From Charles Cooke, a writer for the National Review, on Real Time with Bill Maher: The revolution that happened here [in the United States] was great, and very rarely is that the case in the world. You know, you have this revolution in America, in which the British fight the British, and then they codify [...]

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From Ta-Nehisi Coates, who just finished a history of the Second World War by Antony Beevor: This is what is ultimately most troubling for me about Beevor’s work. He—all at once—catalogues all the flaws of the Allies, but robs you of your moral superiority. How should we think about the Soviet Union, which, among “The [...]

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Alan Pyke on the Brad Paisley, LL Cool J collaboration, “Accidental Racist”: The performers call for racism to magically heal itself through major chords and willpower. It’s The Secret by way of Tinkerbell. Paisley doesn’t want to talk to the coffeeshop guy about racism any more than LL wants to talk to white folks about mandatory minimums [...]

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From 1493 by Charles C. Mann (2011): The king and queen of Spain, Fernando (Ferdinand) II and Isabel I, backed [Christopher Columbus's] first voyage grudgingly. Transoceanic travel in those days was heart-stoppingly expensive and risky—the equivalent, perhaps, of space-shuttle flights today. From The Great Explorers by Samuel Eliot Morison (1978): There is no basis of [...]

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From Ta-Nehisi Coates, who writes about the “Myth of Jefferson as a Man of His Times,” and quotes our entry on Edward Coles: The notion that Jefferson was merely following the crowd, and that everyone else did the same thing is convenient for us. But it has the unfortunate effect of erasing the courage of [...]

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From Ta-Nehisi Coates, writing about Steven Spielberg‘s Lincoln: In that sense, Lincoln lets its audience off too easy. It’s comforting to feel that we can always find great wisdom in the middle. For the slight cost of waving away those who carry radicalism in their very blood, it reaffirms our great faith in democracy. It’s [...]

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From Paul Finkelman, a professor at Albany Law School, author of Slavery and the Founders (2001) and of our entry on Anthony Burns: I think Thomas Jefferson is one of the most deeply creepy people in American history. Finkelman’s comments come in the context of an article in today’s New York Times that takes note of the [...]

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From a response to his critics by Henry Wiencek, author of Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves: I am not surprised that [Annette] Gordon-Reed disliked my book so much, given that it systematically demolishes her portrayal of Jefferson as a kindly master of black slaves. In The Hemingses of Monticello, she described with [...]

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From the comments section of an interview with Encyclopedia Virginia contributor Henry Wiencek, author of Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves: To all of you, did anyone of you personally know Mr. Jefferson? Oh, that’s right, he died before ANY of you were born! I truly hope that 100 years from now, no [...]

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From a letter, dated August 17, 1926, from College of William and Mary president J. A. C. Chandler to Douglas Southall Freeman, on the subject of the Ku Klux Klan:  I am afraid that these citizens sometimes do not take the right attitude towards others. The context for this particular exchange—an impending visit to the [...]

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Thinking about Gabriel’s Conspiracy in a fictional context, this is from a New Yorker profile of the novelist Hilary Mantel: Historical fiction is a hybrid form, halfway between fiction and nonfiction. It is pioneer country, without fixed laws. To some, if it is fiction, anything is permitted. To others, wanton invention when facts are to [...]

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From a blog post by the historian Brooks D. Simpson on the subject of whether non-historians write worthwhile history: Once more, the problem is that the best way to talk about historical scholarship is to look at the work that is done instead of worrying so much about the person who is doing it. IMAGE: C. [...]

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From Confederate Veteran magazine, October 1913: Behold the picture: Black, ignorant, yet faithful, the servant of the sixties, at the call of his master, was quick to leave the old plantation and go to the front to bear the burdens of the master, forage for him, and nurse him while sick or wounded, and in death [...]

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From the Southern Literary Messenger, July 1863: We are receiving too much trash in rhyme. What is called “poetry,” by its authors, is not wanted. Fires are not accessible at this time of year, and it is too much trouble to tear up poetry. If it is thrown out of the window, the vexatious wind [...]

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This is from Thomas Jefferson to Edward Coles, August 25, 1814: in the mean time they [African Americans] are pests in society by their idleness, and the depredations to which this leads them. their amalgamation with the other colour produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence in the [...]

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From “Then and Now in the Old Dominion” in The Atlantic Monthly (April 1862): One by one, the barbarisms of Old Virginia were eradicated, and the danger was then that effeminancy would succeed; but a better class of families began to come from England, now that Colony was somewhat prepared for them. These aimed to make [...]

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Thomas Jefferson to Edward Coles, August 25, 1814: This enterprise [the emancipation of slaves] is for the young; for those who can follow it up, and bear it through to its consummation. It shall have all my prayers, & these are the only weapons of an old man. Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Thomas Cooper, September [...]

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From a statement by Ezra Taft Benson, Mormon president, in 1987: Our Father in Heaven planned the coming forth of the Founding Fathers and their form of government as the necessary great prologue leading to the restoration of the gospel. Recall what our Savior Jesus Christ said nearly two thousand years ago when He visited [...]

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From  A Young People’s History of Virginia and Virginians for Use in Schools and in the Homes of Virginians by Dabney Herndon Maury (1896): I have not found occasion to tell the history of any other State or people save Virginia and her sons. Her glories are all her own. She has no shame. IMAGE:  Flag of the [...]

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From yesterday morning’s Washington Post: As classrooms become better equipped with interactive white boards and other gadgets, more teachers are looking for digital content and adopting an assumption that prevails in much of the World Wide Web: That content should be free. “Now that expectation has entered the American classroom,” said Jay Diskey, executive director [...]

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From remarks given by Peter S. Carmichael, Encyclopedia Virginia‘s section editor for Civil War content, at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians and the National Council on Public History, April 21 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin: In my estimation, the great challenge ahead is for Civil War battlefields to be places of civic engagement. [...]

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Defense of Thomas Jefferson: Many of us have harbored ambivalence toward Thomas Jefferson for all the reasons set down in this article. Perhaps it is time to rethink the dilemma Jefferson himself must have faced. To me, the word, paternalism, jumps out. What was he to do with the slaves he owned? At this particular [...]

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“Neglect and outright ill will have distorted the teaching of the history and character of the United States. We seek to compel the teaching of students in Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of its government … No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall [...]

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An incomplete and unrealistically negative picture of slavery is pervasive in the culture of this country; it is deliberately perpetrated in order to create the perception of slaveowners as inhuman and total evil — and, by association, the entire Confederacy, thus making the South “deserving” of the destruction by the righteous army of the north. [...]

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