The “Voluntary” End of Slavery

The movie Lincoln, released in 2012, is widely regarded as historically accurate, and I find it comforting to know that the politics of the past were as nasty, if not more so, than today’s (seriously the media needs to give up on the bipartisan dream of civility that existed briefly in the 50’s and 60’s, it was an aberration brought on by WWII and the Cold War).

Why am I showing you this scene? Well, a conservative member of the state Board of Education in Colorado, which has attempted to reject the AP History Framework and force a “patriotic” revisionist history that glorifies America at all times and ignores ugly blemishes in our past, has said in recent debates that America deserves credit, and praise, for voluntarily ending slavery.

From Talking Points Memo, this is what she said:

[Businesswoman Pam Mazanec] then wrote that her concern for the course “is an overly negative view of our history and many of our historical figures (if mentioned)” and cited history professors with “impressive credentials” who told her that the AP History curriculum is designed to “downplay our noble history.”

She used slavery to illustrate the point:

As an example, I note our slavery history. Yes, we practiced slavery. But we also ended it voluntarily, at great sacrifice, while the practice continues in many countries still today! Shouldn’t our students be provided that viewpoint? This is part of the argument that America is exceptional. Does our APUSH Framework support or denigrate that position?

Technically, I suppose, she is correct, in saying that America “voluntarily” ended slavery, in that no foreign power or other organization or entity invaded the United States and forced us to end it. But, as the video clip shows, it is much much much much more complicated than such a childish over simplification, and in an ADVANCED PLACEMENT course, students are supposed to delve into the complexities of history. For example, the entire Lincoln movie is about Lincoln wanting to pass a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery in the closing days of the war, and many of his Northern Union compatriots in Congress DID NOT WANT TO VOLUNTARILY DO IT!!!!

Indeed, Lincoln himself earlier in his term, in attempts to keep the border states like Maryland and Delaware and Kentucky loyal to the Union, said he would be fine with slavery continuing so long as the Union endured. Indeed, the Civil War itself was not really about slavery, and to think it was is once again a display of a child’s understanding of U.S. History, which, it is clear, is all conservatives like Pam Mazanec possess.

No, President Lincoln, one of if not our best Presidents, had to engage in outright criminal bribery to get just his northern Union congressmen to pass the Amendment.

And I am not even talking about the half the country that tried to secede. Indeed, as the movie depicts, the Southern states were trying to derail the 13th Amendment (the one abolishing slavery) even as they negotiated their surrender with Lincoln himself. If the conservative ideological ancestors of Pam Mazanec had their way, slavery would have continued after the Civil War, as evidenced by the conservatives in the North (represented by the Democratic Party back then, as the evil liberals back then were Republicans) voting against the Amendment, and as evidenced by the Southern states wanting to block it and keep their beloved institution and slave economy alive.

History is just a little more complex than childish conservatives will allow, because to do so, might require the students to actually think, rather than just repeat government propaganda.