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153-734: The Lost Cause of the Confederacy (or simply the Lost Cause ) is an American pseudohistorical and historical negationist myth that claims the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not centered on slavery . First enunciated in 1866, it has continued to influence racism , gender roles , and religious attitudes in the Southern United States into

306-410: A "guarantee of livelihood, protection and support", and that if a master failed to perform his duties, he could be forced to sell his slaves to a more capable slaveholder. In this way, Fitzhugh contended that "Slavery protects the infants, the aged and the sick," along with the healthy and the strong. Fitzhugh declared that "the unrestricted exploitation of so-called free society is more oppressive to

459-458: A broader definition; Douglas Allchin, a historian of science, contends that when the history of scientific discovery is presented in a simplified way, with drama exaggerated and scientists romanticized, this creates wrong stereotypes about how science works, and in fact constitutes pseudohistory, despite being based on real facts. Robert Todd Carroll has developed a list of criteria to identify pseudo-historic works. He states that: Pseudohistory

612-411: A carefree, comfortable state dates back to the late eighteenth century. This argument mostly focused on the economic feasibility of enslaving people for their labor despite the inherent subjugation and degradation of human beings. The enslaved people of the time were members of what historian Ira Berlin called the revolutionary generations and in his pivotal 1998 work Many Thousands Gone he described

765-404: A cause, the cause of constitutional liberty (though God only knows what the sequel might have demonstrated). I think there is something of proper dignity in the word Cause; then The Lost Cause is an advertisement of something valuable that is gone; besides, the associations of the title are tender and reverential, there is a strain of mourning in it. How do you like it?" "Excellently well," replied

918-586: A counterfeit varnish of patriotism, so that the precipitators of rebellion might go down in history hand in hand with the defenders of the government, thus wiping out with their own hands their own stains. Memorial associations such as the United Confederate Veterans , the United Daughters of the Confederacy , and Ladies Memorial Associations integrated Lost Cause themes to help white Confederate-sympathizing Southerners cope with

1071-736: A defense against a Northern threat to a Southern way of life and declares that this threat violated the states' rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States . The Lost Cause's assertion that any state had the right to secede was strongly denied in the North. Lost Cause arguments universally portray slavery as more benevolent than cruel . In its mythology and peculiarly Southern iconography, Confederate generals are characterized as morally flawless, deeply religious, and saintly or Christ-like. The term "Lost Cause" first appeared in

1224-459: A democratic society, because they were not allowed to participate in it. So, in the mindset of those in favour of it, slavery was for protecting the common good of slaves, masters, and society as a whole. These and other arguments supported the propertied elite against what were perceived as threats from the abolitionists , lower classes, and non-whites to gain higher standards of living . The economic self-interest of slaveholders certainly played

1377-549: A divine institution similar or superior to the free labor in the North. This stance arose in response to the growing anti-slavery movement in the United States in the late 18th century and early 19th century. Various forms of slavery had been practiced across the world for all of human history, but during the American Revolution , slavery became a significant social issue in North America. At this time,

1530-482: A false interpretation of records, namely physical ones, often by unqualified or otherwise amateur archeologists. These interpretations are often baseless and seldom align with established consensus. Nazi archaeology is a prominent example of this technique. Frequently, people who engage in pseudoarchaeology have a very strict interpretation of evidence and are unwilling to alter their stance, resulting in interpretations that often appear overly simplistic and fail to capture

1683-548: A form of proto-Turkish. The theory may have been partially devised in order to legitimize Arabic and Semitic loanwords occurring in the Turkish language by instead asserting that the Arabic and Semitic words were derived from the Turkish ones rather than vice versa. A large number of nationalist pseudohistorical theories deal with the legendary Ten Lost Tribes of ancient Israel. British-Israelism , also known as Anglo-Israelism,

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1836-501: A high level of popularity again during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s in reaction to growing public support for racial equality. Through actions such as building prominent Confederate monuments and writing history textbooks , Lost Cause organizations (including the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Sons of Confederate Veterans ) sought to ensure that Southern whites would know what they called

1989-514: A historical figure and that his existence was invented by early Christians. This argument currently finds very little support among scholars and historians of all faiths and has been described as pseudohistorical. Likewise, some minority historian views assert that Muhammad either did not exist or was not central to founding Islam . The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982) by Michael Baigent , Richard Leigh , and Henry Lincoln

2142-590: A long-lasting literary and cultural phenomenon. The 1881 publication of The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government by ex-Confederate President Jefferson Davis , a two-volume defense of the Southern cause, provided another important text in the history of the Lost Cause. Davis blamed the enemy for "whatever of bloodshed, of devastation, or shock to republican government has resulted from

2295-626: A matriarchy preceded the patriarchy. The Goddess Movement and Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade cite Venus figurines as evidence that societies of paleolithic and neolithic Europe were matriarchies that worshipped a goddess. This belief is not supported by mainstream academics. Excluding the Norse colonization of the Americas , most theories of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact have been classified as pseudohistory, including claims that

2448-405: A moment the blacks were happy in their condition and wouldn't try for freedom, the way that white planters in the 1830s and '40s tried to convince themselves that their slaves loved their situation. Americans who lived through the American Revolution understood that this was a violent world and that slaves were held in place only by white military power. A narrative that enslaved Africans lived in

2601-400: A new hard edge and confining people of African descent to a place of permanent inferiority. But by the 1810s a new rationale arose that began to treat legalized enslavement as a "positive good" and not as an economically "necessary evil", while still affirming its alleged economic benefits. It appears that this new premise was first expressed by Robert Walsh in 1819: The physical condition of

2754-529: A one-hundred-year-old Confederate Monument and demanded its removal. By 9:30 p.m., students pulled down the statue with a rope. The gathering was supported by the actions of a previous student named Maya Little, when in April, Little protested the monument by pouring blood and paint on it. Some residents in North Carolina believe Confederate monuments have connections to white supremacy. In 2020, during

2907-424: A perspective that great cultures and slavery were inseparable. Attempting to claim the moral mantle for the social defense of involuntary servitude, Calhoun declared: But I take higher ground. I hold that, in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by colour, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in

3060-421: A political and philosophical position that portrayed enslavement as possessing national importance, providing benefits to the states, including more tax revenue. A well-known example of this new pro-enslavement approach was voiced by Governor Stephen D. Miller in his 1829 speech to South Carolina's legislators: Slavery is not a national evil; on the contrary, it is a national benefit. The agricultural wealth of

3213-527: A positive good in the United States Slavery as a positive good in the United States was the prevailing view of Southern politicians and intellectuals just before the American Civil War , as opposed to seeing it as a crime against humanity or a necessary evil . They defended the legal enslavement of people for their labor as a benevolent, paternalistic institution with social and economic benefits, an important bulwark of civilization, and

