User:North Shoreman/Sandbox

Gary Gallagher quote

The section of the article titled "Criticism of the term" is made up solely of a quote from Gallagher, with no context. Another editor just trimmed the quote, a totally appropriate action. However the quote is incomplete in representing Gallagher's actual position on use of the term. Gallagher himself uses the term. In an interview at [1] Gallagher discusses the reaction to the book containing the existing quote and states [my emphasis added]:

But the neo-Confederates hate me for that book, too. I’ve got files calling me a neo-Confederate and files of hate mail from neo-Confederates because I talk very frankly about the centrality of slavery to the Confederate experiment. In my latest book, Becoming Confederates: Paths to a New National Loyalty, I talk about how important maintaining racial control, white supremacy, was to the white South. Neo-Confederates don’t want to hear that. And other people don’t want to hear that the Confederacy was a nation. My approach is: I don’t care whether I like people in the past or not, I just want to try to understand them. That’s how historians should approach the sources. It should not be about whether you like the people of the era you’re examining or not. Of course you like some more than others. But it’s the same thing with The Union War because I argue that Union is more important than emancipation. That’s upset some people who think that I’m not taking emancipation seriously. I do take emancipation very seriously, but I’m trying to understand how people, at that time, interpreted the war. To me, it’s overwhelmingly a war for Union. Lincoln could not tell the loyal citizenry, “Let’s fight a war to end slavery because it’s a monstrous injustice.” The white North would have tuned him out right then.

It is apparent that Gallagher is not against using the term properly.

Criticism of the term

Historian Gary W. Gallagher stated in an interview that neo-Confederates don't want to hear him when he talks "about how important maintaining racial control, white supremacy, was to the white South." He warns, however, that the term neo-Confederate can be overused, writing, "Any historian who argues that the Confederate people demonstrated robust devotion to their slave-based republic, possessed feelings of national community, and sacrificed more than any other segment of white society in United States history runs the risk of being labeled a neo-Confederate."

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Suggestions for responding

The entire lead (not just the first sentence), as you propose it, would totally eliminate for the reader the very important fact that virtually all current historians totally dismiss the accuracy of the key tenets of the Lost Cause. Your claim made in the previous section, "that we don't need this definition in the lead because the same paragraph without it would sum up the article quite as well" is simply not true. Throughout the article information is provided that demonstrates that Lost Cause beliefs are more often than not based on factors other than proper historical analysis and reporting. The section Contemporary historians most directly puts the Lost Cause in the proper context -- that the Lost Cause ideology is little more than a fringe, outdated rationalization.

A rigidly structured RFC such as you suggest is best used when there has been considerable prior discussion. I think a better use of the process would be to solicit better ways of incorporating the criticism of the ideology in the article lead. MattMauler proposed the possibility of alternative language but you did not respond to this suggestion. Historian Caroline Janney in an encyclopedia article at [2] writes in her first paragraph:

The Lost Cause is an interpretation of the American Civil War (1861–1865) that seeks to present the war, from the perspective of Confederates, in the best possible terms. Developed by white Southerners, many of them former Confederate generals, in a postwar climate of economic, racial, and social uncertainty, the Lost Cause created and romanticized the "Old South" and the Confederate war effort, often distorting history in the process. For this reason, many historians have labeled the Lost Cause a myth or a legend.

Historian Karen Cox in an encyclopedia article at [3] wrote in the 1st sentence of her sentence:

When describing the Lost Cause, historians have employed the terms "myth," "cult," "civil religion," "Confederate tradition," and "celebration" to explain this southern phenomenon.

"Myth" is already used throughout our article in both the text and titles of references.

Abraham Lincoln in the 1850s started as a one term U.S. Congressional representative and leading Illinois Whig and ended with him as an influential Republican who would become the 16th President of the United States.

Events and circumstances in 1850s Illinois were beneficial to the political rise of Lincoln. "The task of organizing discordant elements into the Republican party of Illinois tested and developed Lincoln's genius for leadership, while the great question at issue sharply stimulated his powers of thought and expression. The party statesman who delivered the Cooper Union address in 1860 bears more resemblence to the author of the Second Inaugural than to the petty politician whose inelegant harangue entertained the Scott Club of Springfield in 1852."

Background

Abraham Lincoln had been elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1846, serving from March 4, 1847 to March 3, 1849. He was not nominated run for reelection in 1848 and, although he would twice pursue a United States Senate seat, he would not hold another public office, elective or otherwise, for 12 years.

During the 1850s the national political system realigned as all other national issues became subservient to, or intertwined with, the issue of slavery. Lincoln's state, Illinois, during this decade grew in population, economic strength, and political significance during this decade. Railroad growth followed the state's expansion of agriculture and industry as the state network expanded from 110 miles of track in 1850 to 2,868 miles by 1860. Representing railroads became a significant part of Lincoln's legal practice and his law practice kept him in touch with the political happenings in Illinois. Lincoln's association with fellow lawyers as well as his cultivation of newspaper publishers were instrumental in Lincoln's growth as a politician.

