To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 16:35:56 -0500
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Interesting Inventions
From: ronkean at juno.com
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

On Tue, 2 Apr 2002 15:57:45 -0500 "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL>
writes:
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ronkean at juno.com

> Some go so far as to call it The War of Northern Aggression.
>

> > A common term in the South, but factually incorrect.

Technically, the South agressed first, when they fired shots at a federal
fort.  But in the larger picture, I think it may be fair to say that the
North aggressed against the South more so than vice-versa, because the
Southern war aim was merely to be allowed to secede, whereas the Northern
aim was to conquer the South and re-incorporate it into the Union.  The
question really turns on whether the Northern aggression was justified.
Before the Civil war, it was generally agreed (so I have read) that
states have a right to secede.  If it were not for the strong will of
Lincoln to uphold the Union, I think it is likely that Southern secession
could have been peacefully negotiated, and if someone else had been
president, that might well have happened.  Connecticut, I think, actually
passed a secession bill in protest of the War of 1812, though they did
not apparently follow through with it.  It would be interesting to know
whether Connecticut's act of secession was ever formally repealed.

Given that secession was a right of states, the Northern war aim was
unjustifed, on the face of it.  Also, the South was being victimized by
unfair import and export tax policies, which had the effect of taxing the
South disproportionately more than the North, since the South was more
dependent on exports than the North.  Also, the import tax protected
Northern industrial interests, enhancing their profit margins at the
expense of domestic buyers of manufactured goods, including buyers in the
South.  But there was also the great evil of slavery at issue, so it yet
may be argued that right was more on the side of the North.  It is far
from conclusive, though, that ending slavery was really a Northern war
aim.  Slavery ended because the South was politically powerless to
prevent its abolition, after the war.

Ron Kean

.

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