The Past Speaks

Interesting Job for Aspiring Digital Humanities Scholar

18 05 2011

I thought I would bring your attention to a part-time employment opportunity for an aspiring digital humanities scholar.

History Workshop Online: Web Manager

The editors of History Workshop Journal are looking for a part-time web manager and administrator to help establish and run a new website, History Workshop Online <http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/>. This WordPress website is intended to reach beyond an academic audience and to be both a discussion forum and a resource for radical historians and for those interested in the interplay between past and present. The job involves an average of six hours work a week at an hourly rate of £16.50.

To apply for the post please send your CV with a covering letter, plus links to any websites on which you have worked, to historyworkshopjournal@gmail.com. The deadline for applications is June 10^th.

For more details, see here.

THATCamp Western

18 05 2011

People interested in Digital Humanities should check out the forthcoming UWO THATCamp.

In affiliation with THATCamp, the Faculty of Information and Media Studies (FIMS) in will be hosting an unconference on the Digital Humanities at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada on May 21 & 22, 2011.

The unconference will focus on topics of interest in the Humanities and Technology. Faculty, graduate students, librarians, archivists, developers, programmers and interested amateurs are all be invited to participate.

Unlike a formal conference, this two-day event will not consist of lectures, but will instead encourage open and active participation by all. The participants get to decide the nature of the discussions for a series of simultaneous talk sessions over the weekend.

ThatCampUWO will also offer BootCamps, essentially workshops that include a one hour introduction and a half hour session for people to volunteer information about their research related to a new technology.

What is THATCamp?

THATCamp is a free, open “unconference” where humanists and technologists meet to work together for the common good.

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Political Culture Meets Academic Culture

14 05 2011

One of the more curious features of modern civilization is the vast disparity in the ethical standards prevailing in the academic and political worlds.

In the political world, plagiarism is par for the course, as is intellectual dishonesty and promise-breaking. In most countries, truth-in-advertising laws are almost never applied to election advertising. (A court in the UK recently voided an election because the succesful candidate told what was later proved to be a lie during the campaign, but such sanctions are rare). In universities, at least in the Western world, plagiarism and the fabrication of evidence are regarded as cardinal sins. Not surprisingly, the intellectual standards in the academic world are much higher than in politics. Academics’ arguments have to be supported by evidence and are only really respected once they have passed through peer review, preferably of the double-blind type. Ad hominem arguments are frowned upon.

The irony, of course, is that universities are supported by the State, which is controlled by politicians. Moreover, politicians are far more likely to have university degrees than the average adult, which suggests that ethical and intellectual standards taught at universities were soon forgotten by those graduates who went into politics.

I am, therefore, very interested in the anti-plagiarism campaign in Germany, where two prominent politicians have recently been forced to resign because it was revealed their PhD theses had been plagiarized.

The Military-Industrial Complex and the American Miracle

12 05 2011

Just over fifty years ago, on 17 January 1961, outgoing President Dwight Eisenhower’s speech of in which he used the phrase “military-industrial complex” in his farewell speech to the American people.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

The phrase military-industrial complex quickly entered the political lexicon, replacing the earlier phrase “merchants of death”, which had been used in the 1920s to describe the armament manufacturers who, allegedly, got rich off of the First World War.

The 50th anniversary of the speech occasioned a number of blog posts (see here, here, and here) and a new book by journalist James Ledbetter.

Business historians have also contributed to the debate on whether Eisenhower’s warning to Americans is still relevant. The Spring 2011 number of the business history journal Enterprise & Society was a special issue on “the military-industrial complex.” The speech itself is available as a video here and as a transcript here. The National Archives also has a video discussing the writing of the speech. The Eisenhower Institute held a commemorative event, which can be seen on video. For more details, see here.

This graph, which shows American defence spending as percentage of GDP from 1940 to the present, helps to put Eisenhower’s speech into its immediate politico-economic context.

An even more interesting graph is this one, which shows US military spending a percentage of GDP from starting in 1800.

With the exception of the Civil War period, US defence spending rarely rose over 2% of GDP until the First World War. It was certainly around 2% in the 1890s, when Eisenhower was growing up.

