First Guess: Lying About The Civil War
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Of course the Civil War wasn't about slavery. It was a fight over which color was better: Blue or Gray.

The new polling this week tells a terrible story of historical revisionism, rationalization, and lousy education. 42 percent of this country says that slavery was not the main cause of secession nor of the Civil War.

150 years later and we're collectively less honest with ourselves about our greatest American tragedy than we were as it happened. The greatest attack on this nation, on its freedoms, on its independence - the greatest act of terrorism against the United States of America, the greatest act of treason, our nation at its worst - and four out of ten Americans are willing to lie about its cause.

That's right: Lie. Because if you believe slavery was not the main cause of the Civil War, you are either lying, or mentally impaired, or a grammar school dropout. There are no other choices.

You have doubts about that? Do not bring them to me. Bring them to William Henry Gist.

Mr. Gist was the Governor of South Carolina in 1860, one of the Southern leaders who proposed secession, who - in advance of Abraham Lincoln's election - met with other governors to plot their treason, who got Florida and Mississippi to follow South Carolina out of the union, and whose actions led - as much as any man's did - to the Civil War.

What did Governor Gist say about it?

Let me quote from Adam Goodheart in the New York Times from December 3rd of last year, about Governor Gist:

In one address to the legislature at the end of November, he whipped up his listeners with talk of laws that would reopen the African slave trade, officially declare white men the ruling race, and punish "summarily and severely, if not with death" any person caught espousing abolitionist views.

So obviously secession had nothing to do with slavery. Nothing. Laws passing summary judgment on anyone merely advocating an end to slavery in South Carolina - a death penalty for proposing the abolition of slavery - obviously those would have had nothing to do with slavery.

The Governor of one of the United States of America promising legislation that would formally pronounce whites "the ruling race" - why to think that had anything to do with slavery is the height of absurdity!

And reopening the slave trade? Why, how could reopening the slave trade have anything to do with slavery? It's preposterous!

One more thing from Mr. Goodheart's piece from last December needs to be emphasized. It was about what happened in Charleston, just before Governor Gist made his promises to the South Carolina legislature:

...local militia had placed the American military arsenal in town under guard, ostensibly to defend it in case of a slave revolt.

Well, that settles it! What would fear of a slave revolt have to do with slavery?

In fact, what does slavery have to do with slavery? You make it sound like the words "slavery" and "slavery" mean the same thing!

There is no gray area about why the Civil War started. None. The south seceded to protect and maintain slavery - period. They would not have seceded over a federal tax on Sorghum.

This is not a debate, this is not a nuance, this is not an interpretation. To maintain otherwise is, in fact, to strip whatever dignity remains for traitors like Governor William Henry Gist and President Jefferson Davis and the others.

At least when they spat on this nation, when they took up arms against their own country and spilled the blood of those carrying our flag, they told the truth about why they were doing so.

Their descendants are without facts, without dignity, and most importantly - without honor.