Youre making me think about this, and i love this. This is the thing you may not te audiences and although what ive said is a compilation of what all of the historians and this is a consensus to a large extent on much of this now, but you may not buy any of it, but what i hope is that you will never look at this man and this march in the same way. Before i step away from this podium its an honor to be here with so many distinguished historians and so many great people, Richard Murray and you started the day out with the best and you started the day out with bud robertson and you ended it with the least, as far as im concerned. So thank you very much. Donald trump and Hillary Clinton made the conventions a mustsee on tv. This morning we will show you the featured speeches from cleveland and philadelphia. You will see democratic speeches by michelle obama, bernie sanders, bill clinton, joe biden, michael bloomberg, tim kaine and the acceptance speech by Hillary Clinton and sunday morning at 10 30 eastern youll see republican speeches by rudy giuliani, donald and melania trump, and donald trump jr. , chris christie, eric trump, peter teal, ivanka trump and the acceptance speech by donald trump and thats this saturday even will at 8 00 eastern and the cspan radio app and cspan. Org. Next, edward bonokemper, the myth of the lost cause, which examines postwar arguments made by former confederates seeking to justify their split from the union and their defeat and mr. Bonokemper argues that slavery and not states rights was the primary reason for cessation. It disputes the aspects of the lost cause myth, such that the idea that confederate general robert e. Lee was a different commander than ulysses s. Grant and he defeated lee because of superior numbers and resources. Good evening, everyone. Can everyone hear me well . Yes. Good. Im mclaughlin and i welcome you to what promises to be a stimulating program on the myth of the lost cause. It is always a pleasure to welcome ed bonokemper to the smithsonian. Through the years hes had programs for us on civil war topics, in fact, this is his tenth appearance with the smithsonian associates. Ed is the book review editor of civil war news which reviews all 250plus new civil war books each year. He was an adjunct lecturer in military history at Mullenberg College for eight years and has history degrees from mullenberg and from Old Dominion University as well as a law degree from yale. He served as a lawyer with the federal government for more than 34 years and as a retired commander in the u. S. Coast guard reserve. He is the author of six books on civil war history, including the myth of the lost cause, why the south fought the civil war and why the north won which was published last fall and his book would be available through Smithsonian Museum shops outside the entrance to this auditorium at the end of tonights program and ed would be happy to sign copies for you then. So with that said we have a very packed two hours in store for you. I know this will be a very Engaging Program so we want to bring ed up. Please join me in giving a very warm welcome to ed bonokemper. Thank you, mary. Its a pleasure being back here at the smithsonian to talk about the civil war and i really appreciate the great turnout tonight. It certainly shows the length to which people will go to avoid president ial town halls. And also, i do have to confess that as you heard, ive got two history degrees and a law degree so you will be hearing an argumentative historian this even coming is a good time for me to say these are my personal comments. Theyre based on my personal research. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the smithsonian at all. This is completely bonokemper bonokemper talking to you. So mary and the smithsonian should be off the hook. Okay. We are here tonight to discuss a very important topic and that is the myth of the lost cause. Now ill give you a couple of examples of the myth in action and then go on and explain what the details are of the myth and what the components are of the myth and also take a look at each one. The myth of the lost cause was taken by exconfederates and general William Nelson pendleton and reverend William Jones between 1860 and 1900 to basically justify the civil war. What had happened was the north fought the war and the north fought the war and northerners went home and resumed their daily lives and really didnt care much about writing about the war until a hundred years after the war. Southerners on the other hand, had a lot to write about and had a lot to justify. What happened was almost the entire war was in the south and the south was just an economic basket case by the end of the war because Northern Army his gone through and destroyed pretty much anything of economic value. In addition, you had to realize that the south major institut n institution, social institution, that is slavery had suddenly come to an end and there were 3 1 2 to 4 million slaves with a big question about what happens to these africanamericans . And so southerners felt compelled to explain why it was that this devastation had occurred and that, for example, 25 of southern white men between the ages of 20 and 45 were dead. Not just casualties, they were dead as a result of the civil war. So there was a lot of explaining to do and thats the origin of the myth of those first 30 years, but it has continued, and probably the best example of the seven volumes by Douglas Freeman in the 1930s and 1940s, first of all, explaining in the first four volumes called r. E. Lee that lee walked on water and then in the next three volumes, basically explaining any thoughts that lee might appear to have had by blaming all his subordinates called lees lieutenants, which could have been called lees scapegoats and that was a continuation of the myth of the lost cause. The reason i felt compelled to write the book was as i went around the country talking to members of civil war roundtables, i found that a lot of people who, in my view, should have known better were greatly affected and bought into a very many