The Civil War And Objectivism


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I am currently in a civil war and reconstruction class and as a class we make it seem like the north attacking the south after they left the union was the right thing to do. My question is, was it, from an objectivist stance. Why should we attack nations we don't agree with, and that's what the confederacy was a new nation , and they hadn't used "guns" on us so why go to war with them? And yes obviously slavery is bad but so is genocide in Darfur and nobody says we should go to war there. There is also no women's rights under sharia law and yet we don't attack those places.

Hope that makes sense,Thanks,
David C.

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Umm, no offence David, however that is so unconnected and rambling that it is difficult to even respond.

...they hadn't used "guns" on us so why go to war with them?

Perhaps you missed it and it was in all the papers:

300px-Sumter.jpg

The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12–14, 1861) was the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War. Following declarations of secession by seven Southern states, South Carolina demanded that the U.S. Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor. On December 26, 1860, U.S. Major Robert Anderson surreptitiously moved his small command from the indefensible Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island to Fort Sumter, a substantial fortress controlling the entrance of Charleston Harbor. An attempt by U.S. President James Buchanan to reinforce and resupply Anderson, using the unarmed merchant ship Star of the West, failed when it was fired upon by shore batteries on January 9, 1861. South Carolina authorities then seized all Federal property in the Charleston area, except for Fort Sumter.

Cannons count as "guns?"

Seizing Federal property should have been permitted?

Historical context matters. We were a new concept in the world, a limited Constitutional Republic and we still are the "fairest" superpower because of it...at least until the post WWII world formed.

A...

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I have personally studied Fort Sumter, All the south wanted was the North to leave Fort Sumter, as your description says. The north knew in advance they would be attacked if they hadn't left. The South declared independence from the Union, why should we force them to stay? The south was leaving the Union and asking to be left alone. What right did the North have to attack what was a independent nation from themselves. The government shouldn't have the power to stop a state from leaving the union. My question doesn't ramble what so ever. I simply asked why the north had the right to attack an independent nation? My point was slavery isn't a justification because other places also have people whose rights are suppressed and we don't just attack them. I was curious what the objectivist stance would be on such an issue, if whether or not it was right to attack the South?

David C.

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I am currently in a civil war and reconstruction class and as a class we make it seem like the north attacking the south after they left the union was the right thing to do. My question is, was it, from an objectivist stance, why should we attack nations we don't agree with, and that's what the confederacy was a new nation , and they hadn't used "guns" on us so why go to war with them? And yes obviously slavery is bad but so is genocide in Darfur and nobody says we should go to war there. There is also no women's rights under sharia law and yet we don't attack those places.

Hope that makes sense,Thanks,

David C.

You are overlooking slavery. It was not enough that the Southern States had slavery, but they sent agents northward to capture Negro's who were not slaves. All the slave catchers had to do was identify a free Negro as a slave and back he went.

Also the Southerons were looking to take slavery into the Western Territories and this the Union States found intolerable.

Lincoln was willing to leave slavery alone in the states where it was already legal but he was unwilling to let slavery spread to the Western Territories.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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BaalChatzaf- all your points make sense and are true. However, I think you are making the kidnappings of Northern Blacks and them being brought into slavery bigger then it was. We didn't go to war over kidnappings in the North. And with regard to Western Territories, shouldn't the people there have the right to decide whether or not they wanted slavery?

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BaalChatzaf- all your points make sense and are true. However, I think you are making the kidnappings of Northern Blacks and them being brought into slavery bigger then it was. We didn't go to war over kidnappings in the North. And with regard to Western Territories, shouldn't the people there have the right to decide whether or not they wanted slavery?

You mean white folks have the right to work black folks to death?

Ba'al Chatzaf

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And Egypt doesn't have to right to subject women under Sharia law but they do. My point is it wasn't our fight. They were an independent nation and should have been treated as such.

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Plus in hindsight obviously slavery is wrong but we have to keep it in context of the time period. Only Northern Radicals found slavery morally wrong. So to suggest slavery was the reason for the civil war is incorrect. We went to war because Lincoln wanted to keep the Union at any cost. He even said “I would save the Union. … If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it. … What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union.”

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David,

Did I welcome you to OL? If not, welcome.

There's an unstated premise in your Lincoln quote that I see come up sporadically in O-Land and libertarian discussions of the Civil War. And it goes something like this.

