow uniquely evil. indeed, at the time, abolitionists aggressively pushed propaganda with exactly that message. As Thomas Fleming writes in a disease in the public mind new understanding of why we fought the Civil War,ote The Aolitioners convinced themselves based on their evangelical experiences that smearing the South's reputation in every possible way would create the anxiety that would lead to a mass conversion of the North to their crusade. The South was portrayed as a province ruled by Satan that would consume the North's soul if her citizens did not vow to expunge the sin of slavery Meanwhile in the south, there was an intense fear of slave insurrections and race wars following the brutal uprising and revolution in present day Haiti Therefore, the Civil War, Fleming argues is best understood as a product of a psychological disease that afflicted both the North and the South in different ways, which made rational dialogue impossible Sounds familiar That mutual disease, he argues is why only the US, unlike Great Britain and Brazil, fought a brutal war over slavery. And yet long after the war, some of these over the top descriptions of the South as simply evil survive today. The cartoon version of history holds that Abraham Lincoln invaded the South Because it had slaves But just how peculiar was the South's peculiar institution, as it was called Well, not very, as it turns out The North had slaves too According to the book, it wasn't about slavery by Samuel Mitcham junior. In seventeen oh three, more than forty two percent of New York City households own slaves A ratio only surpassed by Charleston, South Carolina In Connecticut, Mitcham says one half of all ministered lawyers and public officials own slaves. By seventeen eighty three, one quarter of Connecticut families own slaves One out of every fourteen people in Rhode Island was a slave Many prominent northerners, including founding fathers, own slaves This includes the first signer of the Declar of Independence and future Massachusetts Governor John Hancock, who had two or three household slaves Other notable slave holders from Massachusetts include Cotton Mather who learned about inoculation from one of his slaves Slavery in the North was awful. Massachusetts and Connecticut set curfews for black people According to the book, Black Bndage in the North in the seventeen hundreds Connecticut required blacks to be off the streets by nine at night and to remain within the towns to which they belong Slaves who broke curfew in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island were flogged In New Hampshire, the penalty was ten lashes. In New York it was a misdemeanor for slaves to gather in groups larger than four And in Long Island, they couldot travel more than a mile from home without a pass. Similar laws existed in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey By the time Abraham Lincoln was elected, slavery had been banned in most but not all union states. It's important to point out that while radical abolitionists in the eighteen fifties were calling for the South to immediately free all of their slaves, the Northern states didn't end slavery that way. For the most part The manumission of slaves in the North was a gradual process. The laws emancipated people born in the future and were designed so Northern slaveholders didn't lose money In many cases, Northern slave holders just sold their slaves to the south One overlooked fact is that early attempts to curb the slave trade had southern support In his eighteen oh six state of the Union, President Thomas Jefferson, a Virginian, and a slave owner called on Congress to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa The next year, the United States Congress voted to abolish the slave trade. The bill passed the House with ninety six percent of representatives yes including massive support from southern members of Congress There are two reasons why southern members of Congress voted this way. First, at the time, many people in the South wanted to end slavery, by eighteen twenty seven, more than a hundred anti slavery groups existed in the South, mostly under the banner of colonization societies, which advocated for sending freed slaves back to Africa Second and more importantly, profits from the slave trade. weren't going to the south The slave trade was a northern business and Jefferson's bill was ineffective at stopping it According to the book Black C cargo by Daniel Manox An English captain reported that the port of Lamu and the slave market of Zanibar packed with quote, enterprising Americans whose star Spagled banner may be seen streaming in the wind where other nations would not deign to traffic By eighteen fifty eight, as Abraham Lincoln was running for Senate in Illinois, there were twenty four American ships in the Zanibar harbor as against three British There are two reasons the British Navy, which at the time was trying to end the slave trade couldouldn't stop American slavers. First, American ships were extremely fast and maneuverable. And second, President John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts forbade the British from boarding any American flag ships And The result