<Book Review>
The Un-Civil War: Shattering the Historical Myths.
By Leonard M. Scruggs (Universal Media, 2011)
Reviewed by: Tadashi Hama
The most destructive conflict in American history, in terms of both lives lost and property
destroyed, the so-called American Civil War, has been poorly represented in modern
American history classes and, concurrently, everywhere else. Author Leonard Scruggs
points out that the American “Civil War” was “not really a civil war”—the Southernstates had no desire of imposing their political will on Washington, D.C. Rather, theSouthern states sought to free itself from Washington, D.C. To Northerners, Southern
resistance to the narrow interests of Northern industrialists and Northern radicalRepublicans was entirely unacceptable. The war to Northerners was a “War to Prevent
Southern Independence. It was not a glorious crusade to free slaves.”
A key misconception of the so-called Civil War is that President Abraham Lincoln waged
war against the South to end African slavery. Scruggs points out that ending slavery was
not the most critical issue at the time—ending slavery was important only to extremist
abolitionists. The greater issue that loomed over America before the first shots were fired
was the Republican’s ham-handed imposition of their political and economic will onto
the Southern states.
The conventional narrative is that Southern secessionists fought to preserve Africanslavery. In fact, few Southerners at the time had an economic interest in slavery. Scruggs
points out that an average of 26% of Southern households owned slaves and that about
20% of Confederate soldiers owned slaves. Furthermore, Scruggs points out slave
owners were more than willing to do away with slavery if it did not involve “extremeeconomic hardship,” as the South’s agrarian and export dependent economy wasinextricably tangled with slave (that is, cheap, imported) labor. Indeed, the South’s
agricultural exports, including cotton, made it the “richest section of the country in1860.” There were calls well before 1861 for gradual emancipation and compensating
slaver owners. What extremist abolitionists and their Republican allies had in mind,
however, was immediate emancipation of all black slaves. What the newly freed but
under-educated and unemployed blacks were to do after that was not fully spelled out byRepublicans.
For President Lincoln, Scruggs points out, freed blacks were to be deported, either sent
back to Africa or to colonize Central America; Lincoln did not see any hope of blacks andwhites living together. Lincoln was hardly alone in this line of thinking—Northern statessuch as Indiana, Ohio, Oregon, and Michigan enacted laws that pointedly excluded
blacks from white society. Northern states had long-standing laws against interracial
marriage. As a member of the state legislature, Lincoln “fully approved” of prohibiting
blacks entry into “free state” Illinois.

Was slavery ever an issue before the outbreak of the so-called Civil War? Before
becoming president, candidate Lincoln campaigned on leaving slavery as is in states thatallowed it but for prohibition of slavery in the new Western territories. A constitutionalamendment (what Scruggs calls the “first Thirteenth Amendment”) that prohibited
Congress from interfering with slavery in any state was introduced and passed the U.S.
House on February 28, 1861 and then the Senate on March 2, 1861. This amendment wasproposed at the time to “reassure Southern States that were threatening to leave the Union
that there was not and never would be any danger of any Congressional or Federal
interference with slavery in the States.”
Did anyone at the time think that slavery was the key war issue? Following the outbreakof hostilities in April 12, 1861, President Lincoln ordered state governors to supply anarmy of 75,000 to “put down the Southern rebellion.” A joint Congressional resolution ofJuly 22, 1861 stated that the war was not for the purpose of “overthrowing or interferingwith the rights or established institutions [i.e. slavery] of those [Confederate] states, butto … preserve the Union.” In fact, “Northerners actually feared that emancipated
Southern slaves might emigrate to the North.” Scruggs points out that even the purpose of
the war was clear even to Karl Marx in October 1861: “The war between the North andSouth is a tariff war. The war is further, not for any principle, does not touch the questionof slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for power. ” Lincoln himself stated in
1861 to abolitionist Horace Greeley that his main goal was to “save the Union”: “If I
could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it…”
Rather than slavery, Scruggs shows that the conflict was due to Northern imposition of
economically crushing tariffs. American government revenue at the time was derived
largely through tariffs. While the South economically dominated the rest of the US
through its exports, the South was heavily dependent on the North and Europe formanufactured goods. Tariffs instituted by Northerners, usually over the strenuous
objection of Southerners, not only brought in money to fund the government but alsoprotected Northern manufactures from foreign competition. Furthermore, Scruggs points
out that revenues from tariffs benefited mostly the North—“80% or more of these tax
revenues were expended on Northern public works and industrial subsidies.”
Tariffs on foreign imports in the first half of the 19th century ranged from 15% to a highof 50%, which, in 1832, evoked the “Nullification Crisis.” South Carolina “called a state
convention and nullified the… tariffs as unjust and unconstitutional.” A compromise waseventually worked out, which forestalled armed conflict, with the tariff reduced to 15%.
The newly formed Republican Party, apparently bereft any historical insight, adopted
high protective tariffs as major part of its platform. In 1860, the Republican-dominatedHouse approved a tariff bill, sponsored by Republican Representative and “steelmanufacturer” Justin Morrill of Vermont, which raised the tariff from 15% to 37%, withan increase to 47% in three years. During the 1860 presidential campaign, candidate
Lincoln supported the Morrill Tariff. With such a tariff, Southerners saw Washington,D.C. and Northern industries raking in economic windfalls at their expense. At the very2

