Even if so, talking to those gone before us is no deal for me.  Heck, I talk to the dead, too -- sometimes I even yell at the dead for not leaving behind letters and the like to explain stuff that just stymies me, based on lack of sources.

And as for his dropping out of college, lots of folks "do history" who have college degrees.  But did they do a History major, to be trained in how to do history? Is their work peer-reviewed by historians? Do they use the disciplinary conventions (footnotes, etc.) that make the work a contribution to building the body of knowledge?  (Others then can check their sources to test their evidence, interpretations, etc.)  

So, we would say that he is not a trained historian.

Beckert argues that cotton's entire premise as a commodity rested upon the ready availability of cheap land and a plentiful supply of cheap / free labor, all of which was underscored by the threat or actual use of violence in order to secure it.

Thus, as soon as the profit potential of cotton became clear in the latter decades of the 18th century, the transport of slaves across the Atlantic from Africa rapidly increased many fold, as did the forced removal of Native Americans from their ancestral lands in what's now Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi in the first half of the 19th century. Beckert even tells how the bond issues that were used by our country to fund the 1803 Louisiana Purchase were brokered by Thomas Baring of Great Britain, who was one of the world's leading cotton merchants.

It's a fascinating book that offers an economic argument to the wealth of views and analyses regarding our country's path to civil war and its aftermath.

But I still take Sanders on the issue if I have to pick one (while voting for the 94 crime bill, a mark against him, he spoke eloquently and very presciently about what he thought the results of our current direction would be.

(A bill the majority of the Congressional Black Caucus supported at the time as well).

From my own perspective, Coates appears to be more interested in publicly flaunting his own self-perceived moral superiority at Clinton's expense, much as he did earlier at Bernie Sanders' expense

Not begrudging you your perspective, but I don't believe it's calculated around bomb throwing on either side.  I believe his concern is more around

I have spent the past two years somewhat concerned about the effects of national amnesia, largely because I believe that a problem can not be effectively treated without being effectively diagnosed

Specifically as it relates to improving the lot of black people in America - and understanding its root cause.  It's not just slavery in other words.

I was making fun of disagreeing with Coates.  When he allowed comments, he had a history of banning anyone who didn't "Amen" everything he said.

I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers.

At the time, most blacks in the South would have continued to be slaves whether the South left the Union or stayed in it, so even in the hypothetical of much of anyone caring how they felt about secession, they probably wouldn't have thought it would make much difference in their lives one way or the other.

I understand the impulse to say that the nation should do the moral thing rather than the legal thing, but care must be taken when doing violence to our legal framework and rule of law lest we wind up without it altogether.