The recent removal of Confederate memorials from the City of New Orleans was greeted with applause by some and tears from others. Many Confederate monuments across the country are at risk. It is important to examine why this is happening, determine the logical conclusion, and ascertain whether or not the erasure and whitewashing of our history is the best path for our troubled but great country. The Lost Cause concept which was entrenched in American historical memory by Confederate memoirists, sympathetic historians, and apologists for over one hundred years has collapsed. This idea held that slavery was not the essential cause of the Civil War and that the South’s "peculiar institution" played a small role, if any, in the coming of the war. The delegitimization and fall of the Lost Cause idea is the most significant consequence of the recent Civil War sesquicentennial It is incontrovertible that slavery was the essential cause of the war. This was affirmed by...(Read Full Article)