In his classic 1956 book The Civilian and the Military: A History of the American Antimilitarist Tradition, historian Arthur A. Ekirch Jr. argued that one of the things that defined America for much of its history was the anti-militarism of its people and their suspicion of standing armies. For most of its history, the United States spent a relatively low percentage of national income on its military– much lower than Prussia, France, and most European countries, even Britain, which had its own quite strong anti-militarist tradition. Indeed, the desire to escape the burdens that European armies placed on their taxpayers, was, along with their quest for cheap land and cheap food, one of the reasons so many Europeans migrated to the New World.

The anti-militarism and “isolationism” of the American people also helps to explain what some business and economic historians call the “American miracle” – the ability of the United States and its businesses to overtake Europe as the economic leader of the world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the early 19th century, Britain was the world’s undisputed technological and economic leader. Despite its first-mover advantages, Britain and other European countries were overtaken by the United States for reasons that continue to be debated by economic historians. By 1945, the Americans’ relative economic power reached an all-time high: Europe was shattered and nearly starving while Americans were prosperous and well-fed. By 1945, the citizens of the United States and other countries of English-speaking settlement were the luckiest inhabitants of the planet.

In the decades since 1945, the gap between the levels of well-being in America and Europe has narrowed. By the 1960s, the gap in living standards had narrowed to the point that there was no longer an economic incentive for Western Europeans (and Japanese people) to migrate to the United States. European (and later Japanese) companies also began to compete successfully with American firms. Today, average incomes in a few European countries now exceed that in the United States. People in NW Europe, at least, enjoy something resembling an American standard of living. In terms of ownership of consumer durables such as computers and flat screen TVs, Americans and Europeans are on roughly the same level. Average annual incomes in France are lower than in the United States, but this is because French people (and most Europeans) work fewer hours. In previous generations, Americans were larger and healthier than Europeans: during WWII, Britons observed that visiting American servicemen were tall, well-fed, and had great teeth. Today, the exact opposite is true: Western Europeans born in the last few decades are taller than Americans of European ancestry born in the same period.

New research has shown some unexpected disparities between statures of Americans and Europeans, indicating that recent social changes and diet are major influences on adult height. For British men, too, are outstripping their transatlantic rivals. At the time of the American Revolution, the average US male was two inches taller than his British counterpart. Today he is almost half an inch shorter. Read more here.

Americans also have shorter life expectancies and higher infant mortality.

The reasons for these divergences and convergences in measurable living standards continue to be debated by historians. American business historians such as Alfred Chandler have argued that the basic reason for the “American miracle” was that American corporations developed superior forms of internal organization in the late 19th-century. This explanation probably has some truth in it, since the post-1945 convergence in between European and US living standards was accompanied by the adoption of American business methods by many European firms. Other people have argued that the US was able to overtake Europe because it had a better patent system that encouraged more inventions. The list of possible explanations for the American miracle and then post-1945 convergence is potentially long. But one thing that needs to be part of any explanation is warfare, militarism, and the percentage of national incomes consumed by the armed forces of various nations.

As the great and brilliant historian Leslie Hannah observed in an article in the 1990s on the American miracle, militarism and the avoidance of militarism need to be part of any explanatory framework:

It seems obtuse, however, to seek the reasons for these standings [i.e., of countries in national economic league tables] in the traditional subject matter of business history. The five laggards [i.e., UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan] spent much of the first half of the twentieth century killing one another, invading one another’s countries, and destroying one another’s cities, industry, and infrastructure. Such human tendencies to collective mayhem in North America were more constrained: those parts south of Canada entered “world” wars reluctantly, late, and usually only after extreme provocation. Even then the United States’s mobilization usually increased rather than compromised its organizational and capabilities, unlike the case in the other industrial powers. Moreover, the absurd imperial conceits of all the other five — and no doubt some other factors — contrived to perpetuate their problems into peacetime, creating inflationary and protectionist policy idiocies that further compromised their capacity to converge on U.S. productivity standards.

Now look at this graph, which dates from 2002. One notes that within NATO, the United States is the third most profligate spender on its military, coming just behind Greece and Turkey, two countries in which defence expenditures are influenced by ancient ethnic and religious rivalries. The other OECD countries have held their defence spending below 2% of GDP, the figure that the United States held to in the period when it was catching up with Europe. Europe’s successful demilitarization in recent decades is discussed by historian James J. Sheehan in a recent book called Where Have All the Soldiers Gone?.

