Slavery as the Primary Cause of the Civil War: the Real Lost Cause Argument.

James Lutzweiler

Sergeant Major
Joined
Mar 14, 2018
My Fellow Posters,

Relatively new to this very informative site, I have observed on numerous occasions that whenever anyone suggests an alternative to the primacy of slavery as a cause of the Civil War that such a debater is frowned upon with the stereotypical and vacuous sobriquet "Lost Causer." My own caption for those who resort to this kind of debate is "Lost Logicers." But I don't like the euphony of that response, even though I think the caption is correct. I find it intellectuallly feeble that the only argument against other causes is the simplistic, "Oh, so you are a 'Lost Causer,' are you?" which question is supposed to end all argument once and for all. It doesn't, of course, even though those who use it sail happily away, confident in their course of history.

That's not how I see it, and thus I characterize those who argue for the primacy of slavery as the cause as the true "Lost Causers." If anyone has a better neologism for responding to these advocates, I would like to find something better and more euphonic I prefer something in the 2-3 syllable range for some shorthand.

In this context let me add that those responsible for exalting slavery to a primary cause, i.e., those antebellum Seceshers who offered that sorry Saran-Wrap-thin and phony excuse for what they contemplated and then did, were actually joined in their hermeneutical gymnastics by Northerners AFTER the war. Those Northerners had to come up with something noble to explain to grieving mothers, fathers, sisters, and brother, and everybody else --like my spinster grade school teachers and other non-thinkers-- that their loved ones did not die in vain or for something as grubby as greed for western land and railroads. No, no, no! Good heavens, NO!! Gotta have a noble cause. Gotta extrapolate one! In fact, I think Northerners were probably even more responsible for the "Lost Cause of Slavery Primacy" argument, as it is so atypical for Northerners to take at face value the arguments of any Southerners, especially Southerners long since dead and their dead cause with them. Just a thought, not an argument --yet.

Will someone help me coin a useful and comprehensive neologism?

James
 
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