This post deals with two books on the “Lost Cause.”
Thomas J. DiLorenzo presents the case for the Lost Cause in
The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an UnnecessaryWar, while Edward H. Bonekemper argues against the Lost Cause in The Myth ofthe Lost Cause: Why the South Fought the Civil War and Why the North Won.
What is the Lost Cause? The basic tenants are as follows:
the War of Northern Aggression had nothing to do with slavery; the South did
nothing to provoke war; the Constitution included a right to secede and the
South should have been allowed to leave peacefully; antebellum life in the
South was prosperous, dignified, and just; slavery was already dying; Robert E.
Lee deserved deification, U. S. Grant deserved demonization, the North deserves
condemnation for engaging in total war; the South had no chance of winning, and
most important of all, Lincoln was a despot who started the war by invading
South.
Basically, the Lost Cause is innocence unjustly victimized.
I chose these two specific books because they are both relatively
recent (2003 and 2015) and each author presents their respective positions
clearly, with entertaining gusto. On which side of this controversy did I land?
You can probably guess, but this argument has raged for over one hundred and
fifty years and these books will provide all the information you need to make
up your own mind.
(These are research books for Maelstrom, a sequel to Tempestat Dawn.)