Untitled

NOT THAT YOU ASKED

By JOHN BOXLEY

Before beginning this week's tirade I want to pause and pass along my best wishes and hopes for a quick and complete recovery to Senator John Boozman, who underwent heart surgery last week. I may not always agree with him politically, he's a good and decent man, and I only wish for the best for him and his family.

When I was in public school taking American history every teacher I ever had would say that they wished they could see how English history books covered the American Revolution. I'll give my guess on that at the end, but that thought has had me wondering how history books in other parts of this country might have differed from the ones I had. You may not realize it, but each state has the right to approve or disapprove of public school textbooks. Right now that debate has flared up mostly with science textbooks, with some states refusing to approve textbooks that don't include intelligent design along with Darwin's Theory.

For now let's leave that debate and get back to history. For instance, how do you think textbooks in New England and New York differed from ours in the way they covered slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement? I'll bet there was a big difference.

Take slavery. I was always taught that if the South had just been left alone, that slavery would have eventually ended. Maybe. But how long would that have taken? It certainly wouldn't have ended as long as it was profitable. Southern texts also claimed that the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery, but over states rights. What they downplay is that the right that Southern states wanted to keep was the right to continue slavery. I wonder how textbooks in the North covered the issue of states' rights?

Our textbooks portrayed Reconstruction as one of the worst periods in American history, and focused on the northern carpetbaggers who took advantage of the situation. Since the end of slavery meant the end of an entire way of life in the South, it was no doubt a difficult transition, but that also would have happened if slavery had ended on its own as we were taught it would.

Reconstruction was also a time when former slaves suddenly had rights, including the right to vote. With those rights being enforced by federal government, blacks across the region were being elected to state legislatures and Congress. Seeing people who had just recently been considered property suddenly having power had to affect the way the period was recorded by southern scholars.

As for the carpetbaggers, there are people who always have, and always will, take advantage of any situation. Today some billionaires stash their money in offshore banks to avoid taxes. Some farmers find loopholes in the Farm Bill to get more subsidies than they are entitled to. Some doctors overcharge Medicare, and some people on food stamps and public assistance find ways to rip off the system. That's just the way people are, and always have been. The northerners who came south after the Civil War were no different. What our history books failed to point out was just how widespread the activity was, and just what percentage of northerners actually took part in it. Again, I wonder how carpetbaggers were portrayed in history texts in the North?

As for Civil Rights, we never got that far in any history class I took, but at the time I graduated the Civil Rights Bill and the Voting Rights Bill weren't even 10 years old. I don't think history teachers back then even wanted to go near the subject.

I'm sure that today the history books are different, and the material is presented differently. The point I am trying to make is that while history to most is just a dry presentation of facts, the context in which those facts are presented can make a big difference.

As for how British texts cover the American Revolution, when you consider the fact that that former colony saved England in two World Wars, I imagine that they see our independence as a good thing.