Abraham Lincoln had dictatorial powers to declare war and stop it by merely snapping his fingers.

No president has had that.


But this premise is embedded when they make the argument that the Civil War was not "fought over slavery" and a quote from Lincoln proves it.

It just wasn't that simple.

You are right to question why such an enormous amount of bloodshed was necessary. But I can't give you what the "Objectivist position" would be.

I recall reading a few of Rand's comments (and these are from memory, so they will not be word perfect). When dealing with the ancap theory of competing governments for enforcing the law, she responded with, "You mean like with the Civil War?"

On another occasion she was discussing racism and rights and said the USA fought a civil war to settle that issue.

I can find these quotes if you like. So if we look at Rand's own words, we will probably be able to discern what could be construed as an Objectivist position. Someone should look this up, though. I would, but I'm in the middle of other stuff.


As to my own position, I know of no country on earth that didn't start in the very beginning with some people going to a physical place, setting boundaries and saying they will kill and/or imprison those who don't respect those boundaries. This pertains to settlement and this pertains to conquest.

There are a few examples of religious communities that were nonviolent and so on that have worked within the boundaries of determined countries and they have been tolerated and defended by those countries even though they would not defend themselves, and there has been a quirky island or other that has declared sovereignty with no military to speak of, but other than that, countries tend start with violence or the threat of it. That's not a moral position. It's an historical one.

Frankly, I don't know how to set up shop on a syllogism when it comes to declaring initial property rights. There has to be weapons backing it up. If not, people just don't tend to say, "OK. I agree," if they believe that land is theirs.

From that perspective, the South wanted to break away. It tried with violence, got attacked with violence, and lost. End of story. There is no moral argument to undo that.

But I do think the spiritual driver of that war--speaking in terms of the general population--was slavery despite any political comments Lincoln may have made. And there was another driver.

For some reason I recently looked into John S. Mosby of Mosby's Raiders. He later was a campaign manager for Grant and flourished within the post-Civil War government. Here is a quote from the Wikipedia article that I linked in his name:

In a June 1907 letter to Samuel "Sam" Chapman, Mosby explained why he fought for the Confederacy, despite personally disapproving of slavery. While he admitted that the Confederacy had seceded to protect slavery, he had felt it was his patriotic duty as a Virginian to fight for the Confederacy. "I am not ashamed of having fought on the side of slavery—a soldier fights for his country—right or wrong—he is not responsible for the political merits of the course he fights in ... The South was my country."


I grew up in the South and much of the original material I read from those days echoed similar country-devotion sentiments, whether pro-slavery or anti.

But there was also a hell of a lot of yelling back and forth about slavery. It was way beyond press manipulation and it got people fighting mad at each other, which is a very effective pretext for a war. That issue cut deep.

The truth is people fight wars over several main issues, never over just one.

Michael

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Former judge Andrew Napolitano has a video arguing for the right of secession. It’s on YouTube.

The Civil War was the first giant step towards big government. Even so, the “Ayn Rand Institute” – the quotes are derogatory – makes heroes out of Lincoln and Sherman. Several times ARI writers have used Sherman’s march through George (a.k.a. march to the sea) as a model for what to do in Iraq.

Mark
ARIwatch.com

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I am currently in a civil war and reconstruction class and as a class we make it seem like the north attacking the south after they left the union was the right thing to do. My question is, was it, from an objectivist stance. Why should we attack nations we don't agree with, and that's what the confederacy was a new nation , and they hadn't used "guns" on us so why go to war with them? And yes obviously slavery is bad but so is genocide in Darfur and nobody says we should go to war there. There is also no women's rights under sharia law and yet we don't attack those places.

Hope that makes sense,Thanks,

David C.

Just because we don't or nobody thinks we should, doesn't mean we shouldn't. If anything, I think an "Objectivist state" should conquer the rest of the world in order to liberate people from their collectivist governments.

You also brought up the point that the civil war wasn't about slavery. It most certainly was. The two main interest groups behind the war were northern industrialists and southern plantation owners.

Slave labor is not capital, so you can't really do much to make it more efficient. If you want to increase your profits, you have to acquire more and more land. This was of course impossible after Lincoln prevented the spread of slavery to the western territories. The problem that the industrialists had with slavery was that it tended to drive up wages for workers, thus increasing production costs, so they wanted to eliminate it. There was no way these two groups could find a win-win situation, and everyone knew that any middle-ground or compromise would only be temporary.