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3366-429: A positive light: [T]he greatest efforts made by the defeated insurgents since the close of the war have been to promulgate the idea that the cause of liberty, justice, humanity, equality, and all the calendar of the virtues of freedmen, suffered violence and wrong when the effort for southern independence failed. This is, of course, intended as a species of political cant, whereby the crime of treason might be covered with

3519-698: A public bathroom at a gas station, and the white store owner, Marvin Segrest, told him to use the segregated bathroom. He refused and told Segrest the Civil Rights Act made segregated facilities illegal. They argued, and Segrest shot Younge in the head. Segrest was not found guilty in court, which caused Black students in Tuskegee, Alabama, to express their frustrations in protest at the Tuskegee Confederate Monument . The monument

3672-593: A role, as slaves represented a massive amount of wealth – some historians estimate that at the time of the Civil War, over 20% of private wealth in the US was slaves. The best-known political figure to defend black slavery as a "positive good", was John C. Calhoun , a political theorist and the seventh Vice President of the United States. Calhoun was a leader of the Democratic-Republican Party in

3825-735: A second aspect: "The reunion was exclusively a white man's phenomenon and the price of the reunion was the sacrifice of the African Americans." The historian Caroline Janney stated: Providing a sense of relief to white Southerners who feared being dishonored by defeat, the Lost Cause was largely accepted in the years following the war by white Americans who found it to be a useful tool in reconciling North and South. The Yale historian David W. Blight wrote: The Lost Cause became an integral part of national reconciliation by dint of sheer sentimentalism, by political argument, and by recurrent celebrations and rituals. For most white Southerners,

3978-419: A situation where "slave states contained a great many more anti-slavery societies than the free states". After the abolitionists escalated their intellectual attacks against slavery, pro-slavery Southerners felt threatened, and retaliated with their own philosophical and morality-based justifications to defend involuntary servitude. The pro-slavery adherents felt compelled to take a hardline stance and engaged in

4131-485: A sociological theorist who took the positive-good argument to its final extreme conclusion. Fitzhugh argued that slavery was the proper relationship of all labor to capital, that it was generally better for all laborers to be enslaved rather than free. He insisted that slavery was not a question of race, that in principle anyone of any race could be enslaved, and that this was beneficial to those enslaved as well as to their masters. Fitzhugh argued that Southern slaves had

4284-434: A vehement and growing ideological defense of slavery. Pro-slavery intellectuals and slaveholders began to rationalize slavery as a positive good that benefited both owners and the enslaved. Calhoun believed that the "ownership of Negros" was both a right and an obligation, causing the pro-slavery intelligentsia to position enslavement as a paternalistic and socially beneficial relationship, that required reciprocal "duties" from

4437-408: A veil. We have elevated the entire conflict to the realm where it is no longer explosive. It is a part of American legend, a part of American history, a part, if you will, of American romance. It moves men mightily, to this day, but it does not move them in the direction of picking up their guns and going at it again. We have had national peace since the war ended, and we will always have it, and I think

4590-540: Is a book that purports to show that certain historical figures, such as Godfrey of Bouillon , and contemporary aristocrats are the lineal descendants of Jesus . Mainstream historians have widely panned the book, categorizing it as pseudohistory, and pointing out that the genealogical tables used in it are now known to be spurious. Nonetheless, the book was an international best-seller and inspired Dan Brown 's bestselling mystery thriller novel The Da Vinci Code . Although historians and archaeologists consider

4743-454: Is a revised sequence of events that deviates from the standard timeline of world history accepted by mainstream scholars. An example of an "alternative chronology" is Anatoly Fomenko 's New Chronology , which claims that recorded history actually began around AD 800 and all events that allegedly occurred prior to that point either never really happened at all or are simply inaccurate retellings of events that happened later. One of its outgrowths

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4896-555: Is a right, natural and necessary." Fitzhugh maintained that slavery was the best institution to ensure "the rights of man". Founded in 1828, the Southern Democrats 's success and prominence across the political landscape has been attributed to its ability to reshape the issue of slavery as a "morally beneficial institution", especially to the more radical faction of Southerners within the Democratic Party. By

5049-625: Is an academic fringe theory that postulates the belief that the bulk of European Jewry is of Central Asian ( Turkic ) origin. In spite of the mainstream academic consensus which conclusively rejects it, this theory has been promoted in Anti-Semitic and some Anti-Zionist circles, they argue that Jews are an alien element in both Europe and Palestine . Holocaust denial in particular and genocide denial in general are widely categorized as pseudohistory. Major proponents of Holocaust denial include David Irving and others, who argue that

5202-511: Is intended to forge a national identity distinct from modern Bulgaria , which regards North Macedonia as an artificial nation. The theory is controversial in Greece and sparked 2018 mass protests there. A particular item of dispute is North Macedonian veneration of Alexander the Great ; mainstream scholarship holds that Alexander had Greek ancestry, he was born in an area of ancient Macedonia that

5355-508: Is made that the main factor was not qualitative inferiority in leadership or fighting ability but the massive quantitative superiority of the Yankee industrial machine. At the peak of troop strength in 1863, Union soldiers outnumbered Confederate soldiers by over two to one, and the Union had three times the bank deposits of the Confederacy. After the Civil War, white Southerners wanted to portray

5508-584: Is now Greece, and he ruled over North Macedonia but never lived there and did not speak the local language. To placate Greece and thereby facilitate the country's entry into the European Union and NATO , the Macedonian government formally renounced claims of ancient Macedonian heritage with the 2018 Prespa Agreement . Dacianism is a Romanian pseudohistorical current that attempts to attribute far more influence over European and world history to

5661-539: Is purported history which: Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke prefers the term "cryptohistory". He identifies two necessary elements as "a complete ignorance of the primary sources" and the repetition of "inaccuracies and wild claims". Other common characteristics of pseudohistory are: The following are some common categories of pseudohistorical theory, with examples. Not all theories in a listed category are necessarily pseudohistorical; they are rather categories that seem to attract pseudohistorians. An alternative chronology

5814-454: Is quite clear that everything this man wrote about Arthur and his successors, or indeed about his predecessors from Vortigern onwards, was made up, partly by himself and partly by others". The Shakespeare authorship question is a fringe theory that claims that the works attributed to William Shakespeare were actually written by someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon . Another example of historical revisionism

5967-485: Is slavery", and that "No one ought to be free." And yet he, like other proslavery theorists, believed that "slavery ultimately made democracy work", by referencing the history of Classical Athens , the Roman Republic , and other ancient societies with democratic characteristics, all of which had slavery. Fitzhugh summed up his pro-slavery stance with the following argument: "It is the duty of society to protect

