Just War Theory and the Civil War? Paging Dr. Tidewater...

[LA4Bama]

In another thread these following posts were made. In the interest of not completely derailing that thread, I am take a few comments from their context and following these with questions. I hope all who have opinions on JWT will take part, but of course I am looking with great expectancy for a conversation with Tidewater.

Here is a glimpse of southern thinking as they considered seeking safety out of the Union.
John Brown murdered, with cutlasses, five men on Pottawatomie Creek in May 1856. Afterwards, he went on a fund-raising tour in the northern states, raising money for his “Kansas work.” Northerners gave liberally. Republican former congressman Joshua R. Giddings was among those giving Brown money. Brown took the money, and weapons donated by New England abolitionists, and went to Iowa to train his “army.” In May 1858, Brown and his friends drafted a replacement Constitution for the United States (called the Chatham Constitution), which he planned to put in place after he had overthrown the federal government. At the same time, Hugh Forbes, Brown’s drillmaster, revealed to Republican Senators William Seward (Republican front-runner for president in 1860) and Republican Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts the details of Brown’s planned attack on a federal facility in Virginia. In his conversation with Seward, Forbes “went fully into the whole matter in all its bearings.” (“Interview with Seward,” New York Herald, October 27, 1859, p. 4, col. 2.) Seward said he did not object to Brown attacking a federal facility, he just “expressed regret that he had been told.” (These interviews came to light a year and a half later after John Brown’s attack on Harper’s Ferry. Richmond Enquirer, October 25, 1859, p. 2, col. 3.) Neither Wilson nor Seward ever warned any federal or state authority of Brown's impending attack.
After John Brown’s arrest, Republicans raised money for Brown’s legal defense and for the benefit John Brown’s family. (Imagine how people would react if Republicans went to raising money for the defense of the terrorist-murderer of Charlottesville). John Andrew, soon to be the Republican nominee for governor of Massachusetts, said, “John Brown was right.” Henry David Thoreau, an acquaintance of Brown’s, called the government of the United States “this most hypocritical and diabolical government.” On November 1, 1859, abolitionist Wendell Phillips told a Brooklyn crowd “the lesson of the hour is insurrection.” When Brown was executed for murder, treason and inciting servile insurrection, towns all over the northern mourned his passing by ringing bells, decking churches in black, etc. The editor of the Savannah (Ga.) Daily Morning News wrote, “when treason and insurrection are applauded at the North, is it not time for the South to take measures for her own protection?” (Savannah (Ga.) Daily Morning News, November 8, 1859, p. 1, col. 2.)
Joint Resolutions of the General Assembly of Alabama, Feb. 24, 1860, WHEREAS, anti-slavery agitation persistently continued in the non-slaveholding States of this Union, for more than a third of a century, marked at every stage of its progress by contempt for the obligations of law and the sanctity of compacts, evincing a deadly hostility to the rights and institutions of the Southern people, and a settled purpose to effect their overthrow even by subversion of the Constitution, and at the hazard of violence and bloodshed; and whereas, a sectional party calling itself Republican, committed alike by its own acts and antecedents, and the public avowals and secret machinations of its leaders to the execution of these atrocious designs, has acquired the ascendancy in nearly every Northern State, and hopes by success in the approaching Presidential election to seize the Government itself; and whereas, to permit such seizure by those whose unmistakable aim is to pervert its whole machinery to the destruction of a portion of its members would be an act of suicidal folly and madness, almost without a parallel in history; and whereas, the General Assembly of Alabama, representing a people loyally devoted to the Union of the Constitution, but scorning the Union which fanaticism would erect upon its ruins, deem it their solemn duty to provide in advance the means by which they may escape such peril and dishonor, and devise new securities for perpetuating the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity; therefore … upon … the election of a President advocating the principles and action of the party in the Northern States calling itself the Republican Party, it shall be the duty of the Governor, … to issue his Proclamation, calling upon the qualified voters … to elect delegates to a Convention of the State, to consider, determine and do whatever in the opinion of said Convention, the rights, interests, and honor of the State of Alabama requires to be done for their protection. (William R. Smith, The History and Debates of the Convention of the People of Alabama, (Montgomery, Ala: White, Pfister, & Co, 1861), 9-10.)
William Lowndes Yancey of Montgomery gave a speech in Washington DC in September 1860. “My friends, there is one issue before you, and to all sensible men but one issue, and but two sides of that issue. The slavery question is but one of the symbols of that issue; the commercial question is but one of the symbols of that issue; the Union question is but one of those symbols; the only issue before this country in this canvas is the integrity and the safety of the Constitution. . [Great applause and cries of “good.”] He is a true Union man who intends to stand by that Constitution with all its checks and balances. He is a disunion man who means to destroy one single letter of that sacred instrument.” Yancey then addressed his northern countrymen attempting to show how the election of a Republican would be viewed by southerners. “Suppose that party [the Republican party] gets into power; suppose another John Brown raid takes place in a frontier state; suppose ‘Sharpe’s rifles’ and pikes and bowie knives, and all the other instruments of warfare are brought to bear upon an inoffensive, peaceful and unfortunate people, and that Lincoln or Seward is in the presidential chair, where will then be a force of United States marines to check that band? Suppose that is the case – that the frontiers of the country will be lighted up by flames of midnight arson; as it is in Texas [the Texas Troubles of 1860]; that towns are burned; that the peace of our families is disturbed; that poison is found secreted throughout the whole country and immense quantities; that men are found to prowling about in our land distributing that poison in order that it may be placed in our springs and our wells; with arms and ammunition placed in the hands of this semi-barbarous people, what will be our fate? Where will be the United States Marshals to interfere? Where will be the dread of this General Government that exists under this present administration? Where will be the fear of the United States army to intimidate or prevent such movements?” Yancey continued: “Well, then, if John Brown commits a raid on that state while in the peace of God, and while in the peace of the country, under the peace of the Constitution that is supposed to protect it – if he comes with pike, with musket and bayonet and cannon; if he slaughter an inoffensive people; if his myrmidons are scattered all over our country, where it is supposed rests this institution which is so unpalatable, inciting our slaves to midnight arson, to midnight murder, to midnight insurrection against the sparsely scattered white people; if the brotherhood of this nation shall be broken up and the Constitution be ignored; if the protection that is due from every citizen to every other citizen shall be no longer afforded; if, in the place of it, a wild and bloodthirsty spirit – not of avenge, for we have done no wrong to be revenged – but a bloodthirsty spirit of assassination, of murder, of wrong, takes its place, and we find scattered throughout all our borders these people, and we find the midnight skies lighted up by the fires of our dwellings, and the wells from which we hourly drink poisoned by strychnine; and our wives and our children, when we are away at our business, are found murdered by our hearthstones, my answer, my friend, is in these words: what would you do?” [Loud applause] A voice from the audience: “I would stop him before he got that far.” (“Mr. Yancey’s Speech,” Richmond Enquirer, September 25, 1860, p. 2, col. 4-6)

