Sunday, January 01, 2017

Kevin Levin reveals his true self

Kevin Levin wrote a blog posting titled, "The Lost Cause is not fake history," and the link to the post is: 

http://cwmemory.com/2016/12/30/the-lost-cause-is-not-fake-history/

His posting was in response to this CNN article and video. http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/28/us/lost-cause-trump/index.html

Levin is not happy over this CNN article. Levin writes:

No, the Lost Cause is not an example of fake history. Postwar accounts of loyal slaves and benevolent slaveowners were quite consistent with pre-war accounts. The Lost Cause was not a collective act of self deception or even primarily an attempt to deceive others. It was an organic process of reflection and memory that directly engaged the most pressing challenges of the immediate postwar period, including defeat, emancipation, black mobility and black political action to name just a few.
He followed up with this blog posting "to clarify" what he was trying to say.

http://cwmemory.com/2016/12/31/why-the-lost-cause-is-not-fake-history/

The blog postings really reveal who Levin is.

The Lost Cause depiction of slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction was not confined to a few Confederate leaders. The Lost Cause was promoted by the United Confederate Veterans, United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

These are the comments in a letter by Confederate John S. Mosby, the famous "Gray Ghost," of the Civil War. He is "disgusted" by the Lost Cause lies about the Civil War and the Confederacy. In a letter he wrote to a friend in June 4, 1907 he comments about the Lost Cause lies.

I wrote you about my disgust at reading the Reunion speeches: It has since been increased by reading Christians report. I am certainly glad I wasn’t there. According to Christian the Virginia people were the abolitionists & the Northern people were pro-slavery. He says slavery was “a patriarchal” institution – So were polygamy & circumcision. Ask Hugh if he has been circumcised. Christian quotes what the Old Virginians – said against slavery. True; but why didn’t he quote what the modern Virginians said in favor of it – Mason, Hunter, Wise &c. Why didn’t he state that a Virginia Senator (Mason) was the author of the Fugitive Slave law – & why didn’t he quote The Virginia Code (1860) that made it a crime to speak against slavery, or to teach a negro to read the Lord’s prayer. Now while I think as badly of slavery as Horace Greeley did I am not ashamed that my family were slaveholders. It was our inheritance – Neither am I ashamed that my ancestors were pirates & cattle thieves. People must be judged by the standard of their own age. If it was right to own slaves as property it was right to fight for it. The South went to war on account of Slavery. South Carolina went to war – as she said in her Secession proclamation – because slavery wd. not be secure under Lincoln. South Carolina ought to know what was the cause for her seceding. . . . I am not ashamed of having fought on the side of slavery – a soldier fights for his country – right or wrong – he is not responsible for the political merits of the cause he fights in. The South was my country.


This is the link to the source.
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/reconstruction/resources/former-confederate-officer-slavery-and-civil-war-1907

Of course Mosby has his own rationalizations, but he wasn't going to fill himself with stuff and nonsense that the Civil War wasn't about slavery.

Frederick Douglas denounced the Lost Cause as deception and so did W.E.B. Dubois.

http://blogs.dickinson.edu/hist-288pinsker/files/2012/01/Blight-article.pdf

https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/web-dubois-reflects-purpose-history

Kevin Levin is of the Civil War Tables era of Civil War historiography. He also very well might become the new Eugene Genovese of Civil War history. As the Civil War Round Table Civil War history passes away I think we will see more postings like this from Levin.

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