Students will chorus “No,” so you can follow up: “What do we need?” Hopefully they will reply “evidence” or “facts.” Ask them to pair up and come up with ideas as to good evidence. They will suggest newspapers, politicians’ diaries, and other primary sources. “Primary” refers to items from the time, contrasted with secondary sources like historical monographs and tertiary sources like textbooks. Set them free to unearth primary sources on the web. They will find that the early-seceding states did so by convention, which told why they were seceding. Always they stressed slavery.

For instance, the first “Declaration Of Causes,” South Carolina’s, quoted Article IV Section 2 of the Constitution, the fugitive slave clause, and then charged:

But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding states to the institution of slavery has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government… The States of Maine, New Hampshire … Wisconsin, and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the acts of Congress, or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from the service or labor claimed …

Clearly, South Carolina opposed states’ rights whenever Northern states exercised them on behalf of African Americans. Students will find nothing about tariffs and taxes, either. States did castigate Lincoln, because he opposed slavery. So it all comes back to the s-word.

Why is this important?

First, we must get history right. Once we abandon the truth, we start down a slippery slope with no principles to guide us as to what to teach. Second, misteaching secession denies the important role African Americans played. Those who escaped bondage from border states so jeopardized slavery that enslaved people in Maryland were worth much less than in Mississippi, partly because they were less secure. As well, every escape gave the lie to the ideology of racism that whites used to rationalize the institution: that slavery was appropriate for blacks and they liked it. Finally, making the Confederacy about states’ rights valorizes the neo-Confederate cause today.

Misteaching secession is one reason why the performance gap by race in social studies is greater than in any other field. It feeds the general alienation that some African Americans feel about school by implying that they never did much. And it underlies the affection for the Confederacy felt by some white Americans — Dylann Roof is an extreme example.