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January 19th - Georgia secedes from the Union. On January 29th Georgia’s Declaration of Secession is approved stating, “For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic.”

In other words, Georgia went to war specifically because of slavery. But in what way was the North hampering Georgia over slavery: it was not permitting the export of slaves from Georgia into certain Western territories.

“But, wait,” you ask, “wouldn’t Georgians lose access to the Western territories in they secede?”

Sure. Unless the South claimed the Western Territories. Don’t think it couldn’t happen, either. The forgotten battle between Ft Sumter and Bull Run was in Baltimore, when confederate supporters rioted and killed union soldiers. That was a LOT more than a thimble of blood spilt. Why do you think that the

Now, who’s the aggressor.

The issue of slavery in the western territories centered on the fact that once they were admitted as states they would enter the Senate as either slave or free states. Southerners feared being swamped by free states, since the population of free states was already about 2-1 greater than slave states. The Senate was their only bulwark against abolitionist domination.

The assertion that the Civil War was not “about slavery” is as infantile as it is idiotic. You can only believe that if you are very selective in your acceptance and examination of the evidence.

Since just about no one will openly support slavery today, people who feel inclined to support the Confederacy have to resort to perverse and extravagant rationalizations to defend secession. Personally, I think the Civil War was absolutely unnecessary and fatal to the cause of limited government. I also firmly believe that slavery was moribund in North America, it would have died out in a generation or two without the Civil War.

The ills visited on America by Civil War are with us today. I doubt that the United States would have engaged in the Spanish-American War, had their not been a Civil War. Teddy Roosevelt's generation, feeling cheated of the opportunity for an adventure and crusade like the Civil War found it in Cuba. With disastrous effects for the country. Expanding our territory beyond the contiguous 48 lead us to conflicts with Japan and bolstered our unhealthy tendency to become involved in Europe's wars.