When a Republican won, the governor called for an election to a state convention.
It is not an accident that southern state seceded almost exactly in the order of the percentage of the population that was African-American (the states with the highest percentage of black inhabitants, SC and MSS were the first to leave), not because African-Americans voted, but because white voters did. White southerners, whether they owned slaves or not, were deeply concerned with slave insurrection because all would be threatened with the violence of a slave insurrection. Insurrections by definition are indiscriminate.

With all your education and experience, you have still not figured out that abortion on demand as a means of birth control is wrong.

I just want to say, I always appreciate your willingness to continue to reason, even in the face of snarky replies that nobody would dare say to your face.

Now, here is my question for you. As an educated man with military connections, you are familiar with the traditional just war theory (JWT). The first principle is having a just cause. Many JWT interpreters claim that coming to the aid of the oppressed may qualify as a just cause, and therefore may justify initiating aggression as if it were self-defense. Do you agree with those principles?

If you do agree, how would you assess their application to the civil war? If not, do you follow a different theory of justified war? Was slavery in the 1850s and '60s the kind of violation of human rights as might lead a neighbor to justify intervening though it has not been attacked?

I am asking because there seems to be a premise in your position which lays it down that the North had no right to attack the South. I realize the real world is messy; that Lincoln was impure; that financial interests motivated northern aggression, etc. Once I allow for all these things, I still want to ask, is there not some room for the interpretation that the North was justified in initiating a war with the South? Impure motives infest so many human endeavors; if we waited for perfectly pure motives, we would probably accomplish nothing. What is wrong with acknowledging the impurities of the North but nevertheless accepting a "just" war on the grounds of ending slavery? I think that is a fundamental question.

