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 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.
Here are some crucial intellectual ammunition for your edification and self-defense.
Just War — the article by Murray N. Rothbard
The Yankee Problem in America — the article by Clyde N. Wilson
The Yankee Problem in America — the Amazon book list
In Dixie Land, I’ll Take my Stand — the Amazon book list
Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War, 2nd Edition, the book by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
No Treason #1 — the article, by Lysander Spooner
No Treason #2 — the article, by Lysander Spooner
No Treason #6 — the article, by Lysander Spooner
The War for Southern Independence: A Radical Libertarian Perspective, — the article by Joseph R. Stromherg
Southern Independence: Why War?: The War To Prevent Southern Independence, — the book by Charles T. Pace
The Real History of Slavery, — Video excerpt from Thomas Sowell’s book, Black Rednecks & White Liberals
Why The War Was Not About Slavery, — the article by Clyde N. Wilson
Lies My Teacher Told Me: The True History of the War for Southern Independence, — the book by Clyde N. Wilson
Northern Opposition to Mr. Lincoln’s War, — the book edited by D. Jonathan White
Secession, State & Liberty, — the book edited by David Gordon
The American Counter-Revolution in Favor of Liberty: How Americans Resisted Modern State, 1765–1850, — the book by Ivan Jankovic
5:01 pm on July 1, 2020
