Conspiracy Theories and the Civil War

Just because earlier periods didn't have the internet and social media doesn't mean that they were immune to some of the scourges of social media, including conspiracy theories. In fact, as this Atlantic article shows, conspiracy theories about the abolitionist movement were a direct cause of the Civil War. 

In The Atlantic’s first abolitionist article, titled “Where Will It End?,” Edmund Quincy reflected on how that kind of racist and conspiratorial political culture fed on silence and misinformation. “The slaveholders, having the wealth, and nearly all the education that the South can boast of,” he wrote, “create the public sentiment and … control the public affairs of their region, so as best to secure their own supremacy. No word of dissent to the institutions under which they live, no syllable of dissatisfaction, even, with any of the excesses they stimulate, can be breathed in safety.”

The antebellum South stands as a cautionary tale about what can happen when conspiracy theories are projected from a state’s highest platforms: by the richest men, the highest-ranking officials, the most widely read publications. Their lies were pervasive, permeating the South through decades of speeches and articles and pamphlets. Contradictory voices were dismissed as less-than-human or demonized for inciting mass murder. The false narrative became the foundation for a real regime.

It's something to keep in mind when you are browsing through your Facebook or Twitter feeds.