This brings me to Brown. Brown was a man who was motivated by the injustice of slavery. It might be said that he had a just cause but failed in other principles such as being a legitimate authority and perhaps failed jus in bello. Since Brown is not a civil authority, and therefore JWT does not apply directly, there is no reason to ask if he was justified in murdering people on his own authority. With that said, history does not move according to principles of theory; it moves according to human emotions and wills deciding to act on their consciences (and lack thereof), and eventually a critical mass of people either do or do not embrace that conscience. Is it possible for a person to give a different interpretation to Brown's actions, as to see him as a vanguard of a just war?

To take a different but perhaps parallel example, the militia at Lexington and Concord are now celebrated (in our country) for their shots at the British, but these shots were fired at men who were duly appointed, who were, after all, human, and who died. To the British, they were murdered by rebels. The rebels were not authorized by a validated government at the time the first shots were fired. They became validated in hindsight due to the fact that Americans won their independence. Is there no way to see Brown's actions in hindsight? He seems to have had grass roots support. Granted, the militia fired upon soldiers, whereas Brown did not. Yet, the British soldiers were not exactly an invading army, given that at the time these were British colonies. What if we compared them to the police today, being fired upon by BLM sympathizers? I know... seems like a crazy analogy, but I hope you see the kinds of complexity I am going for. I just wonder how we can justify the shots at Lexington and Concord but not those of Brown?

 

[GrayTide]

�� for some reason my Like button is "out of order"

 

[Tide1986]

I might could buy the abolition of slavery as a just cause if the national government of the northern states had actually made slavery illegal prior to its beginning hostilities with the southern states.

 

[LA4Bama]

I might could buy the abolition of slavery as a just cause if the national government of the northern states had actually made slavery illegal prior to its beginning hostilities with the southern states.

This is too simple. South Carolina seceded in Dec of 1860, after Lincoln was elected but before the next Congress was seated. There was no time to make slavery illegal, but it appears the writing was on the wall. Isn't it the case that South Carolina cited as a reason for secession that the Northern states were not returning run away slaves? Did they secede in order to protect their institutional slavery?

 

[crimsonaudio]

I find it very difficult to believe that the Union fought out of some 'moral' reasoning. The Emancipation Proclamation wasn't issued until 1863 and didn't even cover the slaves held by Union states, which weren't freed until several years later.

I can't find the quote, but iirc Lincoln was concerned with protecting the Union, not specifically ending slavery, which is why the EP wasn't issued until 1863. From my reading regarding the Civil War (which is virtually nonexistent compared to several here), freeing the slaves had nothing to do with morality - it was an act of war meant to further destabilize the Confederacy as the Union troops captured more and more land.

I honestly think both sides were wrong - the Confederate states should have been allowed to secede, but their insistence on owning other humans was evil, regardless as to what the general consensus of the world was then.

I'll bow out now and let the people who have forgotten more than I'll ever know discuss it...

 

[selmaborntidefan]

I find it very difficult to believe that the Union fought out of some 'moral' reasoning. The Emancipation Proclamation wasn't issued until 1863 and didn't even cover the slaves held by Union states, which weren't freed until several years later.

I can't find the quote, but iirc Lincoln was concerned with protecting the Union, not specifically ending slavery, which is why the EP wasn't issued until 1863. From my reading regarding the Civil War (which is virtually nonexistent compared to several here), freeing the slaves had nothing to do with morality - it was an act of war meant to further destabilize the Confederacy as the Union troops captured more and more land.

I honestly think both sides were wrong - the Confederate states should have been allowed to secede, but their insistence on owning other humans was evil, regardless as to what the general consensus of the world was then.

I'll bow out now and let the people who have forgotten more than I'll ever know discuss it...

August 1862
I suspect you're thinking of this:


I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy Slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.

 

[Tide1986]

This is too simple. South Carolina seceded in Dec of 1860, after Lincoln was elected but before the next Congress was seated. There was no time to make slavery illegal, but it appears the writing was on the wall. Isn't it the case that South Carolina cited as a reason for secession that the Northern states were not returning run away slaves? Did they secede in order to protect their institutional slavery?

