1/ THREAD. How do we know the #CivilWar was caused by #slavery? Academic historians will know this but this is intended for others.
It's not enough just to say it. Let's get the evidence out there.
2/ Look at the facts and circumstances involving the explosive events of the 1850s and Lincoln's election in 1860.
3/ Other causes that have historically been offered up are usually about slavery as an underlying cause.
What else but slavery caused economic differences and the collapse of the Second Party System?
4/ If you read the work of @e_turiano, William Link, @smccurry3 (among many others), we can see that historians now recognize that the fears of slave insurrection and slaves escaping to the North were major factors that pushed enslavers toward secession in 1859 and 1860.
5/ Slavery was immensely valuable. It was built into and inextricably linked with the South's banking system; its culture; its political structure; and its society.
6/ In many cases, representatives from counties in southern states with high percentages of slaves relative to the total population were the ones voting most enthusiastically for secession.
7/ The states with the highest percentages of slaves, relative to the total population, were the earliest to leave the union. Data is taken from the 1860 U.S. Federal Census.
8/ Major Confederate leaders emphasized how important slavery and white supremacy were when it came to secession. See the quotes from James Henley Thornwell, George William Richardson, and Alexander Stephens. Credit to @ProfMSinha for writing about Thornwell.
9/ Slavery was explicitly written into the Confederate Constitution.
10/ Look at the secession documents. These were the justifications that South Carolina and Mississippi offered when they left the union.
11. It wasn't states' rights. While there are some exceptions and nuances, it is striking how often in U.S. history the banner of "states' rights" masked slavery and racism.
As historian James McPherson once asked, "states' rights for what?"
12/ African Americans knew it was about slavery. Debates that ignore their perspectives do a grave disservice to the historical record.
One of these is from Garrison Frazier. The other is from the National Convention of Colored Men in 1864. See also NYT June 2, 1861.
END.
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a) GOP voters are misinformed about the seriousness of human-caused climate change (AGW) because:
b) they take cues from GOP political & media elites who:
c) are beholden to a well financed campaign of denial & deception from fossil fuel corporations.
3/99. Let’s start with voters. There’s a partisan & regional orientation to the distribution of Americans who think climate change is mostly caused by humans. Disappointing results from parts of Appalachia, the Gr Plains, and Mtn West overlap w/regions where conserv voters live.
Some random, disconnected thoughts...are we at the beginning of a new financial crisis leading to a recession?
Well, we just don't know and so many economic predictions come from either blowhards or people who don't have any specialized predictive power.
For example, how often have you heard predictions of an imminent recession only to see the BLS comes out with a report saying we added 500,000 jobs per month? It seems like a discourse dominated by Republicans who just *wanted* a recession so they could blame it on Biden.
It's only about a week since we learned about a very large bank collapse. The *feel* (admittedly not very precise) of the headlines suggests that there is pain ahead and a lot of people are scared. In and of itself that can mean something since psychology influences the economy.
Someone recently asked, Dead or Allmans? A brief thread that is somewhat akin to who's your favorite sports team, so it can get emotionally charged, especially with Deadheads, but in the end, let's not take this too seriously.
I like both bands but I'll vouch for the Dead...
This is a Wall of Sound show in England, Sept '74. So right before the classic show in Dijon, France and of course, before Winterland '74 that became part of the Grateful Dead movie and the Steal Your Face album.
The Wall of Sound was the HUGE, state-of-the-art sound system the Dead carried around to each venue, impressive even by today's standards, but finicky and costly to erect and dismantle. See an article here.
A lot of dissertations and books I come across in the field of history seem to favor breadth over depth. It seems so ubiquitous that it could easily pass without comment. Here's what I mean. I will come across something and look at the citations...
I see A LOT of secondary sources cited, which does take time and a certain amount of expertise and thinking to synthesize, but often feel unimpressed by the amount of primary sources cited. And since I've seen a lot of older works whose orientation is the opposite, I wonder...
how and why it became this way in academic history?
Your typical topic in academic history seems to take a group, commodity, or larger trend, and discuss it over a 50-year period, let's say. This contrasts with an in-depth study of a figure, election, or battle, for example.
Historians ask questions and construct narratives and arguments based on the responses to those questions. Let's ask a few.
1. In 2003, what percentage of the world's oil did Iraq contain?
2. In 2003, how many metric tons of GHG did Americans emit compared to rest of world?
3. Do you think the answer to question #2 has any relationship to the answer to question #1. If so, what is it?
Once you're aware of that relationship, how do you now think reasons for the United States's invasion of Iraq in 2003, as publicly stated by the Bush administration?
Let's return to Question #2. Of the total amount of GHG emitted by Americans in 2003, what percentage comes from transportation?
In general, do Americans have larger cars compared to Europeans? What is our public transportation like? Do we tax and subsidize fossil fuels in...