One of the tragic things about the 0ver-militarization of the United States in recent decades is that it has involved wasting vast amounts of human, economic, and political capital that might otherwise have been kept in reserve in case the United States really needs to fight a major war of self-defence at some point in the future.

_________________________

References:

Leslie Hannah, “The American Miracle, 1875-1950, and After: A View in the European Mirror,” Business and Economic History 24 (1995): 197-220.

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Tags: Alfred Chandler, Arthur A. Ekirch, defence spending, defense spending, Eisenhower's Farewell Speech, James J. Sheehan, Military Industrial Complex, military spending as a percentage of GDP, The Civilian and the Military: A History of the American Antimilitarist Tradition
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Text of 1866 Annexation Bill

11 05 2011

39TH CONGRESS, 1ST SESSION H.R. 754. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES JULY 2, 1866.

Read twice, refered to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and ordered to be printed. Mr Banks, on leave, introduced the following bill: A Bill for the admission of the States of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada East, and Canada West, and for the organization of the Territories of Selkirk, Saskatchewan, and Columbia Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the United States is hereby authorized and directed, whenever notice shall be deposited in the Department of State that the governments of Great Britain and the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Canada, British Columbia, and Vancouver’s Island have accepted the proposition hereinafter made by the United States, to publish by proclamation that, from the date thereof, the States of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada East, and Canada West, and the Territories of Selkirk, Saskatchewan, and Columbia, with limits and rights as by the act defined, are constituted and admitted as States and Territories of the United States of America. SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the following articles are hereby proposed, and from the date of the proclamation of the President of the United States shall take effect, as irrevocable conditions of the admission of the States of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada East, and Canada West, and the future States of Selkirk, Saskatchewan, and Columbia, to wit: [edit] ARTICLE I All public lands not sold or granted; canals, public harbors, light-houses, and piers; river and lake improvements; railway stocks, mortgages, and other debts due by railway companies to the provinces; custom-houses and post offices, shall vest in the United States; but all other public works and property shall belong to the State governments respectively, hereby constituted, together with all sums due from purchasers or lessees of lands, mines, or minerals at the time of the union. [edit] ARTICLE II In consideration of the public lands, works, and property vested as aforesaid in the United States, the United States will assume and discharge the funded debt and contingent liabilities of the late provinces, at rates of interest not exceeding five per centum, to the amount of eighty-five million seven hundred thousand dollars, apportioned as follows: To Canada West, thirty-six million five hundred thousand dollars; to Canada East, twenty-nine million dollars; to Nova Scotia, eight million dollars; to New Brunswick, seven million dollars; to Newfoundland, three million two hundred thousand dollars; and to Prince Edward Island, two million dollars; and in further consideration of the transfer by said provinces to the United States of the power to levy import and export duties, the United States will make an annual grant of one million six hundred and forty-six thousand dollars in aid of local expenditures, to be apportioned as follows: To Canada West, seven hundred thousand dollars; to Canada East, five hundred and fifty thousand dollars; to Nova Scotia, one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars; to New Brunswick, one hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars; to Newfoundland, sixty-five thousand dollars; to Prince Edward Island, forty thousand dollars. [edit] ARTICLE III For all purposes of State organization and representation in the Congress of the United States, Newfoundland shall be part of Canada East, and Prince Edward Island shall be part of Nova Scotia, except that each shall always be a separate representative district, and entitled to elect at least one member of the House of Representatives, and except, also, that the municipal authorities of Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island shall receive the indemnities agreed to be paid by the United States in Article II. [edit] ARTICLE IV Territorial divisions are established as follows: (1) New Brunswick, with its present limits; (2) Nova Scotia, with the addition of Prince Edward Island; (3) Canada East, with the addition of Newfoundland and all territory east of longitude eighty degrees and south of Hudson’s strait; (4) Canada West, with the addition of territory south of Hudson’s bay and between longitude eighty degrees longitude ninety degrees; (5) Selkirk Territory, bounded east by longitude ninety degrees, south by the late boundary of the United States, west by longitude one hundred and five degrees, and north by the Arctic circle; (6) Saskatchewan Territory, bounded east by longitude one hundred and five degrees, south by latitude forty-nine degrees, west by the Rocky mountains, and north by latitude seventy degrees; (7) Columbia Territory, including