rayen020 said:
i don't know that i ever learned any lies because i've always had an interest in history and usually fact checked anything taught to me. something that has always interested me though is how the history syllabus usually went for me though. (this is in the US)
Learning period of six weeks
1)native american studies
2)american colonization and revolution
3)the US consitution/1780-1811
4)1815-1860
5)1870-1914
6)1919-1939/civil rights movement
ummm... not to complain but aren't we missing a couple of really major events on here? like world/nation changing events? oh yeah and i suppose i got the old oversimplification of the American Civil War being fought because of slavery.
Actually, that is not much of an oversimplification. You often here about the Civil War being fought over the issue of States' Rights, but if you refer to contemporary documents (the "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union" being the least subtle of these), you find that the specific right at issue was the right to own slaves. You sometimes hear that cultural differences contributed to?or were even the cause of?the Civil War, but much of the modern 'dixified' Southern culture developed during and after Reconstruction. Prior to the Civil War, there were relatively few significant cultural differences between the North and South (slavery aside). Indeed, this lack of cultural distinction is often credited with the destruction of Southern morale during the period from 1863-64. As the exigencies of war forced the Confederacy to dismantle the institution of slavery, to the point of offering black slaves freedom in return for military service, the South?or rather, its people?having lost the very thing it was fighting for, also lost the will to continue fighting.
The myth of the Lost Cause is just that - a myth. The Civil War was fought over the right to continue owning slaves, as the Confederacy itself readily admitted at the time.