6120-538: Is still prevalent among Wiccans, but is gradually declining. The belief that Ancient India was technologically advanced to the extent of being a nuclear power is gaining popularity in India. Emerging extreme nationalist trends and ideologies based on Hinduism in the political arena promote these discussions. Vasudev Devnani , the education minister for the western state of Rajasthan , said in January 2017 that it

6273-545: Is the Tartary conspiracy theory. Other, less extreme examples, are the phantom time hypothesis , which asserts that the years AD 614–911 never took place; and the New Chronology of David Rohl , which claims that the accepted timelines for ancient Egyptian and Israelite history are wrong. In the eighth century, a forged document known as Donation of Constantine , which supposedly transferred authority over Rome and

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6426-546: Is the best regulation of slavery, whether we take into consideration the interests of the master or of the slave, that has ever been devised. Characterizing American perceptions of slavery at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries in the 1998 documentary series Africans in America: America's Journey Through Slavery , the historian Douglas R. Egerton said: The planter class in the Age of Revolution never believed for

6579-476: Is the best slavery there ever was: [W]e... deny that slavery is sinful or inexpedient. We deny that it is wrong in the abstract. We assert that it is the natural condition of man; that there ever has been, and there ever will be slavery; and we not only claim for ourselves the right to determine for ourselves the relations between master and slave, but we insist that the slavery of the Southern States

6732-494: Is the thesis, found in the writings of David Barton and others, asserting that the United States was founded as an exclusively Christian nation. Mainstream historians instead support the traditional position, which holds that the American founding fathers intended for church and state to be kept separate . Confederate revisionists (a.k.a. Civil War revisionists), " Lost Cause " advocates, and Neo-Confederates argue that

6885-510: Is used to refer to the Contest of Homer and Hesiod , a purportedly historical narrative describing an entirely fictional contest between the Greek poets Homer and Hesiod . The pejorative sense of the term, labelling a flawed or disingenuous work of historiography, is found in another 1815 attestation. Pseudohistory is akin to pseudoscience in that both forms of falsification are achieved using

7038-531: The Book of Mormon to be an anachronistic invention of Joseph Smith, many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) believe that it describes ancient historical events in the Americas. Searches for Noah's Ark have also been categorized as pseudohistory. In her books, starting with The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921), English author Margaret Murray claimed that

7191-797: The Ceaușescu regime portrayed the Dacians as insurgents defying an "imperialist" Rome; the Communist Party had formally attached "protochronism", as Dacianism was known, to Marxist ideology by 1974. The consensus among academics is that no unambiguously and strictly matriarchal society is known to have existed, though many societies are known to have or have had some matriarchal features, in particular matrilineality , matrilocality , and/or matrifocality . Anthropologist Donald Brown 's list of human cultural universals ( viz. , features shared by nearly all current human societies) includes men being

7344-576: The Confederate States of America 's prime motivation was the maintenance of states' rights and limited government, rather than the preservation and expansion of slavery . Connected to the Lost Cause is the Irish slaves myth , a pseudo-historical narrative which conflates the experiences of Irish indentured servants and enslaved Africans in the Americas . This myth, which was historically promoted by Irish nationalists such as John Mitchel , has in

7497-720: The Dacians than that which they actually enjoyed. Dacianist historiography claims that the Dacians held primacy over all other civilizations, including the Romans ; that the Dacian language was the origin of Latin and all other languages, such as Hindi and Babylonian ; and sometimes that the Zalmoxis cult has structural links to Christianity. Dacianism was most prevalent in National Communist Romania , as

7650-542: The George Floyd protests , several Confederate monuments were defaced with graffiti. From 2020 to 2021 in Virginia, many Confederate monuments were removed from Monument Avenue . Lost Cause monuments continue to evoke conversations about racial injustice in the United States. They shift the memory of the Civil War away from themes of slavery and emancipation to states' rights with a romanticized version of slavery and

7803-715: The Holocaust , the Holodomor , the Armenian genocide , the Assyrian genocide , the Greek genocide and other genocides did not occur, or accounts of them were greatly exaggerated. Most Afrocentric (i.e. Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories , see Ancient Egyptian race controversy ) ideas have been identified as pseudohistorical, alongside the " Indigenous Aryans " theories published by Hindu nationalists during

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7956-597: The Lost Cause of the Confederacy , the Irish slaves myth , the witch-cult , Armenian genocide denial , Holocaust denial , the clean Wehrmacht myth , the 16th- and 17th-century Spanish Black Legend , and the claim that the Katyn massacre was not committed by the Soviet NKVD . The term pseudohistory was coined in the early nineteenth century, which makes the word older than the related terms pseudo-scholarship and pseudoscience . In an attestation from 1815, it

8109-870: The Mufti of Jerusalem , gave Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders the idea for the Holocaust. Historians across the world, along with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the German government, characterized the claim as historically baseless. The PLO and the Zionist Union said the statement was politically motivated because it wrongly places blame for the Holocaust on Palestinian nationalists , whom Netanyahu opposes, while implicitly absolving Hitler. The Christ myth theory claims that Jesus of Nazareth never existed as

8262-574: The Planet Nibiru known as the Anunnaki visited Earth in ancient times in search of gold, and that they genetically engineered humans to serve as their slaves. He claims that memories of these occurrences are recorded in Sumerian mythology , as well as other mythologies all across the globe. These speculations have likewise been categorized as pseudohistory. The ancient astronaut hypothesis

8415-466: The witch trials in the early modern period were actually an attempt by chauvinistic Christians to annihilate a secret, pagan religion , which she claimed worshipped a Horned God . Murray's claims have now been widely rejected by respected historians. Nonetheless, her ideas have become the foundation myth for modern Wicca , a contemporary Neopagan religion. Belief in Murray's alleged witch-cult

8568-508: The "dominant element" in public political affairs, which is the contemporary opinion of mainstream anthropology . Some societies that are matrilineal or matrifocal may in fact have patriarchal power structures, and thus be misidentified as matriarchal. The idea that matriarchal societies existed and they preceded patriarchal societies was first raised in the 19th-century among Western academics, but it has since been discredited. Despite this however, some second-wave feminists assert that

8721-727: The "overwhelming resources and numbers" that the Confederate army had fought against. In a letter to Early, Lee requested information about enemy strengths from May 1864 to April 1865, the period in which his army was engaged against Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant (the Overland Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg ). Lee wrote, "My only object is to transmit, if possible, the truth to posterity, and do justice to our brave Soldiers." In another letter, Lee wanted all "statistics as regards numbers, destruction of private property by

8874-400: The "sacred circle" of proslavery intellectuals. In his famous Mudsill Speech (1858), Hammond articulated the pro-slavery political argument during the period at which the ideology was at its most mature (late 1830s – early 1860s). Along with John C. Calhoun, Hammond believed that the bane of many past societies was the existence of the class of the landless poor. This class of landless poor