was huge profits for Massachusetts based slave traders. Manx writ that quote So many of the ships hailed from Salem, Massachusetts that The Zanibarians thought all white men came from this one New England town English officers discovered to their indignation that Great Britain was considered to be a suburb of Salem The Americans traded for slaves and ivory with a cheap caligo turned out in vast quantities by the New England cotton mills And evenven today, cotton is called Americani. and Zzibar Moving slaves from Africa to the Caribbean and Brazil was big money for northerners. This part of the slave trade was its own version of the famous triangle trade Cheap southern cotton was shipped north to textile mills which northerners turned into manufactured textile goods Northern slave traders traded those textiles for slaves in Zanzibar who were then trafficked to the Caribbean for huge profits The North was profiting from slavery on all three corners of the triangle This continued for decades W.B. Duubois wrote that by the eighteen fifties, quote, the fitting out of slavers became a flourishing business in the United States and centered at New York City. In eighteen sixty two, literally during the Civil War The New York Journal of Commerce reported that New York was, quote, the principal port of the world for this infamous commerce. although the cities of Portland, Maine, and Boston are second to her in that distinction As New England was making money off the global slave trade, other Northern states were passing racist legislation. In Lincoln's home state of Illinois. Black people couldn't attend public schools couldn't testify against white people in court or bear arms. If three or more of them gathered to dance, they were fined and lashed The purpose of these laws, which were known as the Illinois Black Codes, was to discourage bllack people from moving to the state. In eighteen fifty three, Illinois made things more explicit with a black exclusion law that quote prohibited blacks from coming into the state with the intention of living there Punishment proved especially harsh in that violators were subject to penalties that amounted to forced labor, essentially slavery Illinois law was so extreme that it was a crime for blacks to settle in that state They got a certificate of freedom, which cost one thousand dollars, the equivalent of about forty thousand dollars today. The black codes were so harsh that even some southern newspapers objected The New Orleans B called the Illinois Black Codes an act of special and savage ruthlessness One of the key figures in passing the Black Codes was a state representative named John A. Logan. Logan was an enthusiastic enforcer of the Fugitive Slave Act and an open racist Abraham Lincoln later made him a union general After the war, Logan reinvented himself as a radical Republican senator, but it's hard to imagine that Johnny Logan held contemporary woke views on black people Many northern or free states enacted black laws or exclusionary codes similar to Illinois Indiana and Oregon ban black settlement in their state constitutions According to Eugene Burwinger's book The frontier against slavery, quote The exact extent of racial prejudice as a factor incourageing limitation of slavery is indeterminable. The average man in all ages does not record his thoughts for posterity and is even less likely to do so on such thorny problems as race relations. yet. If seventy nine point five percent of the people in Illinois, Indiana, Oregon and Kansas voted to exclude the free Negroes simply because of their prejudice. Surely this antipathy influenced their decision to support the non extension of slavery. As Abraham Lincoln's secretary of State William Seward put it, quot, The motive of those who protested against the extension of slavery had always been concern for the welfare of the white man, and not an unnatural sympathy for the neegro In other words, many Northern and Western voters opped the expansion of slavery into their states and territories, not primarily out of moral opposition to slavery itself but because they didn't want black neighbors Generally speaking, in the first half of the eighteen hundreds, many southerners supported emancipation and the relocation of slaves. In many cases, it's because they thought the black populations of their states were getting too big. After Nat Turner's violent slavery vault in Virginia in eighteen thirty one, thousands of Virginians petitioned their government to end slavery Charlles County Qakers issued a petition calling for a new law declaring that all persons born in the state after some period to be fixed by law shall be free Virginia's governor at the time wrote in his diary that Before I leave this government People have contrived to have a law passed gradually abolishing slavery in this state The Richmond Equire at the time called slavery Greatest evil, which can scourge our land The Virginia House of Delegates failed to end slavery then, but it wasn't by an overwhelming vote Many people didn't realize that the windowed end slavery through the legal process likely peaked right at the beginning of the country and into the early eighteen hundreds