Well, it took the legislature of the northern states 4 long years to pass the 13th Amendment. I guess they had other priorities. Meanwhile, slavery remained perfectly legal in the northern states from a national perspective.

And regarding secession to protect the institution of slavery, I'll point out that secession didn't and wouldn't fix the "returning runaway slaves" issue that you cited. If SC cited it as a reason for secession, I assume they did so because northern states were not living up to their constitutional duties under the then existing union, which would make the so-called United States a bit of a sham anyway. Why stay in partnership with someone if he will not live up to his partnership obligations?

 

[uafan4life]

I find it very difficult to believe that the Union fought out of some 'moral' reasoning. The Emancipation Proclamation wasn't issued until 1863 and didn't even cover the slaves held by Union states, which weren't freed until several years later.

I can't find the quote, but iirc Lincoln was concerned with protecting the Union, not specifically ending slavery, which is why the EP wasn't issued until 1863. From my reading regarding the Civil War (which is virtually nonexistent compared to several here), freeing the slaves had nothing to do with morality - it was an act of war meant to further destabilize the Confederacy as the Union troops captured more and more land.

I honestly think both sides were wrong - the Confederate states should have been allowed to secede, but their insistence on owning other humans was evil, regardless as to what the general consensus of the world was then.

I'll bow out now and let the people who have forgotten more than I'll ever know discuss it...

Delaware is a very interesting case in regards to this. After being prevented from seceding, pro-slave Democrats won elections across the State in a landslide in 1862/1864 - in the middle of the Civil War. Following the war, State leaders publicly stated their desire to ignore the 13th Amendment if the other States were to ratify it. As a result, troops were sent into the State - effectively calling Delaware's bluff - to ensure its compliance with the amendment.

If the leaders of the northern States really did view - and start a war to abolish - slavery due to moral reasons then those same leaders would have first abolished slavery in their own, individual States.

Instead, many of them proposed instituting slave-to-free-citizen ratio limits as opposed to abolishing slavery altogether. Still more proposed measures to limit any potential influx of freedmen into their States, one of the most galling being Illinois - which only allowed blacks to legally be in their State as migrant workers, barred from having a permanent residence.

 

[dvldog]

which only allowed blacks to legally be in their State as migrant workers, barred from having a permanent residence.

Chicago is now making amends for this discretion.

 

[bamachile]

August 1862
I suspect you're thinking of this:


I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy Slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.

There are plenty of quotes from Lincoln that firmly establish that although he was anti-slavery, he was not in favor of racial equality (Here's a sample article showing a few). I think most Southerners would be more willing to let the past go (most have, anyway) if not for the arrogance of the South-bashing crowd. Grant was a slavery apologist, Lincoln was a racist, more officers in the Union Army were slaveholders than in the Confederate Army, etc., etc. Slavery was wrong, and the South was wrong to defend slavery. We get it. Heck, we even agree with it. If the screechers would just drop the holier-than-thou crap and quit pretending the North was pure, innocent, and altruistic we might all quit arguing about our ancestors and start living in this century.

 

[Relayer]

I'm sure Tidewater will have some interesting comments, but the notion that JWT might be the cause (or would be a justfiable cause) can already, by the several posts above, be completely dismissed.

 

[Tidewater]