Vancouver’s Island, and Queen Charlotte’s island, and bounded east and north by the Rocky mountains, south by latitude forty-nine degrees, and west by the Pacific ocean and Russian America. But Congress reserves the right of changing the limits and subdividing the areas of the western territories at discretion. [edit] ARTICLE V Until the next decennial revision, representation in the House of Representatives shall be as follows: Canada West, twelve members; Canada East, including Newfoundland, eleven members; New Brunswick, two members; Nova Scotia, including Prince Edward Island, four members. [edit] ARTICLE VI The Congress of the United States shall enact, in favor of the proposed Territories of Selkirk, Saskatchewan, and Columbia, all the provisions of the act organizing the Territory of Montana, so far as they can be made applicable. [edit] ARTICLE VII The United States, by the construction of new canals, or the enlargement of existing canals, and by the improvement of shoals, will so aid the navigation of the Saint Lawrence river and the great lakes that vessels of fifteen hundred tons burden shall pass from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to Lakes Superior and Michigan: Provided, That the expenditure under this article shall not exceed fifty millions of dollars. [edit] ARTICLE VIII The United States will appropriate and pay to “The European and North American Railway Company of Maine” the sum of two millions of dollars upon the construction of a continuous line of railroad from Bangor, in Maine, to Saint John’s, in New Brunswick: Provided, That said “The European and North American Railway Company of Maine” shall release the government of the United States from all claims held by it as assignee of the States of Maine and Massachusetts. [edit] ARTICLE IX To aid the construction of a railway from Truro, in Nova Scotia, to Riviere du Loup, in Canada East, and a railway from the city of Ottawa, by way of Sault Ste. Marie, Bayfield, and Superior, in Wisconsin, Pembina, and Fort Garry, on the Red River of the North, and the valley of the North Saskatchewan river to some point on the Pacific ocean north of latitude forty-nine degrees, the United States will grant lands along the lines of said roads to the amount of twenty sections, or twelve thousand eight hundred acres, per mile, to be selected and sold in the manner prescribed in the act to aid the construction of the Northern Pacific railroad, approved July two, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, and acts amendatory thereof; and in addition to said grants of lands, the United States will further guarantee dividends of five per centum upon the stock of the company or companies which may be authorized by Congress to undertake the construction of said railways: Provided, That such guarantee of stock shall not exceed the sum of thirty thousand dollars per mile, and Congress shall regulate the securities for advances on account thereof. [edit] ARTICLE X The public lands in the late provinces, as far as practicable, shall be surveyed according to the rectangular system of the General Land office of the United States; and in the Territories west of longitude ninety degrees, or the western boundary of Canada West, sections sixteen and thirty-six shall be granted for the encouragement of schools, and after the organization of the Territories into States, five per centum of the net proceeds of sales of public lands shall be paid into their treasuries as a fund for the improvement of roads and rivers. [edit] ARTICLE XI The United States will pay ten millions of dollars to the Hudson Bay Company in full discharge of all claims to territory or jurisdiction in North America, whether founded on the charter of the company or any treaty, law, or usage. [edit] ARTICLE XII It shall be devolved upon the legislatures of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Canada East, and Canada West, to conform the tenure of office and the local institutions of said States to the Constitution and laws of the United States, subject to revision by Congress. SEC 3. And be it further enacted, That if Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, or either of those provinces, shall decline union with the United States, and the remaining provinces, with the consent of Great Britain, shall accept the proposition of the United States, the foregoing stipulations in favor of Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, or either of them, will be omitted; but in all other respects the United States will give full effect to the plan of union. If Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick shall decline the proposition, but Canada, British Columbia, and Vancouver island shall, with the consent of Great Britain, accept the same, the construction of a railway from Truro to Riviere du Loup, with all stipulations relating to the maritime provinces, will form no part of the proposed plan of union, but the same will be consummated in all other respects. If Canada shall decline the proposition, then the stipulations in regard to the Saint Lawrence canals and a railway from Ottawa to Sault Ste. Marie, with the Canadian clause of debt and revenue indemnity, will be relinquished. If the plan of union shall only be accepted in regard to the northwestern territory and the Pacific provinces, the United States will aid the construction, on the terms named, of a railway from the western extremity of Lake Superior, in the State of Minnesota, by way of Pembina, Fort Garry, and the valley of the Saskatchewan, to the Pacific coast, north of latitude forty-nine degrees, besides securing all the rights and privileges of an American territory to the proposed Territories of Selkirk, Saskatchewan, and Columbia.

