Sun, 09 May 2004 07:02:53
The Civil War
If you’ve ever wanted to delve into the issues that begat the Civil War in the United States, USS Clueless has a great starting point. The issue was slavery… not so much about slavery as a stand-alone issue, but more about the rights of self-government vs. states rights vs. federal concentration of power, and slavery was the flashpoint. It doesn’t hurt that slavery either made you angry or made you money...hence it’s focus.
It can be an ethical and moral minefield...the North was not much better with slavery than the South. The commonly held belief is that the South wanted to fight to keep slavery, and Lincoln freed the slaves. Not exactly. There are parts of the position of the seceding states that made a lot of sense: The federals were getting pretty bold. In a way, the Confederate States believed themselves to be akin to the men who fought the American Revolution. The Union believed that preserving the collective was paramount, that we would be stronger together, even with our differences. In many ways, both sides were right. The problem is...you can’t justify slavery. Bottom line...the Confederacy wanted the right to own humans by force. The larger idea of state’s rights may be a noble one, and one I agree with...but owning people by force is clearly not something one can support.
The end result was the beginning of the shift from small groups of people governing themselves and joining together to handle larger issues to a concentration of federal powers and rules.
The rest is good reading. You should always try to learn how we got here…
Posted by JimK at 07:02 AM on May 09, 2004
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