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T Lee Horne III

Male. Lives in Pensacola, Florida, United States. Is single.

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I retired when I turned 50 years old. I am working again at 72 years old.

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CSA II: The New Confederate States of America

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T Lee Horne III

November 3, 2025 7:17 am

Mindy Wilcoxen Esposito · THE LOST CAUSE OR THE RIGHTEOUS CAUSE: WHICH ONE IS THE MYTH? A Southern Perspective for Historical Debate After the War Between the States ended in 1865, two opposing inter... View MoreMindy Wilcoxen Esposito · THE LOST CAUSE OR THE RIGHTEOUS CAUSE: WHICH ONE IS THE MYTH? A Southern Perspective for Historical Debate After the War Between the States ended in 1865, two opposing interpretations of the conflict emerged. The victorious North claimed the struggle as The Righteous Cause—a moral war to preserve the Union and end slavery. The defeated South was said to have created The Lost Cause—a so-called myth to glorify rebellion and excuse defeat. But to Southerners who lived through it, their cause was neither lost nor mythical; it was the defense of liberty, local self-government, and the right of free people to determine their own destiny. --- Secession Did Not Begin in 1860 The concept of secession had been woven into American thought since the early Republic. It was not born in 1860 but had been sewn since 1832, when South Carolina nullified federal tariffs it deemed unconstitutional. Even then, President Andrew Jackson threatened invasion, and only a compromise tariff prevented war. Many Southern statesmen—including Calhoun, Jefferson Davis, and later Robert E. Lee—believed the Union was a compact among sovereign states, and that each retained the right to withdraw if that compact were broken. The Southern position rested on the same principle Thomas Jefferson had declared in 1776: > “Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” When that consent was withdrawn, secession was viewed not as treason, but as a peaceful act of self-determination—exactly what the American colonies had once done toward Britain. --- Slavery: A Coincidence of Timing Thomas Jefferson, himself a Virginian, foresaw the problem generations before. He wrote: > “We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go.” Jefferson recognized slavery as a dangerous inheritance—something America did not create, but could not easily end without upheaval. By 1860, less than 3% of Southerners owned slaves. The vast majority of Confederate soldiers owned none at all. They fought because their states were invaded, not because they sought to preserve an institution they had no part in. Slavery existed in the North as well, though gradually phased out through compensation or by selling enslaved people southward. Northern merchants, banks, and textile mills had long profited from slave labor, and the infamous slave ships of New England carried countless Africans to bondage. Slavery, therefore, was a national institution—an inherited evil, not a Southern invention. As President Lincoln himself wrote to Horace Greeley in 1862: > “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.” If emancipation was not the Union’s initial goal, it cannot honestly be said that slavery was the sole or even primary cause of the war. --- Economic and Political Motives The South’s fertile lands and exports—especially cotton—were the economic backbone of the nation. The industrial North depended heavily on that trade but sought to dominate it through tariffs, centralized banking, and federal control. Southerners saw their independence threatened by an expanding federal power that no longer represented them. When seven states withdrew peacefully, the Union government chose to wage war—not to free slaves, but to preserve its tax base and territorial control. Lincoln himself said he could not allow the Union to “be broken into fragments.” The resulting invasion was less a moral crusade than an assertion of authority. --- A War of Attrition Once the war began, the Union waged a war of attrition—grinding down Southern armies and civilians alike by cutting off supplies, destroying farms, and targeting rail lines and cities. The South was outnumbered four to one, outgunned, and eventually starving, yet her soldiers fought on for four long, desperate years. The endurance of men and women who had lost everything stands among the most remarkable displays of courage in American history. General Lee’s army fought until the very end with honor, discipline, and faith, even as food and ammunition vanished. They were not fighting for conquest or plunder—but for the right of their homeland to exist in peace. --- The So-Called Myths Unionists and modern historians often call the “Lost Cause” a myth, accusing Southerners of romanticizing defeat and minimizing slavery. But Southerners see the Righteous Cause as the greater myth—one that rewrites motives to justify the Union’s destruction of states’ rights, local economies, and civilian life. The “righteousness” of the Northern cause is further undermined by the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave in Union territory—only those in Confederate lands where Lincoln had no authority. If the war were truly fought for moral liberation, such half-measures would make no sense. --- Why Southerners Defend the “Lost Cause” For Southerners, the “Lost Cause” represents not denial but dignity. It remembers a people who fought against impossible odds for principles they believed in—honor, liberty, and the right of self-government. It honors women who rebuilt their homes from ashes, children who grew up amid famine, and men who faced overwhelming might without surrendering their convictions. To dismiss that story as myth is to deny the humanity and complexity of half the American experience. The South’s cause was lost in battle, but its spirit of independence and honor endures. --- Conclusion The true history of the War Between the States cannot be captured by slogans of “righteous” or “lost” causes. It was a conflict of philosophies—between centralized power and local sovereignty, industrial empire and agrarian independence, conquest and consent. The South stood where the Founders once stood: for the right of free people to govern themselves. Her sons and daughters fought not for slavery, but for home and country—believing, as Jefferson did, that liberty must never be surrendered, even when the cost is everything. --- Bibliography Jefferson, Thomas. Letter to John Holmes, April 22, 1820. (Library of Congress) Pollard, Edward A. The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates. E.B. Treat & Co., 1866. Lincoln, Abraham. Letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862. (Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 5) Davis, Jefferson. The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. Appleton, 1881. Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative. Random House, 1958–1974. Catton, Bruce. The Coming Fury. Doubleday, 1961. McPherson, James. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford University Press, 1988. Calhoun, John C. The Works of John C. Calhoun, Vol. 6, D. Appleton & Co., 1851. Simkins, Francis Butler. A History of the South. Knopf, 1947. Wiley, Bell Irvin. The Life of Johnny Reb. Louisiana State University Press, 1943. M. Esposito 07/20/2025

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