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I was reminded today of how important it is to teach "basics." I devoted today's #TexasHistory class @SMU to 2 documents that explain why southern secessionists formed the Confederacy in 1861: the Texas Declaration of Causes & Alexander Stephens' Corner Stone speech. Basics. /1 
The TX Declaration of Causes is short & clear. The "federal government" & "non-slaveholding states" had committed many offenses. The most severe one: their "hostility to these Southern States & their beneficent & patriarchal system of African slavery." loc.gov/item/95139713/ /2
The "Corner Stone" speech, by Alexander Stephens (VP Confederacy) shocks me every time. He claims that the "leading statesmen" who wrote the Constitution believed slavery was a "violation of nature." "They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error."/3
The reason for secession is shockingly naked: "Our new gov't is founded upon…its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural & normal condition." teachingamericanhistory.org/library/docume… /4
We had really good class discussion. We tried to understand how people could believe these things. One student reflected w/ frustration on how she had grown up in TX, took TX History twice (4th & 7th grades) & had always been taught Secession was about states & property rights./5
I & @KyleBCarpenter took a poll. Out of 30+ students *not one* had ever seen either of these documents before. #Twitterstorians, we can't underestimate the power of teaching "basics.". These truths are *not* self-evident, but they have power to change students, & the world. /fin