LA4Bama, good question.
Just War Theory involved two concepts: Jus ad bellum (just cause for going to war) and jus in bello (just conduct in war). I believe you are addressing the latter, but let’s not neglect the former. We’ll come back to that. The Romans were fanatical about not going to war without a good cause, because the gods would not favor them if they did. Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinus further developed the theory.
The gist of your question is: “Does the bad conduct of your neighbors justify us in invading their territory, killing them, destroying their property and occupying their territory?”
In the case of the United States, the “foreign” bad people were fellow countrymen, and the “bad conduct” was conduct that had been accepted in the formation of the federal system of government. This topic came up in the Rhode Island convention’s debates. (Jon. Hazard said, “The southern states must answer for themselves. They must conduct their own legislation as they please. They can regulate their trade as they please. We are not interested on one hand nor answerable in our consciences on the other. They must answer for their own crimes.”) The United States were a federal system of government in which member states were completely sovereign and independent concerning their internal policies, but conjoined as concerned their foreign policy and defense. Member states enjoyed the benefits of the Union (e.g. protection from foreign attack, protection from foreign economic competition but free trade within the Union) but agreed that police forces of one state could not pursue fugitives (from either justice or labor) if the fugitives escaped into another state. Some abolitionists, such as William Lloyd Garrison, advocated northern states’ secession to escape the obligation of returning fugitives. Garrison used to burn copies of the Constitution and called it “a Covenant with Death and an Agreement with Hell.” Leaving the Union (and surrendering the benefits of Union) would free the seceding state from the unsavory obligations in regards extradition of fugitives. Obviously, membership in the Union means the member state agrees to comply with the provisions, even the unsavory provisions of the compact.
I do not believe jus ad bellum required a polity to go to war against another polity if the primary is conducting immoral acts against its own inhabitants. I do not believe jus ad bellum even authorized such action, at least prior to World War II, when an evolving system of international law authorized and perhaps required nations to intervene to stop genocide, but that was post-1860. Genocide is the sole international exception, I believe. If Somalis exercise clitoridectomy, I might disapprove, but, unless they are doing this to American girls, jus ad bellum would not authorize my country to go to war against Somalia to stop the practice. If Syrians are throwing gay men off of roofs of high buildings or sawing off the heads of captured Christians, I disapprove, but jus ad bellum does not authorize my country to invade to stop the practice unless the gay man or the captured Christians are American citizens.
At a meeting in Natick, Massachusetts, in November 1859, resolutions were unanimously adopted (with Republicans Henry Wilson and John Andrew present) declaring “it is the right and duty of the slaves to resist their masters, and the right and duty of the North to incite them to resistance and to aid them in it.” (Henry Clarke Wright, The Natick Resolution, or, Resistance to Slaveholders the Right and Duty of Southern Slaves and Northern Freemen, (Boston: Printed for the Author, 1859). Of course, this was an innovative approach to constitutional and international law and southern readers, whether they owned slaves or not, disagreed and wondered what kind of Union they were members of.
Robert Toombs, erstwhile Whig from Georgia, noted, on the occasions (Toombs’ speech, “Invasion of States” on January 24, 1860; Toombs’ speech before the Georgia legislature in November 1860 and the Georgia declaration of secession in January 1861), the dichotomy between the Constitution’s protections of Americans and international law’s. “Great numbers of persons belonging to” the Republican party “are daily perpetrating offences against their confederate states.” Drawing upon the principles of international law, Toombs asserted that the people of one hypothetical country attacked the people of a neighboring country, the victims would have “good and sufficient causes of war.” Georgia’s problem, according to Toombs, was that northerners and southerners were members of the same Union. As such, the Constitution prevented southerners from protecting themselves. Georgia could not threaten war on Ohio, while both were in the Union. In November 1860, Brown put it this way: Last year John Brown made a raid on Virginia. He went with torch and rifle, with the purpose of subverting her government, exciting insurrection among her slaves, and murdering her peaceable inhabitants; he succeeded only in committing murder and arson and treason. One of his accomplices (a son) escaped to Ohio, was demanded, and the Governor of Ohio refused to give him up; another fled to Iowa; he, too, was demanded, and refused. … It was sympathy with the cause of John Brown which gave sanctuary to his confederates. If these men had have fled to Great Britain or France, we would have received them back and inflicted upon them the just punishment for their infamous crimes under our treaties. But they were wiser; they fled among our brethren; we had no treaty with them; we had only a Constitution and their oaths of fidelity to it. It failed us, and their murderers are free, ready again to apply the incendiary's torch to your dwelling and the assassin's knife and the poisoned bowl to you and your family. Do you not love these brethren? Oh! what a glorious Union! especially ‘to insure domestic tranquility.’"
As for John Brown’s conduct, he was a private citien so neither jus ad bellum nor jus in bello applied. Observers wondered how one’s conduct in peace foreshadows one’s conduct in future war? The problem was Brown indiscriminate violence. Hugh Forbes had warned John Brown that a slave insurrection might “leap beyond his control, or any control,” because a slave insurrection was “from the very nature of things deficient in men of education and experience.” As it turned out, Brown’s men killed five people at Harper’s Ferry: one free African-American, one slave, two non-slaveholding whites and one slaveholder. (If you’re targeting slaveholders, that’s a 20% success rate).
This is how white southerners slave uprising: Haiti

Senator Albert Gallatin Brown of Mississippi in a speech in September 1860 said, “They (the people of the North) hate us now, and teach their children in their schools and churches to hate our children. You cannot long submit if you will. The John Brown raid, the burning in Texas, the stealthy tread of abolitionists among us, tell the tale. History is experience teaching by example. Take care that the history of San Domingo (what we now call Haiti) be not your history.” In San Domingo, emancipation had been followed by “the burning of houses, the murder of men, the butchery of children, the fiendish and worse than hellish outrages of women.” Brown warned his listeners, “Take care that the same scenes be not enacted here.” The planters in San Domingo “died amid the groans and shrieks of their own families, or fled the country, lighted by the conflagration of their own dwellings.”

