I have not yet had time to look at this site, but I am certain that it
will be of interest to a good many Va-Hist subscribers. I suspect that
it could be a very nice compliment to the Library of Virginia's "Union
or Secession, Virginians Decide" exhibition now on display in the main
exhibition galery and also to the elaborate educational and research Web
site of the same name available on the Library of Virginia's Virginia
Memory Web site at
http://www.virginiamemory.com/exhibitions/union_or_secession/

Brent Tarter
[log in to unmask]


-----Original Message-----
From: H-NET List for Southern History [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of I. Binnington
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 4:31 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: "Disunion" Blog on NYTimes.com

From: Jim Crutchfield <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 15:50

Dear Friends,

I wonder how many on this list are aware of the "Disunion" blog on
NYTimes.com: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/disunion/.
It's following the course of the secession crisis, more-or-less day by
day, as it unfolded 150 years ago.  I would enjoy seeing comments from
some of you in the extensive responses to the blog entries. The level of
discussion in the "Comments" section has not been generally high, up to
this point, though there have occasionally been excellent comments from
learned and thoughtful persons. I'd like to see more of those, and hope
this notice will encourage some of you to contribute.

Because I've been out of work a lot lately, and so have too much time on
my hands, and because I have pretty much no other outlet for my
historical speculations, I've been posting quite heavily to the
"Comments" sections of the various blog entries.  Most of my
interlocutors there are not, let's say, historians, and for the most
part both the tone and the content of the "debate" there leave much to
be desired (not to mention the format, which encourages unilateral
declarations of opinion--it's for "comments" after all--and makes any
real sustained discussion virtually impossible). I would be grateful if
some better-qualified people would read some of what I've written and
offer their corrections and constructive criticism, either on the site
or by email to me.

I'll mention at the outset that I take a fairly aggressive pro-Southern
stance in those columns, which is almost universally mistaken for a
right-wing, Neo-Confederate (whatever that is supposed to mean),
pro-slavery position, which I think is entirely unjustified, unless by
my perhaps-too-polemical style of argumentation.  In hopes of preventing
misunderstandings, anybody who's interested might want to start with the
following of my posts (the last of which even got me a couple of
compliments from people who think I'm an apologist for slavery, because
it trashes the Tea Party):

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010
/12/08/famine-in-kansas/?permid=26#comment26
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010
/12/09/visualizing-slavery/?permid=91#comment91
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010
/12/12/will-the-north-compromise-or-hold-fast/?permid=2#comment2
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010
/12/12/will-the-north-compromise-or-hold-fast/?permid=47#comment47
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010
/12/20/states-rights-but-to-what/?permid=57#comment57
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011
/01/02/war-in-the-cabinet/?permid=60#comment60

I know most of you already have papers to grade, but if any of you have
time to offer me some criticism, I'll be extremely grateful.  If anybody
is interested in reading what I've written without plowing through the
entries on line (the "Comments" sections apparently are not searchable,
and are not arranged as forums with indices), I would be more than happy
to send a collection of my posts in MS Word (or WordPerfect, or PDF)
format, slightly edited (comments on the site can't be edited once you
hit "submit", and I've had to apologize for a number of foolish errors
due to hasty posting).
 Thanks for any responses.

Best wishes,

Jim Crutchfield
Long Island City, NY

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