In seventeen ninety four, the incentives radically changed after Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin That invention, more than anything else, dramatically increased the demand for slave labor in the south because it made cotton cultivation vastly more profitable As the Civil War approached Hundreds of anti slavery groups that had formed in the mid eighteen twenties had mostly gone away and so had any possibility that southern legislatures would end slavery on their own the debate after Matt Turner's Rebellion was the last major attempt to do so And so slavery persisted for decades, though many Virginians knew it was wrong One of them was Robert E Lee himself According to historian Alan Guelzo Lee quote regarded slavery as a moral and political evil, which, however, he was content to leave in the hands of God to resolve. Lee's slaves were inherited, one slave family from his mother, and one hundred and ninety seven others from his father in law, G WP Custus In eighteen sixty two, during the war, Lee quote completed the emancipation of the Custus slaves, which he was obligated to do by his father in law's will, and then freed his own, which he was not The war was not exclusively about slavery. That is just a fact. It could not have been. Right up through the shelling of Fort Sumter, the North was profiting massively from the slave trade. Four Union states had legal slavery, but if the war was not about slavery, then what was it about Well, the answer depends on who you ask. Though interestingly, Presidents Lincoln and Davis seem to agree. Confederate President Jefferson Davis said, quote, We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for independence, and that or extermination, we will have Lincoln himself told newspaper editor Horis Greeey, quote, My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not to either save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it And if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it And if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that In other words, according to both presidents, the war was fundamentally about the question of keeping or ending the Union The key argument against the idea that civil warar was solely about slavery is that at the time of secession in late eighteen sixty and early eighteen sixty one Neither the incoming Republican administration nor mainstream northern opinion advocated for the immediate abolition of slavery where it already existed in southern states The Republican Party platform of eighteen sixty opposed the extension of slavery to the territories, but didn't call for abolition of slavery in the south But even if it had and stood a reasonable chance of happening, which it didn't, at least in the short run, Moth southerners would not have been affected anyway. Only about one third of southerners were from households that had slaves The idea that three hundred sixty thousand white men were going to line up and die for the sake of rescuing black people in the south is just absurd and ahistorical. In the words of the Great Civil War storyian inhelbfot, quote No soldier on either side gave a damn about the slaves The soldiers's diaries support this Haros Von Borg. Chief of staff to Confederate General Jim Stewart Wote a five hundred to fifty eight page history of his experiences in the war. His memoirs contained no references to slavery at all and only one to a slave in which he passed a large plantation which I was told belonged to a free negro, onene of the richest men of the county who was himself the owner of numerous slaves. The historian James McPherson went through the diaries of more than a thousand soldiers from both sides for his book for caause and Comrades You found the quote For Union and Confederate volunteers alike, abstract symbols or concepts such as Country, flag, constitution, liberty, and legacy of the Revolution figured prominently in their explanations of why they enlisted. For Confederate soldiers a more concrete, visceral, perhaps, more powerful motive also came into play. Defense of home and heth against an invading enemy. They sign up ' to fight out of duty concept that was A lot stronger one hundred and fifty years ago than it is today Many Union soldiers echoed Lincoln's calls for preserving the Union McPerson found a union soldier from Philadelphia who wrote that This contest is not the North against the South, it is government against anarchy, law against disorder Another from from Michigan joined against the wishes of his family because he wanted to join, quote, all true patriots to sustain her government Another from Michigan wrote that If the union is split up, the government is destroyed And we will be a ruined nation borrow any trouble about me If I die in the battlefield I do so with pleasure, and he did die in battle the next year McPerson found immigrants lamenting that secession would make the country, quote, as bad as the deeply divided German states. and Native born Americans who said, quote, Our fathers made this country, we, their children are to save it McPerson notes that relatively few union volunteers mentioned the slavery issue when they enlisted The same is true