as the US Civil War bred lasting southern Resentment, the rise of the Klan,and segregation, and political wars still being played out today. All because enough people believed the stereotypes put forth by some Minister's daughter (Harriet Beecher Stowe).
Whereas many people feel that slavery would have collapsed of its own economic weight before 1900.
Ok, the first 2 sentences is somewhat in line with what my grade school history book said circa 1967 or so. I asked my teacher about it, she said that historians didn't believe that anymore. The South had a big propaganda industry, which included numerous academics, putting out the line that they were deeply wronged by the civil war and its aftermath. The effects went all the way up, where, for example, Woodrow Wilson, allegedly the godfather of "liberal fascism", made "Birth of a Nation" required viewing at the White House. The truth about reconstruction was that it actually worked pretty well, but the rest US just ran out of steam after 12 years and let the South go back to being controlled by its traditional aristocracy, which found plenty of ways to put the ex-slaves back to their proper place in the world.
As for slavery collapsing of its own accord, yes, that's an off spouted line from a certain school of politico-economists. They don't often say what would have happened to all the ex-slaves, though. I can't exactly imagine their lot being particularly better than it was in the post-reconstruction South, and that lot wasn't very good at all. |
