My too often nonsensical and forever unenlightened reflections on people and life and everything else I understand as well as I understand everything else. Not well at all, in other words. Love thy neighbor, is my motto. Unless something better comes along. Make sure to say so when you find it.
You thought honest academic inquiry was dead, huh?
It's because you're looking in the wrong place.
What Was the Civil War Really About?
You want honest, open debate about important political and historical matters?
Look to elementary and secondary schools.
Joe Nye, eat your heart out.
Posted by
Ben Sutherland
at
4/19/2009 11:19:00 PM
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2 comments:
I admit I was one of the historically ignorant who thought the civil war was only about slavery.
Dr. Maxey, a black man, set me straight in a college history class. He also explained how the founders could hold slaves while simultaneously upholding the belief that all men are created equal. Rather that berate the racist white men, he explained how they did not let current reality interfere with high ideals. And he did it all without defending slavery; in fact he held it up as the horror it was.
Exactly, foutsc. And, as today's climate demonstrates, I think, foutsc, those power questions around states' rights and consolidation of power actually mattered, I believe.
James McPherson, the preeminent Civil War military historian, has written about the possibility of a political or negotiated diplomatic resolution to the war.
Undoubtedly, for the sake of the lives of the 600,000 Americans who died in that war - the bloodiest war in American history - that would have been a better path.
The politics of the time were fairly daunting, admittedly, for a peaceful resolution. But there is no doubt in my mind that a political resolution would have been preferable, assuming that whatever path was taken slavery was eventually eradicated. It might have withered on the vine with free labor outpacing its productivity and economic value by wide margins, the economic consequences of which had everything to do with the North willing out in that war. And if it hadn't, other political avenues very likely could and would have ended slavery without all those people dying.
That's not as romantic a tale as Whitman's ode to his Captain, President Lincoln. But it would undoubtedly could have saved more lives and would likely have resolve this matter, at some point. The question was when and how.
Lord Acton - "power tends to corrupt, and absolutely power corrupts absolutely" - actually favored the Southern states in that war for exactly the reasons of federalism and concerns about rationalizing federal power. And the current climate and celebration of power demonstrates Acton's concern well.
If we take this path and call it progress, I am concerned, foutsc, we very much contribute to the rationalizations of repressive power politics in most autocratic countries, as well as the terrorits who romanticize autocratic arrangements in their own quest for power, that animate so much of the world that people in liberal democracies say they oppose.
If rules and the rule of law is used to rationalize any intrusion on liberty that people fancy in the moment, the precedent is very dangerous, by my lights. And opens the door to reversing much of the more real and serious progress that we have made in the world, especially in the last century. And on questions that are much more serious than abortion and gay rights, important questions in their own right, but not more important than the ways in which liberal democracies maintain commitments to values that keep us free and safe.
The progress that has made us more free and safe is not one where we disregard the rule of law. But it is not one where we romanticize its use as a political good in-and-of-itself, rather than a tool that should be used lightly and with a serious respect for the liberty that makes our society great, when we are not taking it and those values for granted.
I've decided, at least, foutsc. Every electoral cycle people believe that they have finally resolved the direction for their societies. And every new electoral cycle, new directions are, rightly, explored. That is the beauty and strength of liberal democracy. For every Chamberlain, there is a Churchill. And for every rationalization for power, in the moment, there is a long and proud tradition of expanding liberties, more broadly, at least in America and, really, throughout the liberal democratic world.
And that is exactly as it should be, I think, foutsc. Not without limits, obviously. But not to be taken lightly, either.
What do you think, foutsc?
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