The North (aka The Union) won this conflict, and, as the victor, got to write its history. Fair enough.

The official North version is that the Union stayed intact. In other words, the South never really did set up its own country. The Confederates were simply rebels. As such, these rebels remained US citizens, even though they were in open rebellion against the Federal government.

The North was fighting to preserve the Union, and this Union was (and still is, presumably) based on the Constitution. The Constitution says that no one can be deprived of life or property without due process of law. This means that such action can be taken only after being found guilty of a crime, after a trial by a jury of one's peers, and after having the right to confront one's accusers.

Nevertheless, the Northern Union armies, under the direct command of US government officials, killed US citizens, burned their houses, and destroyed their crops without any trial or legal procedure.

Now if the South had actually formed its own separate country, these actions could theoretically have been justified as acts of war. But then, the Union would have had to admit that the South truly did secede and form a new country. The problem is, if this were the case, then why did the North invade its neighbor, which was doing it no harm?

OK. Here's where we stand. If the Confederacy really were a separate nation, then the North had no right to invade. On the other hand, if it still were part of the Union, then the North had no right to kill, burn, and destroy as it did, unless the Constitution meant nothing.

If the Constitution meant nothing, then secession was allowable, because the Union is based on the Constitution!

Either way, the North was wrong. Right?

Sometimes it is instructive to re-think the presumptions upon which we base our history. Naturally, history IS written by the victors, but there is more to it than that.

A very good method of deception is to hide in plain sight. Thus, it is not so much that the truth is denied, as it is being filtered through some official ideology. Normal rational criteria are seldom, if ever, applied. One side is declared as virtuous, and therefore whatever it does is right, and whoever opposes it is wrong--by definition.

Operating under these conditions, merely to identify is to decide, which is nothing more than bigotry. Bigotry is not restricted to only being against something, it can also include being unjustly in favor of something.

Aren't many of our current problems rooted in such as this?