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I want to add something to my previous post.

The Founding Fathers implemented a new form of government, but the context was a place that had been settled and defended by violence. Then the cry of separation from England was made by violence. It took decades, which is the way this stuff should happen.

In other words, freedom was imposed on a country that had come into existence through violence, at least partially. And it took a long time. It, freedom, including the government's role in protecting individual rights and all the rest, was not a force for initiating a country. No snapping a finger and voila, there you have instant freedom. The country which was later called the United States was already a country in practical terms by the time the colonies were prospering. Freedom was a country transformation force.

Freedom starts as a policy of severing from violence. But the violence is there before freedom is. (Human nature anyone?)

That's why it is difficult to say, in moral terms, why one country should exist in a specific place rather than another and take this moral argument to the very beginning of settlement.

When everybody started with violence, who has the moral high ground when there is a clash? Nobody, that's who.

There is something to be said for who was there first, but I don't see a moral principle in that if the ones there started with violence and continue that way.

If you impose freedom afterward, this generates a moral high ground for continuing. At least in the thinking I have currently been doing.

I'm all for getting the different places in the world to adopt freedom without too much disruption. This way a moral high ground works its way into politics all over the globe as a universal. But the best way to do that is by persuasion, not conquest.

Michael

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I'm all for getting the different places in the world to adopt freedom without too much disruption. This way a moral high ground works its way into politics all over the globe as a universal. But the best way to do that is by persuasion, not conquest.

Michael

If you see a mugging going on, do you try to persuade the criminal to stop or do you stop him by any means necessary?

I mean, sure, persuasion would be preferable, but it's rarely effective.

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Just because we don't or nobody thinks we should, doesn't mean we shouldn't. If anything, I think an "Objectivist state" should conquer the rest of the world in order to liberate people from their collectivist governments.

Michael is more polite than I am.

Listen low life, when you are ready to pick up a weapon and strap on a pack and stand a watch, you might be able to make that assinine statement.

Until then, just zip it.

...we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know...

You do understand that war has horrendous consequences, bodies torn apart, damaged minds, orphans, destruction...

You just lost me forever.

I wonder whether your alleged "mental issues" are true.

Care to provide some proof?

A...

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Just because we don't or nobody thinks we should, doesn't mean we shouldn't. If anything, I think an "Objectivist state" should conquer the rest of the world in order to liberate people from their collectivist governments.

Michael is more polite than I am.

Listen low life, when you are ready to pick up a weapon and strap on a pack and stand a watch, you might be able to make that assinine statement.

Until then, just zip it.

I am willing to pay other people to do that for me. Does that count?

...we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know...

You do understand that war has horrendous consequences, bodies torn apart, damaged minds, orphans, destruction...

You just lost me forever.

Sure, it has some unpleasant aspects, but tyranny is quite arguably worse. Are you a pacifist or something?

I wonder whether your alleged "mental issues" are true.

Care to provide some proof?

A...

My issues are my business.

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Thank You all for the comments. You all make some very interesting posts.The one thing I want to say is in my opinion I don't think the Objectivist stance is to liberate the world. Also thank you for keeping the talk as "civil" (no pun intended) as possible. If I haven't said it before this website is beyond enjoyable and never fails to make me think. Lastly, I especially wanna thank Michael for taking the time to respond with such a detailed answer.

David C.

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I am currently in a civil war and reconstruction class and as a class we make it seem like the north attacking the south after they left the union was the right thing to do. My question is, was it, from an objectivist stance, why should we attack nations we don't agree with, and that's what the confederacy was a new nation , and they hadn't used "guns" on us so why go to war with them? And yes obviously slavery is bad but so is genocide in Darfur and nobody says we should go to war there. There is also no women's rights under sharia law and yet we don't attack those places.

Hope that makes sense,Thanks,

David C.

You are overlooking slavery. It was not enough that the Southern States had slavery, but they sent agents northward to capture Negro's who were not slaves. All the slave catchers had to do was identify a free Negro as a slave and back he went.

Also the Southerons were looking to take slavery into the Western Territories and this the Union States found intolerable.

Lincoln was willing to leave slavery alone in the states where it was already legal but he was unwilling to let slavery spread to the Western Territories.

