It seems that April is Confederate Heritage month. Why one would want to celebrate a heritage of violent rebellion against a democratically elected government in order to perpetuate a system of chattel slavery is a bit hard for me to say.”?—?Matthew Yglesias
The kindest way I can put this, is …. Your misunderstanding, Matt, is far more than you imagine.
In the end, the Civil war was not about slavery, but about the constitution, which stated (at least when it was written) that each state would be free.
Mind, I do not propose to defend slavery, that’s not the point here, and I would not in any event. The fact was and remains however, that the war was against a strong federal government… as was the Constitution itself until the end of the war. That freedom is something the strong federal government couldn’t stand for.
It’s true enough, by the time things really got going, we were suddenly fighting a war about ending slavery. But that didn’t come about, that wasn’t the reason for the war until days after the war began. Remember, gang, in Lincoln’s first inaugural, he said flatly he had no intention of abolishing slavery, or of repealing the Fugitive slave law. Lincoln himself stated that the war was not about slavery, or about the rights of blacks, but about the preservation of’ the union’. Lincoln even went so far as to bar Blacks from serving in the Military. It was only well after the war was underway did Lincoln pull an about face, and suddenly the war was about slavery. Ending slavery was a more tangible goal than ‘saving the union’, particularly given most people didn’t understand what the union was, except in the loosest of senses. Ending slavery served as a far easier to support rally cry, then the real purpose, which was to retain the vast resources of the south, under the control of Washington.
Nor did Lincoln save the union. Most people do not understand, (Mostly because they’re not taught this) is that the union ceased to BE a union as of the civil war. America was saved, but only in the Geographic sense. As of the Civil war, America wasn’t a union of states anymore, but a very powerful federal government… something the founders never intended.
Moreover, the south didn’t start a rebellion. Certainly, the south posed no military threat to the north. Nor did they show any intention of any invasions of the north. They simply chose to remove themselves from the union.
So, the question, then is… Was it worth all the people who died? Yes, we ended slavery, but historianns tell us that it was an institution which would have died shortly in any event. Was ending it ten years earlier, I ask you, worth killing so many men women and kids, and creating the behemoth federal government, thus destroying the union we had thought to save?
In my own view, the Civil war should have been called the war for Southern independence. Then again, the victors usually get to re-label things, don’t they?
Tags: BO, Civil war, Democrat, fight, freedom, Liberal, Men, military, NY, POW, saving the union, slavery Lincoln, South
April 4th, 2008 at 10:57
I will object to any characterization of the Americana Civil War as about any single cause, to include slavery or states’ rights. While I agree that it not accurate to say that the Civil War as about slavery, dig into any contemporary reason articulated at the time, and you will get the issue of slavery.
Nobody was willing to say,”I am fighting to preserve slavery.” The percular institution wasn’t that popular. Yet get behind the reason be it the “Southern Way of Life” or states rights, you get to slavey. They way of life, was slave owning one and the state right, was the right to own slaves.
On the federal side, the Battle Hymn of the Republic was certainly about ending slavery. More over, Fredrick Douglas by getting Lincoln to accept blacks into the federal army and getting blacks into the Army certainly meant to a sinficant element of the federal forces, to with the blacks, the war was indeed about slavery.
April 4th, 2008 at 11:37
I can’t argue against that as stated, but repeat, but the arguments about slavery only made sense within the context of being a part of the Union, thereby being strictly a secondary concern, since the question was, did Washington have the authority to outlaw it? That authority was, prior to the war, questionable at least *** given the constitutional view of states rights… and that assumes the south was a part of the Union, thereby subject to Washngton.. As of the withdrawal from the Union of the souhern states, Washington had no more say whatever on the matter, any more than they would about any other nation, regardless of it’s historical ties.
As to the intention of the north prior to the war to eliminate slavery, does anyone suppose that had Washington not reacted militarily to the south and let them go their way, that the north would have actually given up it’s slaves before another 10 to 20 years went by? I submit they would not have, though it would have happened eventually. The public just didn’t have the will for it, until the war came along. It was only when we had troops in the feild, and Lincoln talking about ‘saving the union’ that it became the northeast’s moral imperative, and a subject gathering support that it never would have enjoyed, absent the war.
