Preserving the Civil War

American Spectator ^ | 11/14/2003 12:02:06 AM | Ben Stein

[Molly Pitcher]

Good find swilhelm73.

I just hope we don't refight the war on this thread;^))

[Holly_P]

Why was it legal for the colonies to rebel against Britain but not for the South to rebel against the North

I don't think it was "legal" as far as Britain was concerned.

[docmcb]

Just to put numbers in perspective: the population of the US, north and south, white and black, was about 40 million in 1860. It's about 280 million now. So to get the equivalent impact of the CW today, multiply by 7. That's better than 4 million dead. A million a year for 4 years. That's a 9/11 World Trade Center and Pentagon (c. 3000 dead) every day for 4 years. Stein is correct; slavery was a great evil, but that loss of life was also a very great evil. And if anyone suggests reparations, tell them that bill has been paid in full.

[tet68]

You mean the "War of Revisionist Agression"?
Fat Chance.

[Non-Sequitur]

Why was it legal for the colonies to rebel against Britain but not for the South to rebel against the North?

To put it bluntly it wasn't legal for the colonies to rebel against Britain, any more than it was legal for the southern states to rebel against the U.S. Rebellion is never legal. The difference is that the colonists won their rebellion and achieved recognition of their independence from the other countries of the world, something that the south failed to achieve.

[docmcb]

In a practical sense, real politik, you are of course correct. But that simply means that "legal" ceases to have meaning beyond "who is strongest and what are they willing and able to enforce." I, for one, am not prepared to concede that there is no such thing as abstract law based on ethical and moral principles.

[maestro]

The Devil loves it when christians kill christians.

:-(

[Non-Sequitur]

Does anyone really think slavery would still be a stain on humanity in 2003?

No, it would have died out eventually. But when? Would the death of slavery be acceptable because it occured peacefully in, say, 1935 instead of 1865? There was no great hue and cry in the south to end the institution. The confederate constitution made it very difficult for the central government to end it. Most southern state constitutions made it impossible for the states to end it on their own. It could easily have lingered on for decades.

Would the North and South not have reconciled and been one nation again?

No.

Might there have been no segregation, no Klan, no lynchings?

Segregation was firmly established in southern society before the rebellion and the south established the post-war Jim Crow aws, they didn't have them forced upon them. It's quite likely to ask if 'separate but equal' and strict segregation wouldn't still be the law of the land in an independent south.

Knowing -- as we do -- that the Southern economy was largely based on a horrifying notion of racial supremacy, why do we find the South still so haunting and sympathetic?

Because the victors may write the history but the losers write the myths. And myths are often more powerful than fact.

[Molly Pitcher]

:-) Well, an earlier post of the article in the wee hours of the morning attracted less than 10 posts, it seems!

[battlegearboat]

It was all done for you baby.

[ml/nj]

If all those folks in Vermont and New York were so upset by slavery that they went to war to end it, what happened? Why aren't they lining now up to enlist in a war to take over the Sudan?

ML/NJ

[docmcb]

There was an interesting asymetry in war aims that's often overlooked. The Confederacy certainly had preservation of slavery as one of its original war aims, while the US, as Lincoln made very clear in his letter to William Lloyd Garrison, did NOT have abolition of slavery as one of its original war aims. Obviously abolition became a major Union war aim. One can also argue that the belated vote of the Confederate Congress to enlist slave soldiers -- it being well understood that you can't give men guns and keep them in total servitude in the long run -- indicates that by 1865 the Confederacy put independence ahead of preserving slavery. So both sides changed, in opposite directions, over the four years of the war.

[Non-Sequitur]

So both sides changed, in opposite directions, over the four years of the war.

Not quite. That legislation to enlist slaves, which wasn't passed until Frbruary of 1865, did not offer freedom to slaves conscripted for service. It left the matter of manumission for service up to the individual states.

[docmcb]

Sure. But as I said, it was well understood that arming men and keeping them in subjugation are fundamentally incompatable in the long run. The refusal to consider arming slaves when Cleburne proposed it, a year earlier, is an indication of Confederate commitment to preserving slavery. The subsequent decision to arm them is, consequently, a strong indication that the Confederacy gave winning the war and independence a higher priority than maintaining slavery, once it became clear even to politicians that they couldn't have both.

[Non-Sequitur]

The subsequent decision to arm them is, consequently, a strong indication that the Confederacy gave winning the war and independence a higher priority than maintaining slavery, once it became clear even to politicians that they couldn't have both.

A lot is made of this legislation, holding it up as an indication that the confederacy was changing and that slavery may not have survived in an independent south. I believe that is nonsense. Armed black soldiers was a step that the confederacy wasn't willing to accept because it did threaten their society, placing black men on a par with whites. The idea of arming slaves was a last gasp of the south, an idea without a single chance of making a difference. The fact that even at this late date, with the whole country falling apart around them, the southern leadership couldn't whip up enough political will to emancipate slaves who served is an indication that they weren't willing to challenge southern society and southern aristocracy by threatening their 'peculiar institution'.

[rebelyell]

Give it up. N-S is an apologist for that tyrant and knows full well his shortcomings. In his book, lincoln is the benevolent saviour of blacks. Nevermind that he thought them inferior, wanted to send them back to Africa and stated time and again if he could save the union by freeing none of them, he would do it.

[ijcr]

Why were all the major Civil War battles fought in National Parks?

[Non-Sequitur]

N-S is an apologist for that tyrant...

Given that and being an apologist for a tyrant who launched a rebellion to defend the institution of slavery, and who believed that blacks were where they belonged, in slavery with title held by himself and his peers. I don't feel too bad by comparison.

[groanup]

"Why were all the major Civil War battles fought in National Parks?"

So rangers could keep an eye out for fires.