Ba'al Chatzaf

We should keep in mind that the Union included four slave states. Slavery remained legal in two of those states -- Delaware and Kentucky -- until after the war, when the 13th Amendment was ratified in late 1865. Lincoln explicitly stated that he waged war against the South to "preserve the Union," not to free the slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation, which did not free slaves in all the states, says that selective emancipation was a "war measure." Indeed, the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation promised Confederate states that they could keep their slaves if they rejoined the Union by a certain date. There were several reasons for this cynical war measure, including the desire to keep Great Britain from siding with the Confederacy.

Ghs

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I have personally studied Fort Sumter, All the south wanted was the North to leave Fort Sumter, as your description says. The north knew in advance they would be attacked if they hadn't left. The South declared independence from the Union, why should we force them to stay? The south was leaving the Union and asking to be left alone. What right did the North have to attack what was a independent nation from themselves. The government shouldn't have the power to stop a state from leaving the union. My question doesn't ramble what so ever. I simply asked why the north had the right to attack an independent nation? My point was slavery isn't a justification because other places also have people whose rights are suppressed and we don't just attack them. I was curious what the objectivist stance would be on such an issue, if whether or not it was right to attack the South?

David C.

David, what troubles me about your post, is, that you, your instructor, or your class indicate that you guys have not read this document, which is the "Secesstion Document" that led to a lot of pain for a nation.

We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.

Adopted December 24, 1860

Now let's work back from that last statement, and look at the prior three (3) paragraphs.

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.

Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.

The above bolded, underlined is instructive.

Here is the rest:

Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union

The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.

In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, "that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do."

They further solemnly declared that whenever any "form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government." Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies "are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments-- Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defense, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first Article "that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled."

Under this Confederation the war of the Revolution was carried on, and on the 3rd of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definite Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in the following terms: "ARTICLE 1-- His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof."

Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE.

In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on 17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended for the adoption of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States.

The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was then invested with their authority.

If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as they then were-- separate, sovereign States, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation.

By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not

delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people. On the 23d May , 1788, South Carolina, by a Convention of her People, passed an Ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken.

Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government with definite objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights.

We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.

In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

Great website by the way:

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

A...

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I am not an expert on American history, but for what it is worth I think David's argument is critically relying on the proposition that the sovereignty of the Confederate States of America was valid and thus the United States were the aggressors.

I disagree that the CSA's sovereignty was valid. Pretty much every single one of the individual states which made up the CSA explicitly stated in their documents explaining the reasons for their secession that one of their motivations was the preservation of slavery.

In other words, the purpose of the CSA's formation was in part to sustain a systematic violation of human rights. Thus, the CSA was, unlike the USA, founded with the intention of violating rather than safeguarding rights. Which in turn means that its sovereignty was invalid.

Of course the USA at the time was hardly consistent but at least the majority of the US lacked slavery. Slave states in the USA, as George H Smith pointed out, only numbered four.

For all the faults of the USA (and various states within it) at the time, the CSA was significantly worse. The culture of the Southern elites (from what I know) was very much of that pre-Enlightenment familial/honor/collectivist mentality, and Rand wasn't exactly wrong when she described the old South as feudalist.

Like I said, I'm not an expert on the subject, but for all the criticisms one can make about Lincoln or the effects of the Civil War, eliminating the scourge of slavery was a good thing and the CSA's claim to sovereignty, whatever one thinks about the ultimate nature of sovereignty, was clearly less legitimate under most classical liberal theories than the USA's claim.

Also, heads' up: libertarians/classical liberals and Objectivists should do their best to avoid being associated with Southern Nationalism. To call it bad press is an understatement. Plus, to be honest, ANY kind of nationalism is philosophically dangerous.

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I had never thought of it that way, you make an interesting argument. However, I do have a question shouldn't we then stop the violation of human rights around the world or was it just because the southern states were a part of the United States that we had the right to stop them? And yes I agree I don't want to be compared to Southern Ideology during the civil war.

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...shouldn't we then stop the violation of human rights around the world...

No.

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Thank You Selene, I was hoping that would be the answer. :) So I am right in saying it was just because the southern states were a part of the United States that we had the right to stop them?

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Thank You Selene, I was hoping that would be the answer. :smile: So I am right in saying it was just because the southern states were a part of the United States that we had the right to stop them?

Correct. That was the compact/contract and despite how much I gravitate to the rebel position, it had/has no basis in the Constitutional compact.

Glad you understand my argument.

A..

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