Later Life and Conversion To Christianity
After writing biographies on notable figures in history, a major event occurred in his life which was his conversion to Christianity. Not a regular churchgoer by any stretch of the imagination, Otto said in an interview for Insight Magazine that he read the Four Gospels in one night and was converted shortly thereafter.
In his later years, he worked for Chalcedon Foundation and went on to publish his own newsletter The Compass which commented on events in history and present-day cultural affairs.
After suffering a fall in 2004 at his home near Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Otto returned to Federal Way, Washington to spend the last years of his life. He died in Issaquah, Washington on May 5, 2006.
According to scholars Edward Sebesta and Euan Hague, however, Scott's contributions as a historian and activist were closely linked to Neo-Confederate Christian activists, and his ideological opposition to the historic abolitionist, civil rights, and anti-apartheid movements is a matter of record. Scott's hostility toward the abolitionist John Brown is particularly evident in his work, The Secret Six: John Brown and the Abolition Movement. While Scott was clearly a capable scholar, this work shows no primary research and a naked dependence upon the earlier anti-Brown biography by James C. Malin, a work that has long been discredited by Brown scholars.
Otto Scott is credited for inventing the phrase, made popular by President Richard Nixon, "the silent majority". Otto Scott wrote a speech for the CEO of Ashland Oil, "The Silent Majority", delivered to the Chicago Men's Club (May 23, 1968).
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