for southern soldiers. McPerson estimates that just twenty percent of Confederate soldiers even considered slavery a cause worth fighting for in the first place Most were focused on repelling an invasion.ote Defense of the Hland was one of the strongest of combat motivations Even among soldiers from slave holding families, only one third explicitly voice pro slavery convictions Mc Ferson writes that many Virginians shared Robert E Lee's view that they wouldn't fight unless it be in defense of Virginia. Another Virginian wrot I would give all I've got just to be in the front rank of the first brigade that marches against the invading foe who now pollute the sacred soil of my native state Unholy tread When Abraham Lincoln issu the emancipation Pclamation He did it as a wartime measure to suppress the rebellion It's just as notable for what it did not do as what it did do did not free the slaves. No, slavery continued in areas under federal control, which included Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and parts of Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee. In practice it only freed about one hundred thousand people out of a pool of millions Lincoln did it because he wanted to prevent European powers from forming an alliance with Confederacy, which seemed likely at the time and would have dramatically changed the South's fortunes So the proclamation was a brilliant political maneuver that undercut the Confederacy's diplomatic efforts to court Europe because it made intervention politically untenable for European leaders who almost all opposed slavery Now, wait a second here We are not saying The war had nothing to do with slavery Because that would also be ridiculous. It's just as much a cartoon caricature as what your idiot teachers taught you in school No, slavery was a factor that led to war, and it was a major factor. South Carolina's Declaration of Causes for Scession references slavery six times After seceding, South Carolina immediately made an appeal to other slave holding states to secedcede and in its appeal referenced slavery no less than thirty two times The South Carolina legislatures literally wrote, quote, Slave holding states cannot be safe in subjection to non slave holding states When General Clayburn suggested freeing the slaves to fight for the Confederacy, his fellow officers were shocked and appalled Slavery was a factor in the war Probably a significant one But it was not the only fact The south left for three other reasons too first there was the balance of political power In the Republic's first seventy two years, slave holding southerners occupied the White House approximately two thirds of the time or forty nine years out of seventy two Some of the biggest figures of American politics were from the South, including Andrew Jackson, James K Polk, and John C. Calhoun To the extent that there were Northern presidents, many were sympathetic to the South, like Pennsylvania's James Buchan But demographics is destiny as the Northern states surged in population, driven by higher birth rates and massive waves of European immigration The South's longstanding political dominance collapsed The South share of the House of Representatives dropped from roughly forty eight percent at the founding to thirty eight percent by eighteen sixty For decades, Congress maintained balance in the Senate by adding slave and free states at the same time. After the country's massive territorial expansion as a result of the Mexican American War balance was doomed There was no need for slave labor in places like Arizona and New Mexico. And so The South's relative power declined quickly California was admitted as a free state in eighteen fifty. Free Oregon entered in eighteen fifty nine Abraham Lincoln's election in eighteen sixty coupled with the rapid rise of the Republican partarty. which was a purely sectional northern organization at the time, signaled the end of southern dominance in national politics Second, the south had a financial modotent. At the outbreak of the war, the American South produced roughly three quarters of the world's cotton From eighteen thirty to eighteen sixty, cotton was by far the country's top export. They comprise literally half or more of all US exports ninety percent of exports to Great Britain came only from the South. And by the eighteen thirties, more than eighty percent of the cotton grown in the South was being exported At the time, the biggest source of revenue for the US government was the tariff. This was great policy for Northern states since their tariffs protected their manufacturers from foreign competition. But it was terrible for the export dependent south because retaliatory tariffs restricted their access to the foreign markets, and because their economy was built around agricultural exports, they had higher demand for foreign manufactured goods So how much of a factor was money in the decision to succeede? On Christmas Day, eighteen sixty, the South Carolina legislature issued an address to the other slaveholding states. callalling on them to leave the union. One of their major grievances was, quote The taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North