I also submit that had the country known about the massive shift of power away from the states that was about to occur, they’d have suggested we let the south go their way, that loss being the far lesser of two evils.
***(Else the subject would never have come up, being already decided)
April 4th, 2008 at 13:04
Abraham Lincoln’s initial call for troops was for what 50,000 for the express purpose of supressing the rebellion. Lincoln would hardly have gotten five troops had he called them for the purpopes of freeing the slaves. Blacks weren’t that popular in the North either.
Lincoln carefully articuted a view of blacks as being worthy of having equal rights, but not necessarily being equal in stature or achievement.
Had the North merely prevailed in thw war, I suspect that the Thirteenth Amendment, abolition of slavery, alone would have passed. It was the participation by the black solider, who by war’s end constituted ten peccent of the federal forces and who fought less pay, that, in my opinion, necessiated the Fourteenh and Fifteenth Amendments. That is without Fredrick Douglas, we would have freed the slave, period, but left them second class citizens.
As simply letting the South leave in peace, I don’t see the choice between one nation, the United States and two, the USA and the CSA. Rather I see a choice between one nation or the Balkinized states of America. One the predident was established that a state was free to leave the Union, any state could have and likely many would have, both North and South. Had Jefferson Davis fought and won a war to secede, he hardly be in position to wage war say if Texas wanted to leave the CSA.
April 4th, 2008 at 14:15
Correct. Which I think furthers the point that the slaves were not the intial issue, though it developed into that later.
And Lincoln argued the moral case masterfully… and in the right dirction, though for the wrong reasons.
This too, furthers my point, given that in many ways, they still WERE second class citizens, else the CR act of 64 wouldn’t have been required.
While that’s true, that was, I think, the original intent of the founders, that the states held the ultimate power over the federal government, not the reverse. And what more powerful position could one have in that situation, than the ability to remove themselves from the union?
April 4th, 2008 at 15:10
The problem with the Forteenth Amendment is that while is established the constitutional basis of civil rights, it left enforcement entiresly to Congress. Suffice to say, for some eighty years after the amendment passed Congress wasn’t too keen on actually enforcing it.
Still the Forthteen, there would have been no constitutional basis for MLK’s plea for equal rights and no constitutional authority for Congress to pass any civil rights laws.
As states’ rights, I recongize the constitutional basis of the idea. Note that Abraham Lincoln did not call all the militia in readtion to secession. Rather Lincoln only called for troops after the secession become an open rebellion.
Jefferson Davis would have been free to take his states and leave, had Davis but been but able to do so in peace. Alas, neither, he, nor any many, was so able.
On the other hand, I shudder at the thought of World History had there not been a United States of America in previous century. The US has been the most powerful force for freedom since the ebb of the British Empire. Where might we still find lone bastions of demoracy were there no United States? What language would we be speaking?
Yeah it is a rationalization, and not a legal arguement.
April 4th, 2008 at 15:47
Well, you’re going to ahve to work pretty hard to convince me that there wouldnt’ have been eventual progress on the matter, absent the war, by way of if nothing else, the amendment process. It would have taken longer, perhaps, but it would have occurred… and likely, would have been far less bloody.
April 4th, 2008 at 17:19
I concede the direction of the evolution of liberal thought. I suppose at some point absent Forteenth Amendment the Supreme Court would have simply invented such authority. Just as SOTUS is slowly enacting the defunct Equal Rights Amendment. Much like the Court empowered herself to enforce the amendment.
This snippet both fascinates and comfounds me. Lyching peaked about 1920, some thirty years before the nebulus federal efforts to make it illegal. My theory is an evolving white conscience. Juries changed their attitudes and as result mobs changed their behavior. My actual evidence is scant.
As to the questions of the time line and cost, I pass.
April 4th, 2008 at 21:47
Exactly so. And the point here is that we’d have been able to get there without the shift of power away from the states. If you’ll follow the discussion going on this topic over at OTB, you’ll notice our liberal breathern over there have yet to make this connection. Then again, they don’t understand why a large federal government is a problem, either.