9027-404: The "true" narrative of the Civil War and would therefore continue to support white supremacist policies such as Jim Crow laws . White supremacy is a central feature of the Lost Cause narrative. They say that history is written by the victors, but the Civil War has been the rare exception. Perhaps the need for the country to stay together made it necessary for the North to sit silently and accept

9180-457: The 1830s, the support for slavery was weakening in the South. During this period many Southerners agreed that, in the abstract, slavery constituted an evil. They claimed that they had not participated in its introduction, and laid the blame of the existence of the institution on "old Grandam Britain". Nonetheless, few Southerners were willing to also call slavery "a sin". This attitude resulted in

9333-562: The 1990s and 2000s. The "crypto-history" developed within Germanic mysticism and Nazi occultism has likewise been placed under this categorization. Among leading Nazis, Heinrich Himmler is believed to have been influenced by occultism and according to one theory, developed the SS base at Wewelsburg in accordance with an esoteric plan. The Sun Language Theory is a pseudohistorical ideology which argues that all languages are descended from

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9486-416: The 21st century. Historians have dismantled many parts of the Lost Cause mythos. Beyond forced unpaid labor and denial of freedom to leave the slaveholder, the treatment of slaves in the United States often included sexual abuse and rape , the denial of education, and punishments such as whippings . Slaves' families were often split up by the sale of one or more family members; when such events occurred,

9639-589: The African, and was in the interest of human improvement; and which, by the law of the land, protected the negro in life and limb, and in many personal rights, and, by the practice of the system, bestowed upon him a sum of individual indulgences, which made him altogether the most striking type in the world of cheerfulness and contentment. Pollard in The Lost Cause and its sequel The Lost Cause Regained drew inspiration from John Milton 's Paradise Lost with

9792-722: The American Negro is on the whole, not comparatively alone, but positively good, and he is exempt from those racking anxieties—the exacerbates of despair, to which the English manufacturer and peasant are subject to in the pursuit of their pittance. Such justification about the "goodness" of enslavement for those who were enslaved became more common in the 1820s. By the late 1820s, the defense of institutional slavery saw it as mutually beneficial for state governments, enslavers, and enslaved people alike. Legal enslavement drifted from being seen as an economic system of private enslavers to

9945-567: The Americas were actually discovered by Arabs or Muslims. Gavin Menzies ' book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World , which argues for the idea that Chinese sailors discovered America, has also been categorized as a work of pseudohistory. Josiah Priest and other nineteenth-century American writers wrote pseudohistorical narratives that portrayed African Americans and Native Americans in an extremely negative light. Priest's first book

10098-675: The CSA's cultural and martial superiority to the North, relying on nationalistic narratives of the fanciful Southern Cavalier descended from the English Royalists or the Norman knights of William the Conqueror . Lost Cause rhetoric idealized the South as a land of "grace and gentility" where planter aristocrats were indulgent of their cheerful slaves and its manhood had great courage. Whites and blacks are portrayed as joined in support of

10251-458: The Civil War". He identified a typical image in postwar fiction: a materialistic, rich Yankee man marrying an impoverished spiritual Southern bride as a symbol of happy national reunion. Examining films and visual art, Gallagher identified the theme of "white people North and South [who] extol the American virtues both sides manifested during the war, to exalt the restored nation that emerged from

10404-462: The Civil War. The defeat of the Confederacy devastated many white Southerners economically, emotionally, and psychologically. Before the war, many believed that their rich military tradition would avail them in the forthcoming conflict. Many sought consolation in attributing their loss to factors beyond their control, such as physical size and overwhelming brute force. The University of Virginia professor Gary W. Gallagher wrote: The architects of

10557-400: The Civil War. This narrative denies or minimizes the explanatory statements and constitutions published by the seceding states—for example, the wartime writings and speeches of CSA Vice President Alexander Stephens and especially his Cornerstone Speech . Lost Cause historians instead favor the more moderate postwar views of Confederate leaders. The Lost Cause argument stresses secession as

10710-480: The Federal troops, &c." because he intended to demonstrate the discrepancy in strength between the two armies and believed it would "be difficult to get the world to understand the odds against which we fought". Referring to newspaper accounts that accused him of culpability in the loss, he wrote, "I have not thought proper to notice, or even to correct misrepresentations of my words & acts. We shall have to be patient, & suffer for awhile at least.... At present

10863-479: The Gods , which won popular acclaim, but scholarly disdain. Christopher Knight has published numerous books, including Uriel's Machine (2000), expounding pseudohistorical assertions that ancient civilizations possessed technology far more advanced than the technology of today. The claim that a lost continent known as Lemuria once existed in the Pacific Ocean has likewise been categorized as pseudohistory. Furthermore, similar conspiracy theories promote

11016-570: The House floor for two hours about the perceived menace of abolitionism . He launched an attack on pro-human rights proponents in the North, while defending the social and economic benefits to whites of enslavement in the South. Hammond's speech on enslavement was considered a new departure in the American Congress, distinguished as the "first explicit defense of slavery as a positive good". In that 1836 speech, Hammond attempted to justify

11169-542: The Komitopules , which ruled the First Bulgarian Empire in late 10th and early 11th centuries AD, is presented as "Macedonian", ruling a "medieval Macedonian state", because its capitals were located in what was previously the ancient kingdom of Macedonia . North Macedonian historians often replace the ethnonym "Bulgarians" with "Macedonians", or avoid it. North Macedonian scholars say the theory

11322-421: The Lost Cause "facilitated the reunification of the North and the South". He quotes historian Gaines M. Foster, who wrote that "signs of respect from former foes and northern publishers made acceptance of reunion easier. By the mid-eighties, most southerners had decided to build a future within a reunited nation. A few remained irreconcilable, but their influence in southern society declined rapidly." Nolan mentioned

11475-460: The Lost Cause acted from various motives. They collectively sought to justify their own actions and allow themselves and other former Confederates to find something positive in all-encompassing failure. They also wanted to provide their children and future generations of white Southerners with a "correct" narrative of the war. Yale University history professor Rollin G. Osterweis summarizes the content that pervaded Lost Cause writings: The Legend of

11628-431: The Lost Cause began as mostly a literary expression of the despair of a bitter, defeated people over a lost identity . It was a landscape dotted with figures drawn mainly out of the past: the chivalric planter; the magnolia-scented Southern belle ; the good, gray Confederate veteran, once a knight of the field and saddle; and obliging old Uncle Remus . All these, while quickly enveloped in a golden haze, became very real to

