{"id":6496,"date":"2017-05-02T17:42:52","date_gmt":"2017-05-02T23:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=6496"},"modified":"2017-05-02T12:03:36","modified_gmt":"2017-05-02T18:03:36","slug":"civil-war-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/05\/civil-war-worth.html","title":{"rendered":"Was the Civil War “worth it”?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3ACivil_war_reenactment_1.jpg;<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s talk about the Civil War.<\/p>\n

The simple explanation of the war is that \u201cit was about slavery\u201d but it is certainly not as simple as that. \u00a0The South seceded in part because they feared that the North would ultimately take away their ability to own slaves, but that doesn\u2019t explain why they chose to do so at the particular time that they did, and there were Southerners who genuinely believed they were fighting for independence and (yes, ironically) self-determination. \u00a0And the decisions of Southerners, both their leaders and the common people, would have likely been different had they not been convinced, to start with anyway, that their cause would succeed.<\/p>\n

On the part of the North, Lincoln was most definitely resolved to \u201cpreserve the Union,\u201d not to abolish slavery, though I imagine many of the common folk did perceive the cause as anti-slavery, or, at any rate, were more determined to win the day because the South, being slave-holding, was alien to them. \u00a0But plenty were conscripts who fought because they had to.<\/p>\n

Could the war have been avoided? \u00a0What if Lincoln had not been elected, but instead someone squishier on the subject? \u00a0What if the outgoing government had offered the right combination of carrots and sticks to get the southern states to rescind their declarations of secession?<\/p>\n

From the vantage point of 2017, there\u2019s a certain simple response, for instance, in this morning\u2019s Dahleen Glanton column<\/a> in the Tribune:<\/p>\n

In the Civil War, one side had to step aside before America could move forward. There was no room for compromise. The ideals of the two sides were so mismatched, their views of right and wrong too diabolically opposed and their visions for America too different. Doesn\u2019t that sound familiar?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s a point of view that says that war was inevitable, since only with war and total vanquishment of slaveholders could slavery have been ended, and the North had the obligation to end slavery in the South. \u00a0In fact, it seems to me there was a cable movie that claimed to be presenting (in a comedic fashion) an alternative history in which the South had won the Civil War and slavery continued unabated to this day.<\/p>\n

Now, I don\u2019t know that there\u2019s much value in speculating on questions like, \u201chow long would slavery have continued?\u201d \u2014 but bear in mind that Brazil, in 1888, was the last country in the Western Hemisphere to have banned slavery. \u00a0How much longer would the U.S. have continued, on its own?<\/p>\n

But I think there is a more worthwhile discussion on the question: \u00a0what was the right thing to have done<\/strong>? \u00a0Imagine that there was no established expectation that the U.S. must always stay in its present form \u2014 after all, if I remember correctly, de Toqueville not long before proclaimed that federalism and the individual rights of the states, were so strong that any state could indeed secede without complaint. \u00a0Would it have been just, a \u201cjust war\u201d (in your own peception, not following the \u201cofficial rules\u201d on such things), for the Union to fight the Confederacy with the explicit intention of ending slavery?<\/p>\n

What if the South had never seceded? \u00a0At what point, if at all, would abolitionists have been justified in using force to end slavery? \u00a0And is the answer different in the case of an abolitionist gaining power and using military force, vs. guerrilla actions? \u00a0Or would it have been better for the federal government, or voluntary organizations, to buy the slaves\u2019 freedom, perhaps with laws requiring that slaveowners sell at market price? \u00a0Or should abolitionists have been content with working to \u201cchange hearts and minds,\u201d as they say, indefinitely as long as the South didn\u2019t push for expansion on their part?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image: \u00a0https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3ACivil_war_reenactment_1.jpg; By Daniel Schwen (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So let\u2019s talk about the Civil War. The simple explanation of the war is that \u201cit was about slavery\u201d but it is certainly not as simple as that. \u00a0The South seceded in part because they feared that the North would ultimately take away their ability to own slaves, but that doesn\u2019t explain why they chose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":6492,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWas the Civil War "worth it"?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So let's talk about the Civil War. 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