Civil war lessons often depend on where the classroom is located
Intro
Battle lines are drawn over
origins of the civil war
Americans divided over causes
of war
Texas taking another look at
Confederate symbols
● The civil war is taught differently from state to state and even
district to district
● South- slavery caused war.
● Attitudes about the war are created early
● Violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, caused another backlash
against the Confederate symbol
● white supremacist groups protested the removal of a
Confederate monument
● Growing up Charlottesville- taught that "folks from the North"
had put forward the incorrect idea that slavery was the cause of
the war.
● Confederate supporters have long held the idea that the
Southern side was heroic against impossible odds.
● slavery was not the driving force behind the war.
● Edward Countryman- "The belief, strongly, that the Civil War
had been about anything but slavery was very, very powerful,"
● 48 percent of Americans said the Civil War was mainly about
states' rights.
○ Only 38 percent said its main cause was slavery.
○ Nine percent said both factors were equal.
● The divide in opinions was broken down by race, too.
○ Forty-eight percent of whites chose states' rights over
slavery,
○ 39 percent of blacks did.
● Gary Bledsoe, said finding "kinder" ways to describe how the war
started can mask racism.
○ States' rights are about the whole idea of permitting
slavery and allowing the South to do what they do, or,
after slavery, to allow the South to engage in Jim Crow,"
○ Jim Crow laws were passed after the abolition of slavery
to unfairly discriminate against black people in the
South.
● Texas Democratic state lawmaker Eric Johnson-demanding the
removal of a nearly 60-year-old plaque.
○ 60 year old plaque- The plaque rejects slavery as the
main cause of the Civil War.
● Republican lawmaker Joe Straus- called for checking the
accuracy of that plaque.,- calling for an examination of about a
dozen other Confederate symbols, many of which are located
around government buildings.
● 2010 Texas' Republican-controlled Board of Education- created
a new method for how history would be taught at its schools. It
caused much debate.
 ● 8th graders
History lessons can vary fuel ○ compare ideas from an Abraham Lincoln speech with
concerns those from a speech by Confederate President Jefferson
Davis.
○ Davis' address did not mention slavery it promoted the
values of small government, ideas still popular with many
conservatives today.
● lessons also list Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall"
Jackson, who fought to keep slavery. list him alongside Frederick
Douglass, who, after escaping slavery himself, helped many
slaves gain freedom.
○ Both are held up as examples of "the importance of
effective leadership in a constitutional republic."
● 2015- Houston mother complained that her son's ninth-grade
geography textbook referred to African slaves as "workers" and
"immigrants."
○ a publisher promised to make editorial changes.

● Virginia's standards of learning for U.S. history up to 1865

○ "explaining how the issues of states' rights and slavery
Still taking sides in the increased sectional tensions."
classroom ● Fifth graders Virginia
○ "identify causes of the Civil War from the Northern and
Southern viewpoints."
● 8th graders in Delaware
○ end of slavery meant that the American people could for
the first time "seriously claim to be living up to their
commitment to the principle of liberty rooted in the
American state papers."
● The U.S. MA
○ "analyze slave life and resistance on plantations and
farms across the South."
● Chester Finn is the former president of the conservative Thomas
B. Fordham Institute, an educational group.
○ called teaching history and social studies "a real jigsaw
puzzle."
○ a state's education plan "can influence what a million
kids take away,"
○ especially true, he says, if it strongly shows the
Southerners as the good guys and the North as bad.

From state to state even from district to district, the civil war is taught differently. In Charlottesville,
children are taught that people from the North had put the wrong idea that slavery was the cause of
the war, but many people still believe that slavery was not the cause of the war. The opinions on what
caused the war. Now there is a new way of how history is taught. 8th graders compare ideas from an
Abraham Lincoln speech with those from a speech by Confederate President Jefferson Davis. lessons
also list Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, who fought to keep slavery, they list him
alongside Frederick Douglass who was a slave fighting against slavery, both are held up as examples
of "the importance of effective leadership in a constitutional republic." Fifth graders in Virginia
"identify causes of the Civil War from the Northern and Southern viewpoints." 8th graders in
Delaware end of slavery meant that the American people could for the first time "seriously claim to be
living up to their commitment to the principle of liberty rooted in the American state papers." and in
the U.S. MA "analyze slave life and resistance on plantations and farms across the South." but in the
end the teaching history is a puzzle.