History does not always conform to what the dominant scholarly theories of court historians may lead us to expect. In his essay “The Task of the Modern Historian,” Thomas Babington Macaulay observes that historians may formulate valid theories of what they would logically expect to have happened in a particular era, but unfortunately their theories soon displace any interest in the truth about what did in fact happen. They have been “seduced from truth, not by their imagination, but by their reason.”
In today’s context, the dominant narratives explain history by reference to theories of race relations. Historical explanations which do not fit comfortably within these theories are treated with skepticism or dismissed as false. For example, in light of the moral consensus that slavery is wrong, we would not logically expect black men to stand with slaveowners, and so we presume that no black men in fact did so. Any reports of black men having done precisely that must then surely be fanciful, commonly dismissed as part of a “lost cause myth” that romanticizes the Old South. By reasoning that the facts should conform to what we would logically expect to have occurred, we are “distorting narrative into a conformity with theory.” The theory matters most, and that in turn dictates the narrative arc into which we insert those facts that we deem to be relevant. The reasoning is circular. We regard as “fact” only that which fits the narrative and adjudge that fact to be “true” because it fits the narrative. Macaulay observes:
…unhappily, [historians] have fallen into the error of distorting facts to suit general principles. They arrive at the theory from looking at some of the phenomena, and the remaining phenomena they strain or curtail to suit the theory.
One indicator of historians being less interested in truth than in their pet theories is their dismissal of any author who is not a “historian.” Whether the author’s claims are true or not is almost irrelevant—what matters most is whether his credentials qualify him to write about history. Commenting on The Tragic Era, a book by Claude G. Bowers on the Reconstruction Era, one reviewer wrote: “The book is written by an historically untrained politician with a cause to advance or an ax to grind.” He dismissed the book as “downright propaganda.” Bowers had set out to cover an aspect of history that had been overlooked, namely, the views of “the able leaders of the minority in Congress” and the “brilliant and colourful leaders and spokesmen of the South.” For following a path that departed from the established history profession who were almost united in praising the winners of the war, his book was deemed to be unprofessional. The reviewer added that,
From the point of view of the historian the book is without any particular value…the book contains no facts which have local or national significance; and most of the facts presented are intentionally distorted… Internationally this work can serve only to discredit the nation.
Are historians not interested in learning what the minority in Congress thought of the events in question? The reviewer who derides Bowers for being partisan argues that Bowers was supporting the wrong side because “in 1866 the Negroes were reduced to a state as deplorable as slavery itself,” and therefore needed “the protection of the ballot by which their re-enslavement was prevented.” Given that free black people could not vote in the North in 1866, and neither could women, it could be said that this reviewer, too, is promoting “downright propaganda” by supporting the Radical Republican claim that lack of voting rights was just as deplorable as the slavery which had just been abolished. The reviewer’s comment that Bowers’s book might “discredit the nation” could equally well be treated, using his own approach, as evidence that his concern was more with Bowers discrediting the “righteous cause myth” of the war than with the historical veracity of Bowers’s arguments. In other words, the reviewer himself could be accused of that which he accuses Bowers. The reviewer adds:
While Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens made mistakes which require exposure they should at the same time be lauded for assisting in the preservation of the Union, for the defense of that flag at which most of the author’s ideal Americans shot at for four years.
Are we to assume that Bowers’s partisan defense of the South is “downright propaganda” while the reviewer’s partisan defense of the Union is not propaganda? Another review, titled “history as present politics” argues that The Tragic Era was “perhaps the single most widely read history of Reconstruction and therefore a work of considerable influence,” which he sees as very unfortunate because he views Claude Bowers as motivated by politics. Bowers wrote, “The Constitution was treated as a doormat on which politicians and army officers wiped their feet after wading in the muck.” While that is indeed an overtly political comment, one would hope a historian would at least be interested to ascertain whether it was true. Is it true that the Radical Republicans treated the Constitution with contempt? What does “truth” mean in the context of politically-contested history?
It is important to note that in these debates, it is not the facts themselves that are disputed, but the interpretation of those facts. As Macauly notes, the debates concern questions of “comparison and degree,” with disputes over the emphasis that ought to be accorded to various facts:
For this purpose it is not necessary that [historians] should assert what is absolutely false, for all questions in morals and politics are questions of comparison and degree. Any proposition which does not involve a contradiction in terms may, by possibility, be true; and if all the circumstances which raise a probability in its favor be stated and enforced, and those which lead to an opposite conclusion be omitted or lightly passed over, it may appear to be demonstrated. In every human character and transaction there is a mixture of good and evil; — a little exaggeration, a little suppression, a judicious use of epithets, a watchful and searching skepticism with respect to the evidence on one side, a convenient credulity with respect to every report or tradition on the other, may easily make a saint of Laud, or a tyrant of Henry the Fourth. (emphasis added)
In the example of the “myth of black Confederates,” the establishment view is that black Confederates are mythical because, while they did exist, they were so few that any reference to their existence should be dismissed as an attempt to minimize the moral repugnance of slavery. Similarly, the establishment view is that while the South indeed had grievances about states’ rights, the Constitution, or unjust tariffs that punished the South while favoring the North, these grievances pale into such insignificance when compared to the institution of slavery that they should be dismissed as an attempt to “whitewash slavery.”
As Macaulay says, when disputes concern questions of comparison and degree, or when the only subject of debate concerns the motives of the historian or value judgments about his ideological beliefs, readers may acquire a false view of history even though neither side has technically asserted any false facts. Without “lying” about the facts, the conclusions they draw may nevertheless be false: “A history in which every particular incident may be true, may on the whole be false.” False conclusions are easily derived when historians fall into the error pointed out by Macaulay, namely, “distorting facts to suit general principles.”
Without positively asserting much more than he can prove, he gives prominence to all the circumstances which support his case; he glides lightly over those which are unfavorable to it; his own witnesses are applauded and encouraged; the statements which seem to throw discredit on them are controverted; the contradictions into which they fall are explained away; a clear and connected abstract of their evidence is given. Every thing that is offered on the other side is scrutinized with the utmost severity; every suspicious circumstance is a ground for comment and invective; what cannot be denied is extenuated, or passed by without notice; concessions even are sometimes made; but this insidious candor only increases the effect of the vast mass of sophistry.
The historians of slavery are now caught in a hopeless debate over whether it was brutal or benign, as each side “gives prominence” to favorable examples and asserts them with “unhesitating confidence.” They cannot accept that the actual facts may support one or the other side in specific cases, because the debate is not about the facts but about whose narrative should be dominant. The establishment historians get to dismiss any opposing narrative as a “myth.” Cancel culture steps in, and the search for truth is forgotten. Facts that undermine the dominant narrative are then easily “glided lightly” over, “sifted with the utmost care” and treated “with the utmost bitterness of language.” Hypocrisies and double standards are explained away as merely incidental to the overarching narrative.
If it cannot be denied, some palliating supposition is suggested, or we are at least reminded that some circumstance now unknown may have justified what at present appears unjustifiable. Two events are reported by the same author in the same sentence; their truth rests on the same testimony; but the one supports the darling hypothesis, and the other seems inconsistent with it. The one is taken and the other is left.
Macaulay is right to observe that when both sides of a debate are prone to such distortion, the impartial observer or the reader who consults opposing interpretations is likely to gain some insight into the truth. This is why cancel culture is such a destructive trend. Those who cancel their scholarly opponents for supporting the “wrong” ideology are themselves guilty of supporting ideologies that their opponents would regard as “wrong.” The difference is that when those who happen to control the reins of power shut down all opposing views, impartial observers are less likely to have the opportunity to ascertain the truth about history.