People of the South have been taxed duties on imports, not for revenue but for an object inconsistent with revenant. promote By prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactureures The role that economics played in secession was obvious to outsiders Carl Markx complained at the time that London's biggest newspapers, including the Times, the economist, the examiner, the Saturday review We're arguing that, quote, the war between the North and south is a tariff war The war is further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on Northern lust for sovereignty. The third reason was the massive cultural divide between the regions The south was rural and agricultural The north was urban, industrial and and huge numbers of European immigrants Increasingly, they hated each other, something that became obvious on one cool Virginia morning in october eighteen fifty nine. Robert Lee was harvesting the rye crop in his fields in Arlington when a mounted soldier showed up and handed him a letter from the Secretary of warar. The night before, around one thirty in the morning, the Federal Army and arrsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia have been taken by a group of armed men A train passing through it sent telegrams ono Washington, warning of one hundred and fifty armed abolitionists who have come to free the slaves and intend to do it at all hazards, and to arm poor whites who are similarly aggrieved with the slave system They were led by a radical abolitionist and insurrectionist named John Brown, who wanted to provoke a massive slave uprising across the South It was Lee's job to take back Harb' Ferry with a company of ninety Marines T How it serves and a few local citizen militias from Maryland to Virginia He had such little time to prepare that he wore civilian clothing and a top hat, and he commandeered a Baltimore and Ohio engine car to get there, riding with just one other officer, the conductor and trains fireman. When Lee arrived, Brown's revolution had failed to materialize The raaiders were trapped in an engine house The Marines waited until morning and then stormed the building John Brown and four of his men were taken alive and later tried and executed The South responded to the news with total heart The Richmond Inquirer wrote quote The southern people have heretofore disregarded the ravings of Northern fanatics because they believe such madness to be merely a pecuniary speculation But the attack at Harper's Ferry shows that The Northern people mean more than words. Virginia's legislature awarded Leah Sword for his gallant conduct at Harper's Ferry The North was euphic Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that John Brown was an idealist. put his ideas into action. Henry David Thoreau Brown's execution to the crucifixion of Christ. The abolitionist Wendell Phillips, also of Massachusetts called Harper's Ferry The Lexington of todayoday comparing it to the opening shots of the revolutionary War and said Brown was Brave, frank, and sublime, truster in God's right and absolute justice Northerners raise money to pay for Brown's legal defense Many of Brown's conspiratories were protected by Republican governors in northern states The Northern response shook the South to its core. South Carolina's Declaration of Causes for secession specifically mentioned Northern states providing safe harbor for John Rown's accomplices Other states complained of Northern aggression and hostility. They attack Harb' Fer Pve to them cultural bond it once shared with the North no longer existed For as long as political scientists and historians have been polled on the best presidents Abraham Lincoln has topp the charts in every category. Modern presidents can't help but compare themselves to him The life of a tall, gangly, self made Springfield lawyer tells us that a different future is possible Not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation. In school kids are taught that Abraham Lincoln was the great emmancipator. A champion of equality, a defender of democracy To his contemporaries, he was the ape baboon of the prairie A coursear vulgar joker A simple susan and the craftiest and most dishonest politician that ever disgraced the White House down reality. He was none of these things Although he may have been a coarse and vulgar joker, it's hard to know for sure The greatest event in Lincoln's life, what turned him from man to myth was his assassination. In the words of historian Michael Burlinghame, Canidization began almost immediately. within days of his death, his life has been compared to Jesus Christ He was shot on good Friday and by Easter Sunday, a prominent American pastor said Heaven rejoices this Easter morning in the resurrection of our lost leader referring not to Jesus, but to Abraham Lincoln At the nineteen oh nine Lincoln centennial Illinois school children recited verses calling him a peasant prince a masterpiece of God. His oversized statue keeps watch over the national mall in Washington, D.C today But in eighteen sixty three No one in America would have recognized the Lincoln we know today. Back then, it wasn't even clear if he was going to win reelection He