Shelby Foote’s Civil War History Defends America Against Insatiable Haters Like Ta-Nehisi Coates

For Coates and his ilk, the entire idea of America is indefensible. Our original sin of slavery can never be extirpated—not by the Civil War, not by the civil rights movement, not even by the remarkable fact that a black man became president of the United States, even as he has become one of the most celebrated and influential writers in America. Coates’ entire project is fundamentally anti-American. To speak of compromises that could have prevented or delayed the war is to speak of a great crime—slavery—for which there is no suitable punishment, except maybe extinction.

The Federalist