Rush Limbaugh Mouths Northern Myth Nonsense on Radio Program; My Rebuttal

Rush Limbaugh really showed his ignorance of American history and the Civil War today.  He voiced some feel-good myths that are easily refuted, and should be.

Here are his statements and my correction:

1.  The Founding Fathers only allowed slavery at the formation of the United States to appease the Southern states and encourage them to join the union.  The Northern states opposed slavery and hated it and wanted to get rid of it.

Horse feathers.  MOST of the Founding Fathers were slave owners or slave traders, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Patrick Henry.

Twelve of the thirteen original colonies were slave states.  There was no significant opposition to slavery by the Northern states.  In fact, the Northern states were enthusiastically getting rich through slave trading.  For every slave they sold to the South, they sold 20 more to Cuba, Brazil and the West Indies.  Massachusetts, that great bastion of abolitionism, enslaved the Pequot Indians and sold them into slavery outside the continent.  Rhode Island built and maintained an impressive fleet of ships designed and used specifically for slave trading.  Northern textile mills used Southern cotton, planted and harvested by slaves, without any moral objections whatsoever.

Slaves were used in the North just as long as they were needed, and were then sold to the South once immigrants (like the Irish) were plentiful enough to replace slavery.

2.  Fifty thousand soldiers died in the Civil War to abolish slavery.  Not even close, Rush.  Over 600,000 soldiers died in the Civil War (estimates put the number at around 640,000).  At least 300,000 were Union soldiers. They did not fight to free the slaves, they fought to force the South back into a political union that they no longer wanted, for the usual reasons:  to maintain the ability to tax and control property.  For more details, see the scholarly essay by a university professor who actually knows what he is talking about:  Why the Civil War Was Not About Slavery, by Donald Livingston, Emory University.  The "fighting to free the slaves" myth was created after the war to give a false veneer of righteousness to Northern aggression.

So Rush, as someone who listens to you regularly, I must advise you to SHUT UP with regard to the Civil War and the Southern states, since you are wrong on the facts, and since you are alienating many Americans who are Confederate descendants, many of whom are conservatives.