was, in the words of Michael Burlingham The most activist president in history who transformed the presidency and the country When he quote expanded the Army and Navy, spent two million dollars without congressional appropriation, blockaded southern ports, closed post offices to treasonable correspondences, suspended the writ of habeas corpus in several locations ordered the arrest and military detention of suspected traitors. and issued the emmancipation proroclamation on Newar's Day eighteen sixty three To do all these things, Lincoln broke an assortment of laws and ignored one constitutional provision after another. He was hated by southerners, but also loathed by many Northerners. The abolitionist Wendell Phillips called Lincoln A Huckstern in politics, a first rate, second rate man So Lincoln was In a word, at the time controversial. He was also a human and a flawed one, like As all. He held contemporary views on race He believed blacks were inferior to whites. In one of the Lincoln Douglas debates, he said, quote, I will say then that I am not, nor ever have I been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races That I am not, nor have I ever been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people And I will say in addition to this that There is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inas much as they cannot live While they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I am as much as any other man in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race I say upon this occasion, I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position, the negro should be denied everything I do not understand that because I do not want a neegro woman for a slave, I must necessarily want her for a wife The Cd laughed at that answer. It's really hard to know what Abraham Lincoln really thought because he was an incredible politician. Every word he said, every action he took, he did so knowing who his audience was and what their response would be. This is very important and often overlooked. Historians in a hundred years might look back at Barack Obama in two thousand eight And based on his words think he did oppose gay marriage because he said he did Of course, he was pandering to an audience He was a politician Llincoln and Obama might have more in common than just being tall, gangly self made lawyers from Illinois But we do know that in the end, Lincoln did not free the slaves. When Lincoln issued the Emancipation proclamation, he still believed that, quote, the only long term solution to slavery was voluntary colonization. On march sixth, eighteen sixty two, President Abraham Lincoln sent a special message to Congress urging the adoption of a joint resolution that would offer federal financial support to any state voluntarily adopting the gradual abolishment of slavery with pecuniary aid provided to compensate owners for the inconvenience public and private caaused by the change. In total, Abraham Lincoln believed that slavery was a moral and political evil He believed it should end gradually rather than immediately And he supported the idea of colonization or sending freed black people to Africa or elsewhere part of the solution. In other words, Abraham Lincoln had the exact same views on slavery as Robert E Lee After the war, Robertty Lee received a presidential pardon and returned to Virginia, where he took up the presidency of what is now Washington and Lee University, a role many historians regard as the happiest period of his life. Far removed from the burdens of command At the moment of surrender at Appomattox, Lee could have urged his devoted soldiers to scatter into the Appalachian Waging a guerrilla war that might have dragged on for decades, sapping Northern resources and claiming countless more lives inststead true to his character. He chose the path of honor and remarkably recconciliation with the union He urged his men to lay down arms, return home. rebuild as loyal citizens Today, efforts to erase Lee from history often stem from Sheer historical literacy But a deeper motive lurks Resentment towards a man who embodies virtues increasingly rare in modern America They hate him Not for his flaws, but because he represents unattainable ideals Tactical genius A man of unyielding duty Honor and dignity A southern whose leadership at Chancellor'silly still echoes in military academies worldwide They know they'll never measure up. those statues will rise for fleeting figures like Mark Millie or anyone else, but Lee's legacy endores outlasting the vandals who would topple his monuments or even disturb his faithful horse traveler's grave. In the end, Robert E. Lee is A reflection of the Civil War itself F more nuanced and multifaceted than the simplistic tail spun High school classrooms or viral videos A full reckoning with the real history suchuch as Shelby Foot's epic one point two million word trilogy spanning three thousand pages Dmands depths that no textbook or hour long internet video can capture The mainstream narrative is a cartoon The war was never a straightforward crusade against Southern evil. Secession was not categorically treason. Abraham Lincoln was not A messionic figure