What was your favorite subject in school?

@NativePortlander1970 History is always being written . .

@SunshineGirl Modern events, yes, BUT past history has already been set in stone, it cannot be changed, like how the left has actually been trying for the past 31.5 years.

@NativePortlander1970 Facts rarely change (unless there is a major misunderstanding or a revision occasioned by a new discovery of evidence). But our interpretation of the past will, and must, continually change according to the interests and requirements of subsequent generations. If it doesn't, history will wither and die and society will be greyer and less well informed.

@SunshineGirl Nope, history is history, all the facts regarding it is set in stone, literally.

@SunshineGirl Then let me posit you a question, do NOT google it, what sparked the mid 19th century US civil war?

@NativePortlander1970 It's not a topic I'm particularly familiar with, but I understand the immediate cause was southern states trying to secede from the Union.

@SunshineGirl You actually got that right, the north was blockading the southern states from trading their tobacco and cotton with the UK and Europe, they had gotten immensely wealthy from it, and the north was jealous. The spark was when southern trade ships fired upon the north occupied southern port of Fort Sumpter, South Carolina, to run one such blockade. The rewritten portion is that modern public school textbooks essentially ignore those parts and focus on slavery. The truth is that the HUGE major majority of Confederate soldiers did not care about slavery, most of them actually opposed it, what they cared about and fought for was how the northern Yankees were encroaching on their state's rights, as the 9th and 10th amendments guaranteed, which the north was ignoring.

@NativePortlander1970 But slavery (and the way in which it distorted international markets) was still a factor, right? And the subsequent path of history - in which the property rights of former slave owners in the south took precedence over racial integration and basic human rights - might be a reason why some people take an interest in that particular facet. While others choose to interpret it in terms of constitutional ideals. History belongs to everyone. All views are welcome.

@SunshineGirl Slavery played a very, very small part in the war, Abraham Lincoln actually didn't even focus on it until 1863, two years into it, in fact during the famous 1860 Lincoln-Douglas debate, attendees wrote in diaries, journals, and in letters to others, that they essentially laughed and joked about slavery issues when they came up. I read one such letter, my late ex fiancee's ex brother in law is a massive civil war buff and participates in re-enactments with his New Jersey group, he has a huge collection of artifacts and papers from it.