11781-403: The Lost Cause evolved into a language of vindication and renewal, as well as an array of practices and public monuments through which they could solidify both their Southern pride and their Americanness. In exploring the literature of reconciliation, the historian William Tynes Cowa wrote, "The cult of the Lost Cause was part of a larger cultural project: the reconciliation of North and South after

11934-439: The Lost Cause mythology embraced by the South after the Civil War to the "lost cause" of the ideals held by such Northern intellectuals as Ralph Waldo Emerson , Herman Melville , Henry Adams , and Henry James , who had strived to establish an American humanism free of mythologizing and were disillusioned that the Union victory was followed by the materialism of Gilded Age America. American historian Alan T. Nolan states that

12087-484: The Lost Cause, like the memory itself, remains contested. The white South, most agree, dedicated enormous effort to celebrating the leaders and common soldiers of the Confederacy, emphasizing that they had preserved their and the South's honor. However, it was the articles written by General Jubal A. Early in the 1870s for the Southern Historical Society that firmly established the Lost Cause as

12240-626: The Negro workers in the South. However, in the case of slaves in the South, Calhoun argued that Negros were receiving special protection under a caring and paternalistic master, and therefore were more fortunate. In his manifesto A Disquisition on Government , Calhoun opposed the "equality upon birth" assertion that the Founders declared in the Declaration of Independence , arguing that not all people are "equally entitled to liberty". To bolster

12393-439: The North was also guilty of treating and exploiting its free laborers like slaves, Calhoun declared in his speech "that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilised society in which one portion of the community did not...live on the labour of the other." Most Southern slaveholders and intellectuals favored Calhoun's ideas and maintained that the institution of slavery "benefited both master and servant". In that arrangement,

12546-431: The South positively by erecting Confederate monuments to memorialize Confederate generals in support of the false narrative that Confederates had fought the war to preserve states' rights and not slavery. African Americans such as 19th-century civil rights activist Frederick Douglass opposed the erection of Confederate memorials. In 1870, Douglass wrote: "Monuments to the 'lost cause' will prove monuments of folly [...] in

12699-461: The South's benevolent and gracious civilization, superior to that of the North. The Confederate soldier is romanticized as steadfast, dashing, and heroic. Lost Cause doctrine holds that secession is a right granted by the Constitution; therefore, those who defend it are not traitors. Southern military leaders are depicted in Lost Cause hagiography as virtual saints, with Robert E. Lee occupying

12852-408: The South's conception of the conflict. In any case, for most of the past 150 years, the South's version of the war and Reconstruction has held sway in our schools, our literature and, since the dawn of feature films, our movies. The movement that took The Lost Cause for its name had multiple origins, but its unifying contention was that slavery was not the primary cause , or even a cause at all, of

13005-462: The Southern side, originated with the present writer [Pollard]. Shortly after the war he prepared to write a history of it. He offered the work he designed to a New York publisher, who thought well of it, but objected to the title, "History of the War," etc. The work thus entitled might be confounded with some other inferior memoirs of the war which the writer had already composed, mere annals," First Year of

13158-613: The Soviet Union economically, particularly during World War II . Scholars point to overwhelming evidence that Stalin directly helped plan mass killings, that many prisoners were sent to gulags or executed extrajudicially, and that many prisoners did no productive work, often being isolated in remote camps or given pointless and menial tasks. In 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that Amin Al-Husseini ,

13311-535: The US Senate floor. In an attempt to disarm the abolitionists' moral outrage over slavery as "man-stealing" and ignoring the anti-slavery tradition of the Founders, Calhoun, like many proslavery Southerners, pointed to the ancient world to help them defend the institution of slavery, especially Aristotle's theory of natural slavery. Greek democracy along with the grandeur of the Roman republic provided Southerners with

13464-474: The Union victory to greater numbers and greater industrial wealth, while they portray the Confederate side of the conflict as being more righteous and having greater military skill. Modern historians overwhelmingly disagree with these characterizations, noting that the central cause of the war was slavery. The Lost Cause reached a high level of popularity at the turn of the 20th century, when proponents memorialized Confederate veterans who were dying off. It reached

13617-416: The War," etc. "Could not some title be found more unique and captivating, and not quite so heavy?" The writer promised to think of such a title. The next day he presented himself to the publisher and said, "I have thought of a name for the work I design: it is The Lost Cause . You see the bulk of the people in the South were persuaded that we really contended for something that had the dignity and importance of

13770-482: The anti-slavery contention that it was both economically inefficient and socially detrimental to the country as a whole was more prevalent than philosophical and moral arguments against slavery. However this perspective rapidly changed as the worldwide demand for sugar and cotton from America increased and the Louisiana Purchase opened up vast new territories ideally suited for a plantation economy . By

13923-503: The black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually... It came to us in a low, degraded, and savage condition, and in the course of a few generations it has grown up under the fostering care of our institutions. The concept of slavery as a positive good came to the forefront in Calhoun's February 6, 1837, speech on

14076-653: The complexity and nuance of the complete narrative. (These following examples can belong to a variety of the above mentioned categories, or ones not mentioned as well). Immanuel Velikovsky 's books Worlds in Collision (1950), Ages in Chaos (1952), and Earth in Upheaval (1955), which became "instant bestsellers", demonstrated that pseudohistory based on ancient mythology held potential for tremendous financial success and became models of success for future works in

14229-420: The conflict, and to mute the role of African Americans". Historian and journalist Bruce Catton argued that the myth or legend helped achieve national reconciliation between North and South. He concluded that "the legend of the lost cause has served the entire country very well", and he went on to say: The things that were done during the Civil War have not been forgotten, of course, but we now see them through

14382-471: The country is found in those states owning slaves, and a great portion of the revenue of the government is derived from the products of slave labor—Slavery exists in some form everywhere, and it is not of much consequence in a philosophical point of view, whether it be voluntary or involuntary. In a political point of view, involuntary slavery had the advantage, since all who enjoy political liberty are then, in fact, free. Not long after Governor Miller's speech,

14535-601: The crowd. Indian Science Congress ancient aircraft controversy is a related event when Capt. Anand J. Bodas, retired principal of a pilot training facility, claimed that aircraft more advanced than today's aircraft existed in ancient India at the Indian Science Congress . Courses critiquing pseudohistory are offered as undergraduate courses in liberal arts settings, one example being in Claremont McKenna College . Slavery as

14688-510: The delivery of anti-slavery literature through the mail, calling abolitionists monsters who should "atone for this wicked attempt with their lives". In the Democratic South, many pro-slavery activists within the Southern intelligentsia and political community took the position that they were simply "upholding the great principles which our fathers bequeathed us". They regarded the practice of holding other humans in chattel bondage as

