An Ongoing Tragedy of the Civil War
Mar 25th, 2010 by Timothy Pancoast
I spent last night reading history and speeches from the time leading up to the Civil War. What became apparent to me was a great tragedy that is still hurting this nation today. Before I go on I must admit that my understanding of these issues is still developing, but what follows are my initial thoughts. I may revise them at a later time.
The tragedy I write of is that the issues of slavery and states rights were merged into a single battle on opposing sides. Very similar to the way life and choice have been merged into one issue when in fact they are two separate fights that intersect. Such mergers of disconnected issues as opposites in battle are disastrous and make issues far more divisive than they would otherwise be.
I need to go back to the founding documents of the United States. In the Constitution there are two types of rights protected; the rights of the states and the rights of individuals. There are no rights of the minority or majority mentioned the Constitution. The word minority does not occur in the document and the word majority only occurs in terms of establishing a quorum, and requirements for the passage of votes.
The Missouri Compromise was a fatal document. It was a band-aid to cover a wound that eventually festered and required extensive and invasive surgery to repair. It also messed with states rights in a major ways and applied rules on various states in an unbalanced fashion. It avoided the infection (the practice of slavery) that was at the heart of the matter and added a complication (the undercutting of state sovereignty).
Some of the notable members of Congress such as Daniel Webster weren’t just advocating the end of slavery they were championing the end of states and their replacement by a strong central government. (If you compare pre- and post-civil war America you can see that to a good extent they accomplished their design.) This set the stage for people like John C. Calhoun of South Carolina to be able to champion an honorable cause, states rights, rather than just fighting for the continued practice of slavery. He was then able to make the case that the efforts of the abolitionists to suborn states rights and send in the military to collect the taxes of southern states was akin to not war, but a massacre. Then to further point out that such behavior by the “general government” as it was often called at the time, would be to make slaves of the citizens of the southern states. That was quite a statement and insult to the people whose intentions were supposed to be the end of slavery, especially coming from a person that was working to uphold the practice of slave ownership. The joining of those two causes in battle against each other when they should have coexisted in harmony is still hurting our country. The rights of the people and the rights of the states, both good in the sight of nature and natures God, are still being pushed into unnatural conflict with one another. This battle set up both sides to be right and both sides to be wrong.
States rights, states sovereignty, states nullification movements have all become active issues again, because they are further being eroded, and the Federal Government is able to ignore the voice of the people when the states are not strong enough to challenge it. States rights are being threatened just as they were in the lead up to the Civil war. This time rather than blatantly calling for the end of the states, the federal government aims to turn the states into administrators of the federal government rather than governments of their own. However, because the associations created during that time period states rights movements are often discounted and derided.
States rights are a good thing. However they become a major problem when ignored. Congress is looking for revolution if it ignores states rights. We are facing that battle again and the number of fronts that states rights must defend have increased since the Civil war. The good thing is that those causes which are challenging states rights lack the legitimacy and power of the abolition of slavery. They are Social Justice, Economic Justice, and Ecological Justice. They take on appearances such as Cap n Trade, Comprehensive Illegal Immigration Reform that includes Amnesty, and Health Care Reform.
When we recognize that states rights and human rights are natural allies the door is opened to be able to find real solutions to these problems, that don’t require war. When we persist in pitting the two classes of rights against each other conflicts escalate. The death threats and violence being made to those on both sides of these issues are a testament of that fact.
I think the insurance companies will ultimately lobby to kill these lawsuits.
If a state were somehow allowed to drop out of the new HCR law, what would that look like?
Would residents get a partial Federal tax exemption, and then receive no payments written for residents or physicians of that state?
Would the Federal government then have to cap Medicaid funding for the ballooning enrollment in that state?
Would Medicare Advantage plans in that state continue to get the additional subsidies that have been cut to the rest of the states?
Would they sue for increased Medicare or Medicaid payments?
Between the North and South there was a long-standing cultural divide. The North was generally industrial, where time was money; the South was agrarian, where time was to be enjoyed. The Northerner looked west, and piled money upon money to build and grow. The Southerner looked to his county, his State…he enjoyed his temperate climate, and spending twelve hours a day in a sweatshop would be as inconceivable to him, as owning slaves would be to a New Englander. Slavery turned the cultural divide into a cataclysmic, irreconcilable schism.
Lincoln, prior to the war, never promoted abolition, only containment.
In any case, it was seccession that started the war.
Tim, I agree with you on your point that states’ rights are being eroded,I happen to believe that the cause today is the fact that the states rely on the federal government for so much funding, along with all of the mandates that go with it. Much like a drug addicted prostitute relies on her pimp for her drugs.
But, as someone who has read quite a lot on the War of Northern Agression, I would disagree with your view that it was the “merging” of states rights and slavery as a single battle that lead to the loss of states rights.
In my view of the history, and we must remember to view events through the prism of the time in which they accured, it was when slavery was turned into a moral issue , seperate from states rights. Or more importantly it was turned into a moral issue, instead of an economic issue, that states rights took a back seat. We must remember that slaves to the Confederate land owner were property. The Union and Lincoln in particular found it useful to make it a moral issue, hense Lincoln’s “some, all ,or none”statement. Once the issue became slavery as a moral issue, the Confederacy lost the high ground. If the two issues had remained about economics and states rights you may have seen France or England coming in on the side of the Confederacy.
I also agree with you that the attacks on states rights today can and should be battled as both economic and moral issues since in this latest attack known has health care reform, the Federal government has added in abortion . Contrary to slavery I believe this gives those of us fighting for states rights the high ground. Both constitutionally and morally.
anon, I guess we are about to find out what will happen because some states are moving forward with nullification efforts and lawsuits. The results will likely show up in textbooks for years to come.
Rick, no argument here. I doubt the Civil War could have started without seccession. My thoughts are that seccession would not have occured if States Rights and existence had not been attacked. I don’t think preserving slave ownership alone would have been sufficent motivation for such action.
Thanks for your insight Frank. My own thoughts on the Civil War era are just begining to formulate and I am more confident in some than others, and I am sure that all will undergo a fair amount of fine tuning. I agree that when States rights and human rights are so twisted as to be pitted against one another, the rights of the people will typically have the high ground. I believe they have seniority.
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My thoughts are that seccession would not have occurred if States Rights and existence had not been attacked.
“States’ Rights” are in the eye of the beholder. The South correctly interpreted the North’s political strategy as an overt endeavor aimed, ultimately, toward economic hegemony.
It was the money piled upon money conglomerates, mergers, industry, railroads, westward expansion designs of the North versus the rural, laid-back, leisure-oriented and county-centered South. Money usually wins.
If one had tried to predict in 1750, which region of colonial America would ultimately dominate, most would be hard-pressed to pick New England, with its mountains and harsh climate over the much larger, fertile and temperate South. Yet, the Yankees prevailed.