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Digital Books and the Future of Historical Studies in HE

10 05 2011

Like many historians, I found online books to be a great innovation. Google Books is the most famous digitizer of books, but for historians perhaps the most useful provider is the Internet Archive.The internet archive contains some wonderful gems, including several editions of Pehr Kalm’s journal of his travels in North America in the late 1740s. Kalm was a Finnish naturalist whose account of life in New France has been drawn upon by many of historians of early North America. One of the assignments in the pre-Confederation history class I taught in Canada involved reading the description of Montreal contained in the edition of the journal printed in London in 1770-1. This assigment gave students to read an actual primary source and is always quite popular.

Back in November, Digital Campus, the podcast of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, broadcast an interesting discussion of digital books. I just discovered this podcast now and find it fascinating. It gets me thinking about what sort of assignments I might be giving in a decade. You can hear the podcast by clicking here.

If you haven’t already explored the rich holdings of the Internet Archive, I recommend that you do so right away!

Appearance of the Internet Archive Main Page

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Tags: Center for History and New Media, Digital Campus, digitized books, Google Books, Internet Archive, Pehr Kalm, teaching of history
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History of the United States Module

10 05 2011

Next year, I shall deliver a second-year module on US history here at Coventry University.The intended learning outcomes are that on completion of this module the student should be able to:

1. Identify the events and ideas which have shaped the political, economic, and cultural history of the United States.

2. Explain the processes by which the United States went from a small agrarian republic to a global superpower.

3. Assess the nature of the political system and the ideas and issues which dominated American politics between 1776 and 2000.

4. Understand the relations between the United States and its two neighbouring countries, Canada and Mexico.

5. Understand the complex and multicultural nature of the American population.
Indicative Content

The aim of this module is to provide an outline history of the United States since the Revolution. Whilst the module will be organised along broadly chronological lines, emphasis will be placed on addressing those general themes that have been important in the shaping of modern North America. The major themes of this module are: political change and institutions; key leaders; war and diplomacy; economic and social development. The primary focus of the module is the history of the United States. However, consideration will also be given to the histories of the other two nations of North America, Canada and Mexico. Understanding the history of the United States requires some awareness of the histories of the two nations that lie along its frontiers.

The overarching theme of this module is the rise of the United States from a small confederation of agrarian republics into a coherent nation-state capable of projecting military, economic, and cultural power into all corners of the globe. All of the lectures and most of the seminar readings will be connected to this theme in some way or the other.

List of Likely Lectures

– Introduction; The American Republic- Manifest Destiny

– The Road to Disunion

– The Civil War and Reconstruction

– The Gilded Age: America Becomes an Industrial Superpower

– The nation and its minorities: Blacks in the South, Native American Indians, immigrants.

– Populism and Progressivism.

– Prosperity and depression, 1919-1939: the age of ‘normalcy’ during the 1920s and Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s.

– The Cold War: McCarthyism and the Garrison State

– Politics and Society 1945-1968: the Era of Liberal Supremacy

– The Rise of the American Right Since 1968

– The Age of Reagan

– Mexico’s Relations With the United States and the Rise of Hispanic America

– Canada’s Relations With the United States: Towards Continental Union?

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AV and FPTP Explained

6 05 2011

Yesterday, people in the UK voted in a referendum on replacing the traditional FPTP system of electing MPs with the AV (Alternative Vote), a system that has been used in Australia for about 90 years. The relative merits of these two voting systems are sometimes difficult to explain in just a few minutes, so this is has forced the Yes and No campaigns to be rather creative in their communications strategies. Here are some of the best ads produced by both sides.

Cats for AV (Yes Campaign)

Coffee vs Beer (Yes Campaign)

Alan Bastard (No Campaign)

Be Very Afraid of Racists (No Campaign)

The results of the referendum will be released today.

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Tags: Alternative Vote Referendum, AV and FPTP Explained, No Campaign, Yes Campaign
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Call for Papers: Accounting History Review Conference

5 05 2011

23rd Accounting History Review Conference Cardiff University, 12-13 September 2011

AS’s note: Accounting history might sound like a dry, worthy-but-dull topic. It’s actually a vital important subject of scholarly inquiry. As the acclaimed development economist Hernando De Soto has recently pointed out in his Business Week article “The Destruction of Economic Facts“, (honest) accounting played a big role in the rise of the western world. Dishonest accounting (e.g., Enron) threatens the ability of our societies to allocate capital efficiently and is therefore a big, big problem. So this conference is important. Plus Cardiff is a wonderful city, so you have an additional reason to come to it.