14841-420: The discussion of the moral question of slavery. But we may suggest a doubt here whether that odious term "slavery", which has been so long imposed, by the exaggeration of Northern writers, upon the judgement and sympathies of the world, is properly applied to that system of servitude in the South, which was really the mildest in the world; which did not rest on acts of debasement and disenfranchisement, but elevated

14994-485: The early 19th century, anti-slavery arguments began to depart from claims that it was economically inefficient and towards the contention that slavery was inherently immoral. In response, pro-slavery advocates fought against the abolitionists with their own morality-based defense, which invariably stressed their view that slaves were both well treated and happy, and included illustrations which were designed to prove their points. A writer in 1835 asserted that American slavery

15147-665: The early nineteenth century who, in the Second Party System , initially joined the proslavery Nullifier Party but left by 1839. Though having refused to attend the inauguration of Democratic president Martin Van Buren two years before, Calhoun voted with the Democratic Party for the remainder of his career. To Calhoun, slavery was a great benefit for an inferior race that had no ability to exercise their freedom positively. Calhoun argued: Never before has

15300-432: The emancipation of enslaved people in 1832. Dew supported enslavement on philosophical, economic and Biblical grounds, arguing that chattel slavery was not necessarily an immoral system. In portraying Southern enslavement-based society as "superior" to Northern free society, Dew's pro-slavery argument turned into a "positive good" defense. On February 1, 1836, Congressman James Henry Hammond from South Carolina spoke on

15453-400: The enslaved as childlike, in need of protection. While engaging in this type of activity, they also attempted to convince the plantation enslaved, who were denied contact with the many abolitionist newspapers , that their condition was far better than those of the white or black factory workers in the industrial North. George Fitzhugh was a slave owner, a prominent pro-slavery Democrat, and

15606-610: The enslaved. Another aspect of "slavery as a positive good" motivated some Southern white women to offer the enslaved on plantations material goods, as well as maternal care of those they considered "unfit or feeble-minded Negros". However, all black people were generally, though not universally, believed to be an inherently inferior " race ", the schooling of whom would be a waste, as they could not be educated. Some plantation mistresses spent considerable time in an attempt to "civilize" their enslaved laborers by providing food, shelter, and affection. In this sense, antebellum Southern women saw

15759-427: The existence of confirmed events, often including various massacres, genocides, and national histories . Some examples include Holocaust denial , Armenian Genocide denial , as well as Nakba Denial in the 1984 work From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters . Mainstream historians have categorized psychohistory as pseudohistory. Psychohistory is an amalgam of psychology, history, and related social sciences and

15912-527: The failure of Lieutenant General James Longstreet . Stories of happy slaves and benevolent slave owners became propaganda to defend slavery and to explain Southern slavery to Northerners. The United Daughters of the Confederacy had a Faithful Slave Memorial Committee and erected the Heyward Shepherd monument in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia . In explaining Confederate defeat, an assertion

16065-534: The family members in question usually never saw or heard from one another again. Lost Cause proponents ignore these realities, presenting slavery as a positive good and denying that alleviation of the conditions of slavery was the central cause of the American Civil War . Instead, Lost Cause proponents frame the war as a defense of states' rights and of the Southern agrarian economy against supposed Northern aggression . Lost Cause proponents attribute

16218-433: The free laborers of any country in the world ...—their lives and persons protected by the law, all their sufferings alleviated by the kindest and most interested care.... Sir, I do firmly believe that domestic slavery regulated as ours is produces the highest toned, the purest, best organization of society that has ever existed on the face of the earth. A Democrat, Hammond was elected Governor of South Carolina in 1842. He

16371-570: The general defense of involuntary servitude drifted towards a position where a "proper social order and foundation of social welfare played a major role" in the pro-enslavement debate. Another economic defense of slave labor came from economist Thomas Roderick Dew , professor at and then president of the College of William and Mary , who downplayed the evil of owning humans after the Virginia House of Burgesses almost passed legislation for

16524-469: The genre. In 1968, Erich von Däniken published Chariots of the Gods? , which claims that ancient visitors from outer space constructed the pyramids and other monuments. He has since published other books in which he makes similar claims. These claims have all been categorized as pseudohistory. Similarly, Zechariah Sitchin has published numerous books claiming that a race of extraterrestrial beings from

16677-450: The humanities. Its stated goal is to examine the "why" of history, especially the difference between stated intention and actual behavior. It also states as its goal the combination of the insights of psychology, especially psychoanalysis , with the research methodology of the social sciences and humanities to understand the emotional origin of the behavior of individuals, groups and nations, past and present. Pseudoarchaeology refers to

16830-805: The idea of embellished, fabricated accounts of historical civilizations, namely Khazaria and Tartaria . The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is a fraudulent work purporting to show a historical conspiracy for world domination by Jews. The work was conclusively proven to be a forgery in August 1921, when The Times revealed that extensive portions of the document were directly plagiarized from Maurice Joly 's 1864 satirical dialogue The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu , as well as Hermann Goedsche 's 1868 anti-Semitic novel Biarritz . The Khazar theory

16983-445: The intention of portraying the pre-war South as a "paradise" that was lost in its defeat. The Lost Cause legend includes the assertion that slavery was not the main dispute between the North and the South and was not the cause of secession. The myth claims that it was merely a matter of time before the South would have given up slavery by its own choice and that it was the trouble-making abolitionists who manufactured disagreement between

17136-413: The laborer than domestic slavery". In later years, Fitzhugh not only supported slavery for blacks, but like other proslavery intellectuals, came to the conclusion that it was also suitable for whites, if considered unfit. He believed that whites, if trained well and domesticated, could be as "faithful and valuable servants" as blacks. Taking an authoritarian position, Fitzhugh argued that "All government

17289-409: The many changes during the era, most significantly Reconstruction . The institutions have lasted to the present, and descendants of Confederate soldiers continue to attend their meetings. In 1879, John McElroy published Andersonville : A Story of Rebel Military Prisons , which strongly criticized the Confederate treatment of prisoners and implied in the preface that the mythology of the Confederacy

17442-480: The memories of a wicked rebellion which they must necessarily perpetuate [...] It is a needless record of stupidity and wrong." On May 30, 1871, during the national celebration of Memorial Day at the tomb of the unknown soldier in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, Douglass delivered a speech about slavery as the meaning and cause of the Civil War. He said: "We are sometimes asked, in

17595-425: The methodology that purports to, but does not, adhere to the established standards of research for the given field of intellectual enquiry of which the pseudoscience claims to be a part, and which offers little or no supporting evidence for its plausibility. Writers Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman define pseudohistory as "the rewriting of the past for present personal or political purposes". Other writers take

