Abolitionist writer Lysander Spooner, reflecting on the outcome of the US Civil War - Kotaku In Action 2

Abolitionist writer Lysander Spooner, reflecting on the outcome of the US Civil War (media.kotakuinaction2.win)

posted 220 days ago by SparkMandrill83 220 days ago by SparkMandrill83 +101 / -3

85 comments download

85 comments share download save hide report block hide replies

You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.

Comments (85)

sorted by:

▲ 27 ▼

– TriangleGang 27 points 219 days ago +27 / -0

There was no reason the South shouldn't have been able to withdraw from the union under the basic tenets that formed the foundation of the country. The Declaration of Independence clearly states that governments are formed by men, and when men no longer feel that their government is serving their needs they are free to leave and start a new one.

To say that they didn't mean that to apply to the United States as well is to completely lack understanding of the frame of mind of the founders.

Unfortunately, slavery is such a morally repugnant institution that we have allowed the issue to be clouded by the fact that the North ended it. Saying that the North was the right side in the Civil War is basically an ends justify the means argument and wouldn't be any different then saying it's okay to deny due process to a particularly offensive criminal.

permalink save report block reply

▲ 9 ▼

– MassivePecorino 9 points 219 days ago +9 / -0

It doesn't help that any primary source scholarship that doesn't toe the line gets blasted. If slavery was the whole reason to fight the war, and less than 10% of Confederates owned slaves, why did 50% plus of the population fight or try to fight?

Razor on the Civil War. Razor on Lincoln the tyrant.

permalink parent save report block reply

▲ 2 ▼

– ElmoHassel 2 points 217 days ago +2 / -0

Tom Woods' "Politically Incorrect Guide to American History" has got some traction.

A relevant quotation from a review of the book by the Mises Institute:

The Civil War—as [Woods] points out, [was] not a genuine civil war since the South did not wish to replace the national government—was not fought to end slavery: Lincoln rather aimed to consolidate national power. In opposing Lincoln’s dictatorship, the South defended the cause of liberty, a fact that was not lost on the great classical liberal Lord Acton. In a letter of 1866 to Robert E. Lee, Acton said that he 'saw in States’ rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy' (p. 74).

permalink parent save report block reply