Quotes from Gary W. Gallagher

For devout unionists, the Constitution had been framed by the people rather than created as a compact among states.

Charles Maddox noted that "when I am told that the flag means 'nigger on top,' and that I can't stand under it and cast my ballot without asking a nigger's permission, then I think it is time to rescue the flag from the infamy that threatens

No former Confederate did more to shape Lost Cause writings in the late nineteenth century than did Jubal A. Early.

Few former Confederates suffered more at the hands of Lost Cause writers than James Longstreet,

the purpose of the legend was to foster a heroic image of secession and the war so that the Confederates would have salvaged at least their honor from the all-encompassing defeat.

The Southerners, he concluded, "seceded over one thing and fought over one thing, slavery.

There is simply no evidence tending to show that the South would have voluntarily abandoned slavery. The evidence is that the Southern states had openly abridged the Constitution of the United States, especially the Bill of Rights, in behalf of the institution.

Confederate soldiers were consistently brave, white Southern women were unquestioningly loyal, and "the cause" was indisputably noble.

The Civil War, therefore, presented three issues: (1) however flawed the circumstances, human freedom was at stake; (2) the territorial and political integrity of the United States was at stake; and (3) the survival of the democratic process—republican government of, by, and for the people—was at stake.

This Negrophobic Reconstruction myth has been so dominant that a man as intelligent and humane as Shelby Foote commented negatively about Reconstruction in Ken Burns's Civil War television series.