Charles T. Pace

FYI - this review might be triggering and I am not hiding this review because of spoilers.

Currently (1/26/2020) if you look this book up on Amazon, it is on the Kindle freebie best seller list. Furthermore, as of this writing, my one star review will be the only second one star review this book gets on GR. I understand that freedom of speech means the freedom of all speech, I wonder why Amazon would sell such a blatant white supremacy tract, or at the very least allow it to be sold as history. "Books" (and I use the term loosely) such as this are the reason why people hear others repeat falsehoods that are really racism about things like George Washington being a Rothschild and therefore, America is a Jewish state where rich Jews control everything. And surely, I do not need to explain the dangers of such lies. (Amendment - some people believe that you shouldn't leave negative reviews that take down a book. This book is the reason why you should leave such reviews).

If Dr. Pace (MD) ever reads my review, he will most likely dismiss it as propaganda put out by a Northerner. So yes, in the interest of full disclosure my family is from the North. On my maternal grandmother's side of the family, there is at least one ancestor who fought for the Union. My paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather were also immigrants to the US. The grandmother to leave behind prosecution, and the grandfather because that side of the family was Protestant in Catholic Italy. Additionally, one of the writers Pace quotes in the beginning of chapter (an epigram quote) was a professor of mine in college. Dr. Lukcas would not be happy to see his name in this book. (Lukcas was a demanding but brilliant teacher).

A list of problems and errors in this "book" are below and are the reasons why I view this book as a white supremacy tract.

1. Repeated use of the word colored to describe Afro-Americans.

2. It takes about a quarter of the book before the word slave is used.

3. No footnotes or in text citation for facts. Makes general statements with no support. The book is copyrighted 2015, btw.

4. Claims that black (he uses the word colored) children were better off pre Civil Rights and pre Civil War than in the modern era.

5. The author states that, as compared to the North, the South had few immigrants and those that did immigrate were quickly accepted and assimilated. (Strangely, he does not mention the lynching of Italian immigrants in New Orleans here, for one).

6. Apparently there was no one in American prior to the arrival of white people who, in the South, lived side be side with black workers in an Eden. My guess is that this is because the white people killed the native population, but Pace does not mention that at all.

7. Calls what happened to the South during the Civil War a holocaust. And apparently America is a fascist state.

8. The author believes all major newspapers work for the Dems (so he hasn't read the Wall Street Journal I presume).

9. Believes that the South was better because the people of the South followed the morals of the aristocrats. (So no reason for a revolution then, am I right?)

10. uses experts in one subject as experts in any subject.

11. The author does not grammar well.

12. Huge misreading and misrepresentation of Hawthorne's words and works. Though why the author is citing Hawthorne, a romantic, I have no idea. Pace considers romanticism to be one of the evils that humanism gave birth to. (and yes, he lists feminism there as well).

13. Refers to the south as an abused minority and the goal of the Confederate states was to gain "freedom from slavery". And Davis didn't free his slaves because? Funny, he doesn't answer that.

14. Implies that slavery had nothing to do with money, except for when he argues that the slaves had it good because they were an investment. (so the documented whippings, killings, and rapes were what?)

15. No mention of Fort Pillow, West VA, or Wilmington, NC.

16. He blames Anthony Johnson twice for the bringing slavery to America. Johnson was a forced indentured servant (i.e slave) who gained his freedom, and afterwards owned slaves (including his son, so the story is more nuanced than Pace would have you think). But yes, Pace blames slavery in America on a black man.

17. He has a tendency to add zeroes to numbers. For instance he says Boston's population was 250,000 when it was 25,000 and that 30,000 white people were murdered during the Revolution in Haiti, it was really 3,000-5,000, mostly French whites. Once might be an honest mistake, but twice?

18. He says that the white people who were killed in Haiti were a tragedy but does not mention the over one million Africans that died during the Middle Passage. It seems to Pace that it is only a tragedy or holocaust when white, Christians die.

19. The South only got slaves because the North sold them to the south.

20. Implies that the whole slave trade stopped in 1808, when it was only the legal, international slave trade. And no, he does not mention the fact that people still illegally brought slaves from Africa to the US.

21. Says that servants in the North were not family to their employers in the same way that slaves and owners were in the South. Of course, another difference would be that servants got paid and slaves didn't, but he doesn't mention that.

22. South was more Christian than the North because it had fewer immigrants (because they were killed or enslaved, I guess).

23. Says that the slaves in America were treated better and it was better for them to be slaves. Because you know, if they had not been stolen from their homes, they would not have been Christian (at least I presume that is reasoning).

24. Claims that Northerners lived on top of each other but didn't know each other, while Southerners lived far apart but treated each other like family. This is uncited and makes no sense.

25. Claims that the South was peaceful with no fighting or rebellions. So Nat Turner was a dream? Also the work of Edward Ayers and others disproves this.

