I suspect it will die a slow death, just like the 'The Civil War wasn't about slavery' schtick.
The dark ages I seem to have a more-clear picture of: derth of historical record, rise of Christianity, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, technological progress, and unfortunate disease, all each contributed, and amalgamated into the public conscious of defining the era as 'dark.'
The civil war thing is really confusing. I grew up on slavery as the reason, then in uni had a prof tell me it was really about states rights. I've talked to others who had the exact opposite experience. Anyways, it's a super political and emotionally sensitive topic to people... But I had the impression the states rights narrative was not a recent thing.
He may have taken a more moderate stance for his presidential campaign, but for most of his political career Lincoln was a hardcore, outspoken abolitionist. Nobody at the time seriously thought Lincoln was OK with slavery; that's why southern states immediately started seceding.
http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/cooper....
This is the Dunning School:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning_School
It is Confederate apologia, not Union. It is the origin of the states' rights theory of the Civil War.
Remember that the back-and-forth over federalism and states' rights has been ongoing since forever, and the same people tend to be on opposite sides of that question depending on the matter in question. Thus it's reasonable to ask: states' rights to do what? In the context of that time, the answer was clear.
It does make for a nice fairy tale, though, for whitewashing the past, and it's one someone might believe because their parents told them, and their grandparents told their parents, etc., all the way back to the vanquished generation rationalizing their conduct post-hoc, much as many Nazis did after World War II.
I'm no historian, so take with 0.017 mol NaCl.
From Mississippi's declaration of secession:
> Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.
* https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati...
Doing a Ctrl-F and searching for "slavery" gives quite a few complaints (by most of the states) against the Federal government and the North on the subject.
It is super clear, the states say it in their succession documents.
Claiming it is about abstract states rights and not slavery is Lost Cause revisionism.
However, people like Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson famously said northern aggression towards the south wasn't about slavery.
So the issue seems to be obviously oversimplified in these internet and media debates.
