The Yankee Problem in America, by Clyde Wilson
Fanatical Yankee Utopians, by Thomas DiLorenzo
Blame the Beechers and That Fanatic Finney, by Charles Burris
Just War, by Murray N. Rothbard
The Damn Yankees and Their War, by Charles Burris
Causes of the American Civil War, by Charles Burris
In the midst of the vicious and violent assault by willfully ignorant street mobs on American historical memory prior to Year Zero (formerly known as 2009 when Obama took office), here is vital authoritative, factual, historical information you need to know.
There are two seminal issues to consider when examining the War of 1861-1865: They are the defense of revolutionary Southern self-determination or secession, and abolitionism.
Why did the Southern states want to leave the Union?
Why did the Northern states refuse to let them go?
The War was both the culmination and repudiation of the American Revolution.
The War marked the decisive turning point in the inexorable growth of government and coercive authority, and most accurately should be described as the War for Coercive National Unification. The same situation was going on in Europe at the same time under Otto von Bismarck and his wars to unify and create the nation-state of Germany.
Slavery and secession are two separate issues.
Secession was a revolutionary right of free peoples to determine their destiny.
Slavery was a gross violation of inalienable human rights.
Even if slavery explains why the Southern states left the Union, it does not necessarily explain or justify the general government under Lincoln refusal to recognize their independence and launch an unconstitutional invasion of the South.
Slavery still fails to explain why the Northern states resorted to force or coercion; letting the lower South go in peace was a viable, antislavery option refused by Lincoln.
Most militant abolitionists believed there was no contradiction between condemning slavery and advocating secession (in particular, see the essays by the Boston abolitionist Lysander Spooner below).
The War was a tragic, needless conflict. It was all about power and control, the imposition upon or domination of one geographic section of people by another without their consent.
The Real History of Slavery, by Thomas Sowell
Why The War Was Not About Slavery, by Clyde Wilson
Lysander Spooner was a Boston abolitionist who wrote The Unconstitutionality of Slavery (a favorite, much cited book by Robert Barnes). He also authored the three powerful articles below in his No Treason series:
No Treason #2: The Constitution
No Treason #6: The Constitution of No Authority
Northern Opposition to Mr. Lincoln’s War
“Northern Opposition to Mr. Lincoln’s War” is a book, edited by D. Jonathan White, that challenges the common narrative that Northerners were united against secession from the start. The book argues that there was significant and enduring opposition to the war in the North, which is often overlooked in favor of the story of a unified, righteous effort to suppress the rebellion. Opposition groups, such as the Copperheads, favored immediate peace and resisted the draft, while other opponents argued the war was unnecessary and costly, prompting Lincoln to take measures like suspending habeas corpus.
1:56 am on October 18, 2025
