"Secession wasn’t evidence that the South didn’t have a reasoned
intellectual life. In fact, it was the strongest evidence that
it did," according to the teaser on a blog post by historian
Michael O'Brien on the New York Times' website. Historical
evidence abounds that Southerners were not stupid or
close–minded, let alone mad, but rather as capable of well-
informed analysis as anyone else (though also as capable of
making the wrong analysis). If O'Brien's point is simply that
very intelligent and cultivated people can be very good at
rationalizing evil, I agree wholeheartedly. But to say that that
the pro-secession, pro-slavery contingent was anything but
close-minded is ridiculous. These people were so attached to
slavery that they were willing to tear their own country apart
and fight a bloody civil war to preserve their right to own
other people. O'Brien's indulgence towards the cultivated pro-
slavery contingent is odd because he isn't one of those
historians who soft pedals the centrality of slavery as a