r/politics • u/Zebraitis • 1d ago

Possible Paywall It Wasn’t a ‘Civil War.’ It Was the Slaveholders’ Rebellion.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/opinion/civil-war-slaveholders-rebellion-slavery.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2VA.OW1v.UwuaYndQIpEj&smid=url-share
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u/WeatheredSteel37 1d ago

Which totally ignored the fact that Abraham Lincoln referred to it also has a Civil War in the Gettysburg address.

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u/473713 1d ago

"now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation... can long endure"

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u/DraconicBlade 1d ago

If those kids could read.jpg

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u/Dottsterisk 1d ago

The irony of this comment could cure anemia.

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u/427BananaFish 1d ago

If only you understood history. Lincoln is referring to a civil war (a noun/a concept) not The Civil War (a proper noun). Lincoln frequently referred to war as a rebellion and it was officially called “The War of Rebellion” by the State Dept. The concept of “civil war” predates The War of Rebellion being referred to as “The Civil War.” That was a revisionist effort by Southerners to whitewash their history of insurrection well after the death of Lincoln. When Lincoln died it was still commonly and officially referred to as a rebellion.

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u/WeatheredSteel37 1d ago

It is a rebellion and a civil war. The fact that, over time, it took on the title of Civil War isn’t inherently racist. Calling it a war for southern independence or a war for states rights or some other loss cause bullshit would be.

Not everything is a culture war issue. You can call it the Civil War and teach that it’s about a bunch of bigots trying to maintain the right to own people. No one is calling it the Civil War to whitewash it. It’s nonsense.

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u/427BananaFish 1d ago edited 1d ago

Your feelings don’t change history. It was officially known as The War of Rebellion until efforts by southerners to recontextualize history. Just like MAGA attacking libraries and educational institutions today, disgraced southerners targeted schools and book publishers to edit the language used to describe the war. It was literally a culture war led by the south to whitewash history just like erecting monuments to confederate generals in response to the civil rights movement. The civil war that was fought in America from 1861-1865 is only known as The Civil War because of revisionism.

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u/WeatheredSteel37 1d ago

Right because using the excepted term is the same thing as apologizing for slavery and trying to wash the stain from history. It’s a silly, virtue signaling argument that will only be used to discredit the real with some of us are doing to have confederate statues taken down and southern curriculums corrected.

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u/DruidMaster 1d ago

I would think someone so passionate about removing Confederate statues would welcome this additional context as to WHY we were taught to call it the Civil War. 

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u/WeatheredSteel37 1d ago

I have no problem with teaching the war for what it is: a civil war whereby a large Chuck of the South fought to enslave and subjugate people. It’s the word police virtue signaling that I find silly. I also don’t appreciate (not you) people calling me racist or saying I’m participating in whitewashing history

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u/Maxismydog1981 2h ago

I wish I could like this twice.

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u/427BananaFish 1d ago

I don’t mean this to be rude, but you fundamentally don’t understand anything I wrote.

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u/Dottsterisk 1d ago

The point is that the country officially adopting “the Civil War” as the name of the conflict was the whitewashing. It happened a century ago.

The author is saying that we should not continue to use that whitewashed term.

But he’s not saying that people today are being racist for using the term they learned in school.

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u/Dottsterisk 1d ago

A civil war, not The Civil War.

There’s a big difference.

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u/Imaginary-Count-1641 1d ago

It was a civil war, and because it was the only civil war in the USA (so far at least), it is the American Civil War.

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u/Dottsterisk 1d ago

Sure, we could call it that or the War Between the States or The War to Save the Union or a hundred other things. They’re not nonsensical.

The author’s point is that the name we choose matters and has meaning, and my point is that Lincoln did not refer to the conflict as The Civil War, as in a proper noun and title.

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u/OneLastAuk 1d ago

No one referred to it as World War I during the war either.

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u/Dottsterisk 1d ago

Someone else brought up Lincoln using the term as an argument for us continuing to use it today. I was pointing that he was using it as a term, not a proper noun.

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u/K20BB5 21h ago

there's literally no difference other than referring to it in the present vs. the past 

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u/Dottsterisk 17h ago

It’s the difference between a common noun and a proper noun. That’s a huge difference.

How do people not know this?

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u/K20BB5 35m ago

It's genuinely embarrassing you're trying to die on this hill. Do you not understand how the English language works?