To those advocating waiting for the Republicans to do something unconstitutional, a writer from Lowndes County, Mississippi explained “Although you see your enemy load his rifle with the declared purpose of taking your life, you are to wait, as a wise expedient of defence, until he makes the ‘overt act’ – shoots you. This is one of those glaring absurdities, which only such daring submissionists as Botts and Crittenden are capable of proposing. No ordinary man can hope to comprehend its mysterious sublimities.”

And the Minute Men at Lexington and Concord were acting at the behest of the government of Massachusetts which was never disestablished.

As for a moral assessment of Brown, I admire his ends (he was one of the very few that was fairly color-blind), but his means were completely illegitimate from a legal, constitutional and moral perspective.

 

[LA4Bama]

I'm sure Tidewater will have some interesting comments, but the notion that JWT might be the cause (or would be a justfiable cause) can already, by the several posts above, be completely dismissed.

I didn't assert it was a "cause". I am asking how we today are to understand the events; and I admit that is a matter of hindsight. I am not asking what Lincoln actually thought, but I am asking for an inquiry into the grounds of the right to secede, and the grounds for the right to demand the union remain intact.

 

[LA4Bama]

LA4Bama, good question.
Just War Theory involved two concepts: Jus ad bellum (just cause for going to war) and jus in bello (just conduct in war). I believe you are addressing the latter, but let’s not neglect the former. We’ll come back to that. The Romans were fanatical about not going to war without a good cause, because the gods would not favor them if they did. Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinus further developed the theory.
The gist of your question is: “Does the bad conduct of your neighbors justify us in invading their territory, killing them, destroying their property and occupying their territory?”
In the case of the United States, the “foreign” bad people were fellow countrymen, and the “bad conduct” was conduct that had been accepted in the formation of the federal system of government. This topic came up in the Rhode Island convention’s debates. (Jon. Hazard said, “The southern states must answer for themselves. They must conduct their own legislation as they please. They can regulate their trade as they please. We are not interested on one hand nor answerable in our consciences on the other. They must answer for their own crimes.”) The United States were a federal system of government in which member states were completely sovereign and independent concerning their internal policies, but conjoined as concerned their foreign policy and defense. Member states enjoyed the benefits of the Union (e.g. protection from foreign attack, protection from foreign economic competition but free trade within the Union) but agreed that police forces of one state could not pursue fugitives (from either justice or labor) if the fugitives escaped into another state. Some abolitionists, such as William Lloyd Garrison, advocated northern states’ secession to escape the obligation of returning fugitives. Garrison used to burn copies of the Constitution and called it “a Covenant with Death and an Agreement with Hell.” Leaving the Union (and surrendering the benefits of Union) would free the seceding state from the unsavory obligations in regards extradition of fugitives. Obviously, membership in the Union means the member state agrees to comply with the provisions, even the unsavory provisions of the compact.

Thanks for this reply. It going to take a while to process all of it. I don't want to jump the gun with any reply until I have a chance to think about it. I will note a couple of things that jump out at me right away. First, I am more concerned with jus ad bellum than jus in bello. Also, jus ad belum has a number of principles, and all of them are supposed to be met in order to justify a war. The question I am interested in is specifically about the principle, often referred to first because of its importance, known as just cause. Even if there is a just cause, that does not entail that a war will be just, even jus ad bellum, since other factors may come into play. The prospective war may have a just cause but may not be a last resort, or the costs may be so disproportionate as to outweigh the benefits, etc. These are real issues, but as it is possible to have a just cause without the other factors being met, my main interest is in the question of just cause.