——————————–

The 23rd accounting history conference organised at Cardiff Business School
will be the launch event for Accounting History Review. In accordance with
the focus of the journal a key theme of the conference will be ‘Accounting
in History’ – exploring the scope for greater interdisciplinary engagement between accounting and mainstream historians. The guest speakers are historians whose work has important implications for accounting history research.

Also with a view to stimulating the development of new research agendas
there will be a panel discussion on future research directions in accounting
history involving leading commentators on the state of the field over the
past two decades. Panellists include Salvador Carmona, Warwick Funnell,
Christopher Napier and Stephen Walker.

The conference will also feature parallel sessions. Theoretical, empirical
and review papers are welcomed in all areas of accounting history.

Delegates are provided with the opportunity of receiving constructive
feedback, in an informal setting, on papers ranging from early working
drafts to fully developed manuscripts. The programme allows approximately 35 minutes for presentation and discussion.

The conference, organised by Malcolm Anderson and Stephen Walker, will be held in the prestigious Glamorgan Building of Cardiff University. Sessions
will commence on the morning of 12th September 2011 and conclude in the late afternoon of 13th September.

The event will feature a wine reception sponsored by Taylor & Francis on
11th September, conference lunches, teas and a dinner in the Great Hall of
Caerphilly Castle, one of the most impressive medieval fortresses in western
Europe.

Those wishing to offer papers to be considered for presentation at the
conference should send a one page abstract (including name, affiliation and
contact details) formatted in Word as an email attachment by 1st June 2011
to carbs conference@cf.ac.uk. Tel +44 (0)29 2087 5731. Applicants will be
advised of the conference organisers’ decision by 10th June 2011.

Part of the costs of this conference are being paid by the ICAEW’s
charitable trusts. These trusts support educational projects relating to
accountancy and economics.

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Was the American Civil War About Slavery or States’ Rights?

4 05 2011

Digital Humanities, States’ Rights, and the Civil War

In the past, I have blogged about quantitative discourse analysis, which is one of the fastest growing fields in digital humanities.

I would like to bring your attention to a great post on the Disunion blog. The post is by Edward L. Ayers, a historian at the University of Richmond. Ayers is the co-host of “BackStory with the American History Guys,” a public radio program.

Ayers reports that:

A new poll from the Pew Research Center reports that nearly half of Americans identify states’ rights as the primary cause of the Civil War. This is a remarkable finding, because virtually all American textbooks and prominent historians emphasize slavery, as they have for decades.

In Virginia, there was a constitutional convention to decide whether to leave the Union. The records of the debates of these conventions have survived and provided some insight into the motives of those who vote in favour of secession. Of course, politicians often lie about their motives when speaking in the public, which is why it is so damn important for historians to access their private correspondence. Anyway, a group of historians have been subjecting the debates in Virginia to quantitative discourse analysis. Their conclusions are as follows:

Some of the patterns in the speeches quickly undermine familiar arguments for Virginia’s secession. Tariffs, which generations of would-be realists have seen as the hidden engine of secession, barely register, and a heated debate over taxation proves, on closer examination, to be a debate over whether the distribution of income from taxes on enslaved people should be shared more broadly across the state. Hotheads eager to fight the Yankees did not play a leading role in the months of debates; despite the occasional outburst, when delegates mentioned war they most often expressed dread and foreboding for Virginia. Honor turns out to be a flexible concept, invoked with equal passion by both the Unionist and secessionist sides. Virtually everyone in the convention agreed that states had the right to secede, yet Unionists in Virginia won one crucial vote after another. The language of slavery is everywhere in the debates…. But the omnipresence of the language of slavery does not settle the 150-year debate over the relative importance of slavery and states’ rights [in the motives of the secessionists], for the language of rights flourished as well. The debate over the protection of slavery came couched in the language of governance, in words like “state,” “people,” “union,” “right,” “constitution,” “power,” “federal” and “amendment.” Variants of the word “right,” along with variants of “slave,” appear once for every two pages in the convention minutes. When the Virginians talked of Union they talked of a political entity built on the security and sanction of slavery in all its dimensions, across the continent and in perpetuity.