Historian Donald Fehrenbacher wrote that, "the pervasive and unremitting popular interest in politics was the most striking feature of Illinois life in the 1850's." Politics played the role in everyday life that Americans would later place athletics. Quoting Roy F. Nichols who said one of the factors leading to disunion was "the baneful influence of elections almost continuously in progress, of campaigns never over, and of political uproar endlessly arrousing emotions."

Law practice and local politics (1850-1854)

From 1850 to 1854 Lincoln's activities centered on his law practice although he kept a hand in politics despite losing much of his past enthusiasm. Lincoln "remained active in local party proceedings and continued to be regarded as one of the state's leading Whigs." In 1852 he was listed as a Scott elector and he was a national committeman for Illinois.

from Early Life

Criminal law made up the smallest portion of Lincoln and Herndon's case work. In 1850 the firm was involved in eighteen percent of the cases on the Sangamon County Circuit; by 1853 it had grown to thirty-three percent. On his return from his single term in the U.S. House of Representatives, Lincoln turned down an offer of a partnership in a Chicago law firm. Based strictly on the volume of cases, Lincoln was "undoubtedly one of the outstanding lawyers of central Illinois." Lincoln was also in demand on the federal courts. He received important retainers from cases in the United States Northern District Court in Chicago.

Railroads became an important economic force in Illinois in the 1850s. As they expanded they created myriad legal issues regarding "charters and franchises; problems relating to right-of-way; problems concerning evaluation and taxation; problems relating to the duties of common carriers and the rights of passengers; problems concerning merger, consolidation, and receivership." Lincoln and other attorneys would soon find that railroad litigation was a major source of income. Like the slave cases, sometimes Lincoln would represent the railroads and sometimes he would represent their adversaries. He had no legal or political agenda that was reflected in his choice of clients. Herndon referred to Lincoln as "purely and entirely a case lawyer."

In the 1920s, historical markers were placed at the county lines along the route Lincoln traveled in the eighth judicial district. This example is on the border of Piatt and DeWitt counties.

In one notable 1851 case, Lincoln represented the Alton and Sangamon Railroad in a dispute with James A. Barret, a shareholder. Barret refused to pay the balance on his pledge to the railroad on the grounds that it had changed its originally planned route. Lincoln argued that as a matter of law a corporation is not bound by its original charter when that charter can be amended in the public interest. Lincoln also argued that the newer route proposed by Alton and Sangamon was superior and less expensive, and accordingly, the corporation had a right to sue Barret for his delinquent payment. Lincoln won this case and the Illinois Supreme Court decision was eventually cited by other U.S. courts.

The most important civil case for Lincoln was the landmark Hurd v. Rock Island Bridge Company, also known as the Effie Afton case. America's expansion west, which Lincoln strongly supported, was seen as an economic threat to the river trade, which ran north-to-south, primarily along the Mississippi River. In 1856 a steamboat collided with a bridge built by the Rock Island Railroad between Rock Island, Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa. It was the first railroad bridge to span the Mississippi River. The steamboat owner sued for damages, claiming the bridge was a hazard to navigation, but Lincoln argued in court for the railroad and won, removing a costly impediment to western expansion by establishing the right of land routes to bridge waterways.

Possibly the most notable criminal trial of Lincoln's career as a lawyer came in 1858, when he defended the son of Lincoln's friend, Jack Armstrong. William "Duff" Armstrong had been charged with murder. The case became famous for Lincoln's use of judicial notice—a rare tactic at that time—to show that an eyewitness had lied on the stand. After the witness testified to having seen the crime by moonlight, Lincoln produced a Farmers' Almanac to show that the moon on that date was at such a low angle it could not have provided enough illumination to see anything clearly. Based almost entirely on this evidence, Armstrong was acquitted.

Lincoln was involved in more than 5,100 cases in Illinois alone during his 23-year legal career. Though many of these cases involved little more than filing a writ, others were more substantial and quite involved. Lincoln and his partners appeared before the Illinois State Supreme Court more than 400 times.

Joining the Republican Party

Both nationally and in Illinois the Whig party "all but disappeared from the national scene and in Illinis ceased to function entirely. The majority of former Illinois Whigs, joined by Free-Soilers and antislavery Democrats, made up the state Republican party wwith former Whigs like Lincoln constituting the largest part of the new party. Many historians acknowledged that Lincoln was a leader in the original opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act that provided the impetus to the new party although he was not among the original organizers of the anti-Nebraska party, claiming he stood "aloof and irresolute for all of two years."