17748-533: The mid-19th century, the Democrats of the Second and Third Party Systems had become not only the most ardent defenders of slavery, but the most important institutional supporters of slavery. Andrew Jackson , who owned throughout his life up to 300 slaves, was the first U.S. President (1829–1837) to be elected from the newly founded Democratic Party. Jackson was accused of beating his slaves, and also of banning

17901-522: The midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintending care of his master and mistress, and compare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poor house" found in Europe and the Northern states. Such an assertion was predicated on the virtues of benevolent paternalism, the glory of past civilizations, and the traditions of white supremacy . In an effort to illustrate that

18054-449: The modern-day been promoted by white supremacists in the United States to minimize the mistreatment experienced by African Americans (such as racism and segregation ) and oppose demands for slavery reparations . The myth has also been used to obscure and downplay Irish involvement in the transatlantic slave trade . While closely related to previous categories, historical negationism or denialism specifically aims to outright deny

18207-450: The most famous example of this type, has been conclusively refuted by mainstream historians using evidence from a vast array of different fields of study. Another nationalistic pseudohistorical theory is Antiquization or Ancient Macedonism, which postulates direct demographic, cultural and linguistic continuity between ancient Macedonians and the main ethnic group in present-day North Macedonia . The Bulgarian medieval dynasty of

18360-415: The name of patriotism, to forget the merits of this fearful struggle, and to remember, with equal admiration, those who struck at the nation's life, and those who struck to save it—those who fought for slavery, and those who fought for liberty and justice. I am no minister of malice. [...] I would not repel the repentant, but may [...] my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I forget the difference between

18513-707: The official magazine for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , The Crisis , he wrote that it "would be an inscription something like this: 'sacred to the memory of those who fought to Perpetuate Human Slavery'". On January 3, 1966, Sammy Younge Jr. was murdered in Tuskegee, Alabama , two years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 , which had made segregation of public places illegal. He stopped to use

18666-412: The parties to that [...] bloody conflict." John Mitchell Jr. was an African American newspaper editor, politician, banker, and civil rights activist in the 19th and early 20th centuries from Richmond, Virginia, who advocated against the erection of a Robert E. Lee monument there. He tried to block its funding but was stopped by a white conservative majority. In Richmond, Virginia , on May 29, 1890, it

18819-513: The people of the South, who found the symbols useful in the reconstituting of their shattered civilization. They perpetuated the ideals of the Old South and brought a sense of comfort to the New . Louisiana State University history professor Gaines Foster wrote in 2013: Scholars have reached a fair amount of agreement about the role the Lost Cause played in those years, although the scholarship on

18972-519: The practice: Slavery is said to be an evil.... But it is no evil. On the contrary, I believe it to be the greatest of all the great blessings which a kind Providence has bestowed upon our glorious region.... As a class, I say it boldly; there is not a happier, more contented race upon the face of the earth. I have been born and brought up in the midst of them, and so far as my knowledge and experience extend, I should say they have every reason to be happy. Lightly tasked, well clothed, well fed—far better than

19125-532: The preeminent place as a Christ-like figure. Lost Cause advocates try to rationalize the Confederate military defeat with the assertion that the South had not actually been defeated; rather, it had been unfairly overcome by the massive manpower and resources of the deceitful Yankees. Contradictorily, they also maintain that the South would have won the war if it had prevailed in the Battle of Gettysburg , and that it lost because of Stonewall Jackson 's death in 1863 and

19278-417: The prospects of slavery, he asserted that liberty was not a universal right but should be "reserved for the intelligent, the patriotic, the virtuous and deserving", which would exclude both free and enslaved Negros. Moreover, in 1820, Calhoun explained to John Quincy Adams that slave labor was the mechanics by which to maintain social control, calling it the "best guarantee for equality among whites". Before

19431-518: The pseudohistorical thesis that all the major monuments of the ancient world, including Stonehenge , the Egyptian pyramids , and the moai of Easter Island , were built by a single ancient supercivilization, which Hancock claims thrived from 15,000 to 10,000 BC and possessed technological and scientific knowledge equal to or surpassing that of modern civilization. He first advanced the full form of this argument in his 1995 bestseller Fingerprints of

19584-404: The public mind is not prepared to receive the truth." All of these themes were made prominent by Early and the Lost Cause writers in the 19th century and continued to play an important role throughout the 20th. In a November 1868 report, U.S. Army general George Henry Thomas , a Virginian who had fought for the Union in the war, noted efforts made by former Confederates to paint the Confederacy in

19737-407: The publisher; "it is just the thing." The title proved an instant success, and has since become monumental. The words "The Lost Cause" have been incorporated into the common popular language of the South; and the universality of their reception implies a significance that is itself interesting. Pollard promoted many of the themes of the Lost Cause such as the claim that states' rights were the cause of

19890-497: The regions. Enslaved African Americans were characterized as faithful and happy. Confederate President Jefferson Davis wrote about the place of the South's enslaved African Americans in his The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881): [The negroe soldiers'] servile instincts rendered them contented with their lot, and their patient toil blessed the land of their abode with unmeasured riches. Their strong local and personal attachment secured faithful service ... Never

20043-421: The slaveholder acquired his labor and the slave was given a standard of living far beyond what he could ever hope to achieve on his own. Calhoun sought to defend slavery as a positive good, and expanded his argument to condemn the North and industrial capitalism, asserting that slavery was "actually superior to the ' wage slavery ' of the North". He believed that free laborers in the North were just as enslaved as

20196-432: The slaveholding states between the two is, instead of an evil, a good – a positive good. I feel myself called upon to speak freely upon the subject, where the honour and interests of those I represent are involved. In that 1837 speech, Calhoun further argued that the slaveholders took care of their slaves from birth to old age, urging the opponents of slavery to "look at the sick, and the old and infirm slave, on one hand, in

20349-723: The superiority of white people (as well as to oppose the Catholic Church ). Such misuse of Viking history and imagery reemerged in the twentieth century among some groups promoting white supremacy . Supporters of Soviet communist pseudohistory claim, among other things, that Joseph Stalin and other top Soviet leaders did not realize the scope of mass killings perpetrated under the Stalin regime , that executions of prisoners were legally justifiable, and that prisoners in Soviet gulags performed important construction work that helped

20502-416: The theory would inevitably run counter to civilization itself. Southern pro-slavery theorists asserted that slavery eliminated this problem by elevating all free people to the status of "citizen", and removing the landless poor (the "mudsill") from the political process entirely by means of enslavement. Thus, those who would most threaten economic stability and political harmony were not allowed to undermine

20655-477: The thesis being promoted while ignoring valid sources that contradict it . Sometimes a work of pseudohistory will adopt a position of historical relativism , insisting that there is really no such thing as historical truth and that any hypothesis is just as good as any other. Many works of pseudohistory conflate mere possibility with actuality, assuming that if something could have happened, then it did. Notable examples of pseudohistory include British Israelism ,