aspects of the myth of the lost cause. So thats why i think its important for all of us to consider what the myth is and how much we want to buy into the myth, and the change of position that occurred among southern leaders is on the threshold of the civil war as seven other states were seceding before lincoln took office. Jefferson davis gave a very emotional address to the United States senate in which he said sayonara. In that address he explained that he felt compelled to leave and his state felt compelled to leave the union because the institution of slavery was being threatened by the federal government and by Northern States and so that was his discussion in 1861. I believe that was december 1860. Two decades later in 1881, Jefferson Davis published his twovolume memoirs and in that work Jefferson Davis adopts the myth of the lost cause position and says slavery had almost nothing to do with the war. In fact, he states specifically there would have been a civil war even if no american had owned a slave. I wont comment on which i think is truth or fiction, but just note the contrast between the two and this is very typical and its why it is so important to go back and look at the evidence at the time of cessation and at the time of the formation of the confederacy. Now, as i said, a lot of people have bought into this over the years, and i think it greatly affected the historiography of the civil war and the north, south, east and west you the myth, and thats why its important to understand what a myth is and to examine how valid you think it is based upon the evidence. The statement i have behind me, and ill try to not rely upon the upper left corner, this is a quote from john keegan. John keegan is or was an internationally recognized military historian with about 20 military history books and he lived in england, to be honest and he did not understand the civil war that well and he wrote a book on it, eventually and it was not a very good book, and in one of his other books on intelligence and war, he just made a general statement sort of offthecuff and this is where historians run into trouble, and i do it myself all the time, you try to make a general statement about something which is tangential to what youre writing about and what you know about, and keegan said, the southern people were resolute in their determination to preserve states rights. The legal issue over which they had declared separation. He bought into what i consider to be the myth that states rights was what the cessation and the formation of the confederacy were all about. So ill springboard off of that and let me tell you what i see as the major component of the myth. The first one i just stated and thats an absolutely critical one, slavery was not the primary cause and it was the primary cause of the civil war. Im now talking on the left there. The myth goes on that its an institution to whites and blacks alike and all of a sudden the myth jumps into something that sounds inconsistent with what i just said. By the way, the civil war was unnecessary because slavery was going to expire on its own within a fairly reasonable period period of time, and well take a look at that. Further, the argument goes and the south never had a chance to win the war and one would ask, if thats so why did you start the war . And thus, the south did the best it could with the resources that it had and part of this then is that robert e. Lee was the great military leader and that he was one of the greatest generals who ever lived, and you will find a lot of the books that take the lost cause position. They talk about lee literally in christlike terms and talking about getting gettihsemene. He clearly lost a really big battle at gettysburg, so what to do about that . That became fairly easy to deal with. James longstreet was made a scapegoat for lees losing gettysburg and one reason for that is because he had the gall to actually take a position in the Grant Administration as a collector of tariffs in new orleans. So he went over to the republican side and that was death to the political career in the south and made him a sitting target to become the scapegoat of gettysburg. Lee surrendered to grant and if lee is so great why did he lose to grant . So that myth goes that grant won only by being a butcher. Grant is a butcher and he only won by brute force, and the myth of the lost cause is that union forces only won by engaging in total war. Total war. Thats a phrase thats really, i think being bandied about loosely these days and we will take a brief look at that. Okay. We will start out with what was the issue of slavery in 1861. I dont think we really need to deal very long with the issue of was slavery beneficial to whites and blacks. Certainly certain whites benefited from it and keep in mind, please, when i say slavery tonight in shorthand, i will be referring to slavery white supremacy. The reason i do that is if youre in the south and even if you did not personally own a slave you were still the social beneficiary of the existence of slavery and that can simply be explained by saying that no matter how poor a dirt farmer you were or how little you owned you always knew that if your society there were 4 Million People who were inferior to you as a matter of law and of social practice. So, that said, lets look at slavery itself and the reason i say we dont need to spend much time is basically we have a long history of rapes and murders of slaves. We have the beatings and the scars on the back. We have massive movements of slaves from the Northern Tier of Southern States from maryland and virginia primarily down to the deep south. The best estimate is that about 1 million slaves were sold out of the northern south at the border states or the northern Southern States into the deep south. About 1 million slaves and if you take that million and adjust and actually increase for the number of transactions that did not involve such Long Distance transfers, i think it is a fair estimate that probably about 1 million slaves over the 200plus years of slavery were separated from their