least, this goes against the spirit of the Constitution wherein it states that “Congress shallhave Power to lay and collect Taxes… and provide for the … general welfare … but all
Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”
By the time the Senate approved the Morrill Tariff bill on March 2, 1861, seven Southernstates had seceded from the US—none of the remaining Southern Senators voted for it.
President James Buchanan signed the bill into law and President-elect Lincoln vowed to“enforce it even on seceding Southern states.”
Scruggs notes a lesser-known but insidious by-product of the war: the rise of the Union
League of America (also known as the “Loyalty League”). Union Leagues were formedin 1862 by Republicans throughout the North in response to early Confederate victories
and to counter rising pro-Democratic sympathy in the North. At first, the goals of theUnion League were to “support the war, the troops and the Republican Party.” Towards
the end of the war, local Unionists in Southern states formed Union Leagues. Key
leadership positions in these Southern groups transitioned to Northern “carpetbagger
politicians and Federal Army officers.” Membership was “almost exclusively of former
slaves and black soldiers of the Federal Army.” Indeed, carpetbaggers installed asgovernors in former Confederate states during Reconstruction used Union Leagues as
their own “black militia” to keep themselves in power. The goals of the Southern Union
Leagues were to ensure that blacks registered to vote and to vote Republican. Newly
freed blacks were a substantial electorate in many former Confederate states, ranging
from about 25% in Tennessee to almost 60% in South Carolina.1 Union Leaguers resorted
to terrorism, including lynching, against blacks to ensure that they voted “correctly”.
Union Leaguers also used their newly found privilege as the Republicans’ militia towreck revenge on Southern whites, with looting, arson and murder.2
Scruggs presents for the historically curious other hard facts about the so-called American
Civil War. Thinking broadly, one should wonder why it is that demonstrable falsehoods
are passed off as genuine history and why unpleasant but true history is diligently ignored.
In the end, based on a distorted view of history, ostensibly intelligent Americans meekly
yield to the political and economic demands of supposedly victimized ethnic minorities.
In fact, Americans are now willing to yield their own rights and dignity for the sake ofsocial harmony. As Scruggs notes: “… Even in the South there are those who are willingto accept an ignominious degradation of truth and venomous slander against the honor of
the Confederate soldier in order to maintain social peace.”3 Such is the effect of amasochistic view of history. We should take heed that this thinking is not unique toAmericans.

1

https://faculty.weber.edu/kmackay/statistics_on_slavery.htm
One is reminded of violence meted by majority blacks on minority whites in post-colonial Haiti and thenin Zimbabwe, under the color of “land reform.” https://www.newsweek.com/zimbabwe-president-robertmugabe-white-farmers-651326
3“AEI Political Report: Polls on Political Correctness,” https://www.aei.org/wpcontent/uploads/2017/05/Political-Report-June-2017.pdf?x91208
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