26. Claims that the leaders of the South during the war were farmers without much wealth. So Lee was a poor guy?

27. In the chapter on slavery, he says slavery is a red herring and then gives a red herring himself instead of attempting to prove his thesis for that chapter.

28. Claims that "slaves were not abused people striving to be free". Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas, John Box Brown and others would like a word with him.

29. Repeats the myth about Lincoln and the Republicans trying to get slaves to kill masters. There is no proof for this claim. Additionally, Pace says the slaves didn't do it because they were happy.

30. He does not mention the difference between slavery in Africa and in the New World. The difference is important. He also blames the slave trade on Africans.

31. He claims that "any slave who wanted to go North could get on a train and go". Seriously WTF?

32. He claims that only 1% of the slave population were runaways but does state where the information comes from. (estimates of the Underground Railroad run between 40,000-100,000 freed, check out Gates).

33. Claims that the slave testimonies that were collected during the depression all have slaves saying how much things were when they were slaves. This is a lie. I've read several of those testimonies, they are easily available. (I'm updating this because I read Denmark Vesey's Garden: Slavery and Memory in the Cradle of the Confederacy. The authors point out that during the collections of slave testimony, the tellers would adjust tells to fit whom the recording audience was. When a white collector took down the story, there was always a good white person in the story, and that was connected to the control of history that Southern Groups such as UCD had over how history was taught. Pace had to been taught under UCD standards, considering his age).

34. believes that slaves were better off than workers in Europe and the North. (Because they had houses, I guess. I don't know. He doesn't even try to explain that statement).

35.He says to try to change others (i.e. society) is the devil's work. This makes me wonder why he can support the American Revolution because of change.

36. Doesn't mention Dred Scott as a reason why the flight was to Canada. Implies that the North kicked all free blacks out to Canada.

37. Writes, "slavery did not cause secession but abolition did" - but then says everyone opposed slavery. This is very confusing.

38. Claims that under 500,000 slaves were brought to the US. Estimates are actually 500,000 to 650,000.

39. Neglects the fact that the lack of medical care led to a great many deaths in the Civil War.

40. There is this gem of old time racism, "From 1709 forward, Virginian Government petitioned to abolish slave imports but was overruled by London and Boston power. All people realized that slavery, and a race so numerous, so different, so primitives was a problem and slated to become a worse problem." It would be one thing if he was saying this was what people thought, but how it was worded implies more than that.

41. Claims that abolition only started in 1830 and that between 1700-1800 there was no abolition. This disregards the Quakers as well as the fact that Vermont (1777) and Penn. (1780) outlawed slavery. It also overlooks rebellion.

42. He mentions a Smithsonian article that calls Sherman's march a great environmental disaster, one of the worst in the country. But I looked and couldn't find such an article on the Smithsonian website from the year he cites (1996).

43. When he discusses how bad former slaves had it after the Civil War, he cites white women who were former slave owners only. There is no mention of the mass amount of lynchings that occurred after the Civil War. He only says that the former slaves were thrown out to starve, freeze, and become ill.

44. Claims that Seward said Lincoln never spoke the truth. His proof is this quote, "All his words were to a purpose" that Seward said when describing Lincoln. Not quite the same thing as lying.

45. He gets the history of the Cotton Gin and Kansas totally wrong.

46. Claims that all historians see altruism as the start of every war, but that they don't want to admit it (so how does he know?)

47. says Lincoln never thought about the horrors of war. This is wrong. Lincoln spoke about the horrors of the war and how evil war was.

48. Apparently Lincoln was a big cheat during the election.

49. He mentions Samuel Johnson for some reason but for the life of me I don't know why.

50. Says Polk and Tyler were two of the best Presidents. First time, I've heard this.

51. When talking about the Confederate invasion of PA, he writes, "it may not have been peaceable but it was peaceful" and that the Confederates hurt no one. Elizabeth Bulter, among others, disagrees strongly.

52. Claims Longstreet hooked up the Grants. (Longstreet was a distant relative of Julia Grant, not the cousin that the author states).

Seriously DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!… (altro)

Most books written on or about Abraham Lincoln take the position that the man and character was our greatest president and shaped out country as the beacon of freedom and justice. Here is a decidedly opposite take. Charles Pace writes from a critical view that the character and motives that drove Lincoln were not quite those lauded upon him by most historians.

Pace writes from a southern perspective and what his actions cost in terms of death and destruction. Also he maintains the divisions he reinforced through his actions remained with us for many decades.

Though he makes some seemingly valid points he fails to explain fully just how the south was going to phase slavery out of there system and embark on a road to a semblance of equality that we saw in reality took a very long time. And some would maintain does not exist to this day.

The real Lincoln I surmise fell somewhere in between these viewpoints. Martyred for his bold and critical actions and his assassination the bulk of historians have painted mainly one side of the man. He certainly had his flaws like any man at any time, yet no one can deny his impact on this country and what he did was what was needed.… (altro)