by milandoug Related Item: Lee at the Crossroads Patrick Carroll wrote: gittes wrote: Starting with the Emancipation Proclamation, the slavery issue came to overshadow everything else--and it still does today. Schoolchildren are probably still taught that Lincoln won the war to free the slaves. I was taught that and it sounded fishy back then. To quote the great Du Bois: "People do not go to war for for abstract theories of government. They fight for property and privilege." Well, I think people go to war for all kinds of "reasons"--but the bottom line is that it usually doesn't have much to do with reason at all; it's an emotional decision. Political leaders, via the media, present images that stir up emotions in the people, and many of those people, so affected, will follow the leaders off to war. Early in the ACW, northern emotions could be expressed as "save the Union!" After the EP and its accompanying hype had taken effect, the new emotion was "free the slaves and save the Union!" Freedom is always a particularly effective word for orators to use, because it's exactly what everybody wants most, deep down inside. If you can convince people your cause will increase freedom, or that the enemy side will reduce freedom, most people will rest assured that God is on your side. Then you can lead them through hell if you want to. Sadly, almost anything can be made to look or sound like freedom, or take on the name of freedom. In the late 1930s, Hitler's word Lebensraum sound to masses of Germans like freedom. In the ACW, many southerners were inspired by the thought of seeking freedom from federal oppression--the heavy-handedness of the central gov't in Washington. In 1862, Lincoln had to counter that with his own fight for freedom--freedom for those held in bondage to their owners. Of course, from a slaveholder's perspective, that meant "freedom" for the U.S. gov't to take away individuals' property by force--all the more reason to resist the federal gov't. Political leaders generally don't give a hoot about freedom of any kind, though--other than their freedom to wield power as they please. Most soldiers on both sides were, I think, inspired by emotions that might be expressed in the phrase "fight for freedom." But at the top level, I don't think Davis or Lincoln had freedom much in mind; they just had political agendas to fulfill via military means. Which leaves most people with the impression that the Confederates were the bad guys--about as wrongheaded and evil as Nazis. As Grant put it in his memoirs, it was one of the worst causes any people ever fought for. Even Sherman, no friend of the slave, thought the same way. What do you make of that? In Grant's case, I think his blind loyalty to Lincoln and the northern cause is explanation enough; he couldn't help but see the enemy as the bad guys. He went beyond the freeing-the-slaves idea and said in his memoirs that the "poor white trash" of the South also needed to be freed, and he was proud of having done something to achieve that. Sherman started out claiming to love the southern people, and he bemoaned the surprising acts of secession and call to war. But he ended up taking war to the civilian population and consciously trying to teach them a harsh lesson. Well, when you do all that Grant and Sherman did to further a particular cause and destroy an opposing cause, I guess you're bound to form a powerful bias if you didn't start out with one. In our present-day society, I detect some faint rumblings of a libertarian movement. If the "tea parties" and such amount to anything, maybe some future generation will look back and see the positive side of the cause the South really fought for in the Civil War. How do you explain the South's craving for Federal support of slavery and their denying the right of Northern states to not recognize slaves as property if they crossed into the North? Well, the South tried playing by the rules for a long time before they finally resorted to secession. If they could have gotten the federal gov't to uphold all their property rights, including slaves, they might have been able to live in peace with free states to the north. Something vaguely similar is happening today with gun control and same-sex marriages. You get a permit to carry a gun in one state, but your gun is confiscated in another. You get married in one state, but your marriage is unrecognized in another. One function of the federal gov't is to regulate interstate commerce--to facilitate protected movement from one state to another. To ensure, for instance, that your New York driver's license is also valid in the other 49 states. But there have always been questions about where state laws leave off and federal law properly takes over. A bit off topic, but when have Libertarians been more than a right wing fringe? Do you think it is even possible to have a government based on such principals? And don't say our government because Hamilton and Madison, the minds behind the Constitution, would not approve. I don't think the Libertarian Party is a "right-wing fringe" at all; there's nothing right-wing about it, IMO. It's more of a centrist position, though that's not quite it either. In recent years, Libertarians have been associated more with the Republican right than the Democrat left, but pure libertarian principles are at odds with both major parties. Is it possible to have a gov't based on libertarian principles? Yes, possible--but not likely in the foreseeable future, IMO. As Thoreau said, the best situation would be no government at all--and that's what the people will have when they're ready for it. But Robert E. Lee echoed that in a letter once and added that he thought it'd be a very long time before people were ready for it. I agree. People get the kind of gov't they want and need. Whatever gov't is in power, it's giving people the lessons and experiences they need at the time. Some people want the gov't to be a "daddy" and tell them what to do; others want the gov't to be a "mommy" and coddle and care for them. There's always a price to pay--but people are content to pay it, at least for a while, until it becomes too much to bear. I believe libertarian principles are excellent guidelines; they point a good direction to head in. I don't know how far people will be ready or willing to go in that direction. I'd be content if the U.S. Constitution would just be strictly interpreted and relied on as the basic law of the land. If it were, though, our society would suddenly be stripped of vast networks of institutions that we've come to rely on; and we might not survive the shock. So, it's probably best when change comes gradually. Sometimes, though, things get so far out of balance that drastic measures like revolution are needed to set things aright. WOW, a lot to comment on. 1. Sherman believed that the civilians who were supporting the war should understand what it was. He also said that he would give those civilians the last cracker he had. Gee, destroying the infrastructure he destroyed their will to continue the fight. 2. The South's craving for Federal Protection is bogus. Dred Scott is the answer. Allowing slavers from the South to search for these slaves were justifiable seen as a slap in the face. It was about slavery then. Grant said that he thought the was was not justified by the South. Its not like a country club that you can just quit. Also using the commerce clause of the Constitution as justification of the South's Fugitive Slave Act is terrible. Theses slaves were people not bushels of wheat or some property right.