The issue you raise in the passage above is exactly what I am concerned with. I was alrady writing about this in response to a prior post (I held back posting that until I have had a chance to think it through, and now reading your post I am glad I held back). You have put your finger right on the issue that troubles me the most, the issue of the status of a contract when that contract is originally complicit with a practice that comes to be understood as indefensible. It is fascinating that a northerner proposed leaving the union to free it from its contractual obligation with evil (Death and Hell). I think a lot hinges on the validity of the bolded sentence. I am pondering whether it is true that a contract trumps all else, regardless of its "unsavory" elements. Contracts, no doubt, are central to liberal thinking, but it is possible to make an idol out of contract theory. I am not comfortable with the notion that a contract founded in an unnatural or immoral practice is in fact obligatory in ever case. That is what I want to think about.

I'll have to take a minute to digest your whole reply. Thanks for taking the time to do it.

 

[Tidewater]

Take your time. I'm not on the clock.

 

[Bubbaloo]

Take your time. I'm not on the clock.

Oh, we are all on the clock. We just can't see the hands !

 

[Tidewater]

The prospective war may have a just cause but may not be a last resort, or the costs may be so disproportionate as to outweigh the benefits, etc. These are real issues, but as it is possible to have a just cause without the other factors being met, my main interest is in the question of just cause.

Just to respond quickly to this.
The northern states that found slavery simply unacceptable had the option of leaving the Union. Then they would face the choice of just existing outside the Union (and refusing to return escaped slaves) or launching an aggressive war against the United States over the US toleration of slavery, but jus ad bellum would still apply in the latter choice.

For individual Americans (like John Brown), this would not apply, since they were not sovereign states.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

This is too simple. South Carolina seceded in Dec of 1860, after Lincoln was elected but before the next Congress was seated. There was no time to make slavery illegal, but it appears the writing was on the wall. Isn't it the case that South Carolina cited as a reason for secession that the Northern states were not returning run away slaves? Did they secede in order to protect their institutional slavery?

Yeah, I mean it's not like they could have insisted on this during things like the Missouri Compromise or anything.

I defer to Tidewater on all Civil War questions, though.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

There are plenty of quotes from Lincoln that firmly establish that although he was anti-slavery, he was not in favor of racial equality (Here's a sample article showing a few). I think most Southerners would be more willing to let the past go (most have, anyway) if not for the arrogance of the South-bashing crowd.

I've been saying the same thing for thirty years now.

But it's like a lot of folks - gives people a feeling of moral superiority to put things in so-called 'black and white' terms.

Grant was a slavery apologist, Lincoln was a racist, more officers in the Union Army were slaveholders than in the Confederate Army, etc., etc. Slavery was wrong, and the South was wrong to defend slavery. We get it. Heck, we even agree with it. If the screechers would just drop the holier-than-thou crap and quit pretending the North was pure, innocent, and altruistic we might all quit arguing about our ancestors and start living in this century.

Despite the crap we were shoveled in school, wars IN GENERAL are NOT fought over "human rights." They are usually fought over some form of wealth (money or some representative thereof), and in the case of the War Between the Yankees and the Americans (as Granny Moses used to call it on "The Beverly Hillbillies), slavery was the issue only so far as it was an ECONOMIC one, regardless of the after-the-fact justification of the johnny-come-latelies to the debate. The same can be said of the Revolution - we hear all about freedom of religion and speech.....but without the issue of taxation without representation (e.g. we the Brits are going to make you colonists pay for the French-Indian War debt we've incurred), there wouldn't have been one.

Casting wars as issues of human rights to cover the concern for money......I mean, I'm just glad GHW Bush didn't do that with Operation Desert Storm..... No, he LOVED them brown people over there in the Middle East (and for those who don't know, the Kuwaiti royal family weren't exactly the most evolved human beings themselves)

 

[Valley View]

The reasons for the war have changed over the years to promote slavery as the one and only issue. This makes people feel warm and fuzzy, but has nothing to do with the facts. As the previous poster stated, "Despite the crap we were shoveled in school, wars IN GENERAL are NOT fought over "human rights." He is correct.

Slavery was part, but not a main issue until toward the end of the war. Immigration and the new land opening out west certainly played a big part. The north wanted the new territory to push all the immigrants into and the south wanted to use for slave run agriculture.

It's easy and PC to blame slavery. The reasons are many and complex, also hard to understand in our time. One thing was certain, slavery was going to end very soon one way or another.