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Why did the South secede?
Ask a Confederate
In their own words: The Civil War and Slavery
The Civil War is the deadliest armed conflict in American history. Southern conservatives committed treason against the United States and triggered a war that led to an [estimated] 360,222 Union and 258,000 Confederate deaths (newly released research raises total deaths to somewhere 650,000–850,000). Southern states and their leaders were very clear as to why they seceded from the Union — No, it wasn’t states’ rights.
Whitewashing History
Conservatives have been whitewashing the causes of the Civil War since the Civil War began and they’ve been wildly successful. Millions of Americans believe in a noble “lost cause” and a justified rebellion led by benevolent slaveholders of which there were just a few.
Confederates themselves weren’t confused about the root of the conflict. However, over 160 years of organized historical revisionism by the confederate-statue-proliferating Daughters of the Confederacy and books, media, and films perpetuating the romanticized lost cause myth have taken a great toll on reality. “Southern pride” confederate bumper stickers and the mantras of “heritage not hate” and “states’ rights” are all symptoms of a larger, Orwellian, reality-denying sickness…