families. There were children taken from parents and wives taken from husbands, et cetera, was there no thought really given to trying to keep the Families Together except in rear instances. Im saying its a very common practice to split the families. I put that in quotes because you have to keep in mind that part of the devastating effect of slavery was that slave marriages were not recognized and the slave his first names and not last names and marriage not recognized and children were the property of the mothers owner and as far as the owner was concerned it was his economic decision as to what to do with those slaves, whether to hold them, sell them, et cetera. So there was a devastating impact on the africanamerican family because they were really legally kept from forming family groups as we know them. I dont think i need to say too much more about justifying slavery except just to remind you, one reason this comes up is because of approaches to the south. Ill call it the mint julep approach as we reflect it with the novel of gone with the wind qwest. Just take a look at things with a big shaker full of salt. There was something that seems to me a little bit inconsistent in the myth which is despite this wonderful, Benevolent Institution which is going to come to an end within a reasonable period of time which was defined loosely before 1900 because it was no longer really beneficial economically to the owners and the reason this argument is made because then it can be argued the civil war was unnecessary. The civil war was unnecessary. Northerners didnt have to fight the war because slavery was going to disappear anyway. If you look at the records you will see that the value of slaves throughout the states that became the confederacy were on the rise in 1860. It had reached the highest point theyd ever reached. Cotton sales were way up. The value of cotton had continued to increase and also keep in mind that slaves were not only used to raise cotton. Slaves were used for tobacco, rice, indigo. They were used for a lot of crops and a lot of farm production and by this time a lot of owners had recognized, some slaves, despite the fact that they were put down as a group and some slave his talents as artisans, carpenters, et cetera, so they were being leased out and in addition as the south was starting to get industrialized in the very early stages, slaves were being used in industrial arenas. For example, in richmond, virginia the tobacco plants and youre talking about creating cigars or cigarettes, slaves were almost the exclusive labor to run all of the tobacco factories and even more interesting, in richmond you had the treadinger iron works in the civil war for all of the confederate artillery and armory, they were the iron works which was the iron works and that was almost exclusively manned by black slaves. So the southerners were beginning to figure out from an economic perspective, there are a lot of other usees to which we can put slaves and part of the argument that slavery was going go away is also that the south had run out of land that could be developed for agriculture. I think the simple rebuttal to that is between 1865 and 1925, the amount of land dedicated to agriculture in the south tripled, it tripled. More recent studies really showed that the land was there to be developed for agriculture and its just that economically it wasnt being don at the time and in terms of slavery disappearing, the estimate of the southerners themselves is the cessation resolutions is they were defending an institution which had assets in slaves from 4 to 6 billion and that would be hundreds of billions of dollars now if you categorized assets in the United States, that was the biggest, single category of the most valuable single category of assets in the United States was the value of slaves. So i personally see no indication that slavery bfs to go away. Now we get to the 64,000 question and what caused the sez station and the formation of the confederacy. I say that once you had a number of slaves going from seven to 11. Seven deep south states seceded in 1860 and his inauguration of 1861. The seven deep south states seceded and they immediately began seizing armory and weapons scattered throughout the south. The only ones that escaped seizure were fort pickens in pensacola and other than that the south was already seizing these weapons and they were the states were buying weapons in europe. They were preparing for war and ultimately, the decision was made personally by Jefferson Davis authorizing to bombard ford sumpter to bomb the war. Given the reasons for the south seceding and forming the confederacy it should not be a surprise that once those things were in place there was going to be a war and as you will see there were a lot of people trying to avoid a war by dealing with the issue of slavery. Okay. The first thing i want to do is look at contemporary evidence, 1860, 1861. I think thats the only or the most valid way to determine the cause of secession and the formation of the confederacy. A lot of people display or wave the confederate battle flag and my question is basically when theyre doing that what does that flag stands for . Thats the Confederate Flag and stands for the con fed rassy and what did the confederacy stand for and we as a society ought to look into that issue and draw our own conclusions about yet confederacy . Yet confederacy . Now, to me, anything that occurr occurred, anything that is said after about the middle of 1864 when it was pretty clear the south was going down the tubes. Anything from that date to the present is second guessing. Its looking back and its imposing ones own personal views on the situation and god forbid i would impose my personal views on any of this, but my point is that im trying to focus on what actually happened in 1860 and 61 and look at that contemporaneous evidence. I think that is our most valid evidence of why there was a confederacy. I think you have a handout which has this on it. Okay. There are a couple of points i want to make from these statistics that ill put togeth