20808-696: The title of an 1866 book by the Virginian journalist Edward A. Pollard , The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates . According to Pollard the term was created at the request of his publisher in New York City, who feared that Pollard's original title would not be catchy enough to sell books. Pollard later wrote in Appleton's Journal , This titular description of our late war [The Lost Cause], which has become so popular on

20961-540: The transition in popular sentiments about the Africans and their descendants among ethnically European settlers of North America as, If in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries transplanted Europeans denounced Atlantic creoles as audacious rogues and if in the eighteenth century the nascent planter class condemned the newly arrived Africans for their "gross bestiality and rudeness of their manners", nineteenth-century white Americans redefined blackness by endowing it with

21114-526: The truth being told of them. In 1907, Hunter Holmes McGuire , physician of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson , published in a book papers sponsored by the Grand Camp of Confederate Veterans of Virginia, supporting the Lost Cause tenets that "slavery [was] not the cause of the war" and that "the North [was] the aggressor in bringing on the war". The book quickly sold out and required a second edition. The German historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch compared

21267-405: The upper classes to rest upon: the metaphor of a mudsill theory being that the lowest threshold (mudsill) supports the foundation for a building. The theory was used by Hammond to justify what he saw as the willingness of the non-whites to perform menial work which enabled the higher classes to move civilization forward. With this in mind, any efforts for class or racial equality that ran counter to

21420-443: The war and that Southerners were forced to defend themselves against Northern aggression. He dismissed the role of slavery in starting the war and understated the cruelty of American slavery, even promoting it as a way of improving the lives of Africans. Pollard's revisionist history continues to have an effect on how slavery and the Civil War are taught in the United States. For example, in 1866 Pollard wrote: We shall not enter upon

21573-544: The war". He charged that the Yankees fought "with a ferocity that disregarded all the laws of civilized warfare". The book remained in print and often served to justify the Southern position and to distance it from slavery. Early's original inspiration for his views may have come from Confederate General Robert E. Lee . When Lee published his farewell order to the Army of Northern Virginia , he consoled his soldiers by speaking of

21726-486: The way Lee and his soldiers conducted themselves in the hours of surrender has a great deal to do with it. Pseudohistory Another hallmark of pseudohistory is an underlying premise that scholars have a furtive agenda to suppress the promotor's thesis—a premise commonly corroborated by elaborate conspiracy theories . Works of pseudohistory often point exclusively to unreliable sources—including myths and legends , often treated as literal historical truth—to support

21879-403: The weak;" but protection cannot be efficient without the power of control; therefore, "It is the duty of society to enslave the weak." Fitzhugh's views were influential and widely acknowledged in the South. The Richmond Enquirer found Fitzhugh's pro-slavery sentiments to be sound, declaring that the justification of slavery was not an issue of "mere negro slavery", but that in of itself "slavery

22032-733: The western part of the Roman Empire to the Pope , became widely circulated. In the twelfth century, Geoffrey of Monmouth published the History of the Kings of Britain , a pseudohistorical work purporting to describe the ancient history and origins of the British people. The book synthesises earlier Celtic mythical traditions to inflate the deeds of the mythical King Arthur . The contemporary historian William of Newburgh wrote around 1190 that "it

22185-792: Was The Wonders of Nature and Providence, Displayed (1826). The book is regarded by modern critics as one of the earliest works of modern American pseudohistory. Priest attacked Native Americans in American Antiquities and Discoveries of the West (1833) and African-Americans in Slavery, As It Relates to the Negro (1843). Other nineteenth-century writers, such as Thomas Gold Appleton , in his A Sheaf of Papers (1875), and George Perkins Marsh , in his The Goths in New England , seized upon false notions of Viking history to promote

22338-615: Was best known during his lifetime as an outspoken defender of the South and the institution of slavery. After traveling through Europe, Hammond concluded that free laborers were being exploited by soulless materialism in England and the North, where workers had the "liberty only to starve", while Southerners were far more protective, assuming "responsibility for every aspect of the lives" of their slaves. Hammond co-authored The Pro-Slavery Argument with William Harper , Thomas Roderick Dew , and William Gilmore Simms , who composed part of

22491-596: Was defaced, including with the phrase " Black Power ". Protestors unsuccessfully tried to pull it down with a rope and chain. The grounds are owned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. During the 1950s and 1960s, white supremacists erected Confederate monuments in opposition to the civil rights movement. On the night of August 20, 2018, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in North Carolina, hundreds of protestors gathered at " Silent Sam ",

22644-681: Was further popularized in the United States by the History Channel television series Ancient Aliens . History professor Ronald H. Fritze observed that the pseudohistorical claims promoted by von Däniken and the Ancient Aliens program have a periodic popularity in the US: "In a pop culture with a short memory and a voracious appetite, aliens and pyramids and lost civilizations are recycled like fashions." The author Graham Hancock has sold over four million copies of books promoting

22797-515: Was important to "understand the scientific significance" of the cow , as it was the only animal in the world to both inhale and exhale oxygen. In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a gathering of doctors and medical staff at a Mumbai hospital that the story of the Hindu god Ganesha showed genetic science existed in ancient India. Many new age pseudohistorians who focus on converting mythological stories into history are well received among

22950-417: Was there happier dependence of labor and capital on each other. The tempter came, like the serpent of Eden, and decoyed them with the magic word of "freedom" ... He put arms in their hands, and trained their humble but emotional natures to deeds of violence and bloodshed, and sent them out to devastate their benefactors. Lost Cause advocates point to a perceived chivalric tradition of the South as evidence for

23103-624: Was unveiled during a celebration and he covered the event in the Richmond Planet . He wrote: "This glorification of States Rights Doctrine—the right of secession, and the honoring of men who represented that cause [...] fosters in the Republic, the spirit of Rebellion and will ultimately result in the handing down to generations unborn a legacy of treason and blood." W. E. B. Du Bois was a civil rights activist and Pan-Africanist who also spoke out against Lost Cause memorials. In 1931, in

23256-411: Was viewed as being inherently transient and easily manipulated, and as such often destabilized society as a whole. Thus, the greatest threat to democracy was seen as coming from class warfare that destabilized a nation's economy, society, government, and threatened the peaceful and harmonious implementation of laws. This theory supposes that there must be, and supposedly always has been, a lower class for

23409-542: Was well established, and that criticism of the otherwise-lionized Confederates was met with disdain: I know that what is contained herein will be bitterly denied. I am prepared for this. In my boyhood I witnessed the savagery of the Slavery agitation – in my youth I felt the fierceness of the hatred directed against all those who stood by the Nation. I know that hell hath no fury like the vindictiveness of those who are hurt by

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