The story most Americans have heard is a fairy ta But one thing is true. Wars have consequenence. And Victor shaped the story That is the enduring lesson of the Civil War If you ask American teenagers basic questions about American history, you'll quickly discover that they don't know much about it. One Gallup poll found that most American teens are unaware that Columbus arrived in fourteen ninety two. moreore than two thirds don't know that states' rights were an issue in the Civil War, and three quarters are unaware that the United States gained independence in seventeen seventy six More interesting is what they do know In may two thousand eight, two college professors gave two thousand American high school juniors and seniors a simple prompt Starting from Columbus to the present day Jot down the names of the most famous Americans in history The only ground rule is that they cannot be precedents Top three answers for all Black Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and in first place, of course Martin Luther King Junr It was named by two thirds of the students Benjamin Franklin, by comparison, was named by just twenty nine percent The Eedison made the top ten but was outranked by Oprah Winfrey. A similar survey of college students between nineteen seventy five and nineteen eighty eight had radically different answers Their top choices, Betsy Ross and Paul Revere. didn't even make the top ten by the mid two thousands. This is because sometime between nineteen eighty eight and nineteen ninety five Things radically changed. National heroes like George Washington and Ben Franklin were replaced With a new class of central figures in American history As the authors of the study put it by the mid nineteen nineties, quote, African Americans and women had moved to the center of American history. Ask any American who went to public schools between nineteen ninety five and today, they'll tell you the central feature of their social studies classes as history became known were the histories of slavery and the civil rightights movement they likely remember watching videos like this one in school We wanted to show you a clip of Martin Luther King Junror's I haveave a Dream Speech there, but it turns out we couldn't Be King's family owns the audio from the speech, and they wouldn't let us use it You might think that's weird This is America, sureurely can use a short soundbite of an extremely famous speech educational video. And in most cases, you'd be right. But according to our lawyers, we can, in fact You can't show quotes or read on air any portions of speeches owned by King's Eestate It turns out his family has done all sorts of things to stop people like us, including amazing people releasing the speech as an album so they could secure special music rights They published his life's work as a book to secure additional rights and recently blocked open AI from allowing users to recreate King's likeness These gimmicks gave them total control over how King is portrayed in media today. Why would they rag our legal system? Well, money is one reason When CBS broadcast portions of the I have a Dream S speech on air, the family sued and the company settled King's family has made a lot of money suing media outlets But another reason is that they want to silence critics like us. They need to protect his legacy making money on it Whatther doing makes it very difficult to honestly ree evaluate Martin Luther King Jr. and You're about to see why they don't want people to do that Turns out, the King you've heard of is a carefully curated creation H the state's efforts perfectly illustrate What the civil rights movement has become as we'll show in this episode it always was gigantic lie O the course of this video, we are going to judge Martin Luther King Jr., not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character What you will see will shock you. Some of it isn't suitable for young children Well also confront the movement that he's spearheaded Were his true aims a colorblind society or Something far more radical bankrolled him. What did other civil rights leaders think of it What unfolded behind the scenes in Birmingham, Alabama in nineteen sixty three Was civil disobedience actually peaceful And most importantly, is America today stronger, more unified and racially equal Then before Kings's rise. These questions demand answers, and as Americans, we are entitled to a full accounting of the civil rightights movement and its consequences. King's movement fundamentally transformed our country and our system of government That's why we're tackling the topic in two parts. First, the hidden history of the civil rightights movement, its key figures, agendas, funding, and scandals. And second, the profound lasting changes to our society and their consequences This is the real history The Civil rightights moveoment, partart one. newew Constitution answers America's call for more energy. They've helped boost Chevron's US energy production by nearly sixty percent in the past three years helping fuel national energy security and drives down the open roads that make America Learn more about what our people do at chevron dot com slash America