Update: Welcome new readers. Many of you have come here via a link from TPM or Daily Kos. We’re glad that you’ve decided to drop by. And while you’re here, let me invite you to look at some posts beyond this one. Here’s the original post:
I don’t want to pick a fight with Ron Paul’s spambots supporters, which who seem to be among the most annoying passionate on the web. But I will say this: their guy is more than a little nuts. Seriously, on Meet the Press earlier today he suggested that Lincoln was wrong to go to war in 1861.
Here’s the exchange:
MR. RUSSERT: I was intrigued by your comments about Abe Lincoln. “According to Paul, Abe Lincoln should never have gone to war; there were better ways of getting rid of slavery.”
REP. PAUL: Absolutely. Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war. No, he shouldn’t have gone, gone to war. He did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic. I mean, it was the–that iron, iron fist..
MR. RUSSERT: We’d still have slavery.
REP. PAUL: Oh, come on, Tim. Slavery was phased out in every other country of the world. And the way I’m advising that it should have been done is do like the British empire did. You, you buy the slaves and release them. How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 Americans and where it lingered for 100 years? I mean, the hatred and all that existed. So every other major country in the world got rid of slavery without a civil war. I mean, that doesn’t sound too radical to me. That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach.
There are so many things wrong with this line of argument that I don’t even know where to start. Oh wait, yes I do. Let’s begin with: Lincoln didn’t go to war to “get rid of the original intent of the republic.” You have to know even less about history than Tim Russert — I wouldn’t have thought it possible — to say such a ridiculous thing. Or you have to be a bit too willing, eager even, to marry libertarian political ideology with neo-Confederate historical revisionism. Just to be clear: Lincoln went to war to preserve the Union. That’s it. End of story. Full stop.
Also: Lincoln didn’t start the Civil War. To clarify his position throughout the 1860 campaign and well into 1861, long after he was elected president without his name having appeared on a single Southern ballot, Lincoln said that slavery shoudn’t be allowed to expand into the West — a position that was part of the Republican Party (Paul’s party) platform.
Because of his incredibly bold lukewarm stance — again, not for emancipation and certainly not for immediate abolition but only against the further expansion of slavery — South Carolina seceded after the 1860 election results became clear. Six other Confederate States soon followed. This was still prior to Lincoln’s inauguration, mind you, and the president-elect needed to try to persuade the Border States to reject rebellion. So he kept promising, as he had throughout the electoral season, not to prune back the peculiar institution where it already had taken root, but only to insure that it would spread no further.
Which compromised position, by the way, wasn’t good enough for many loyal Republicans (the Ron Pauls of their era, I suppose), who asked that Lincoln forestall war by allowing slavery unfettered access to Western soil. Lincoln, to his credit, replied that such a move would have rendered the Republican Party and his administration a “mere sucked egg, all shell and no principle in it.”
And then, to reitterate, South Carolina seceded. Still, the war didn’t actually start until Confederate artillery began bombarding Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor on April 12, 1861. Then and only then did Lincoln call for troops.
So, because Tim Russert is such an ignorant gassbag, here are my questions for Paul: given that Lincoln didn’t start the war, what should he have done? Allowed the Union to blow apart to avoid bloodshed? And for how much longer, Dr. Paul, you exquisite champion of freedom, would it have been okay to enslave African-Americans in the United States? Another generation? Two? More than that?
And what of denying African-Americans the rights guaranteed in the Constitution, which document, I’ve heard, you admire? (What do I mean, gentle reader? Well, it seems that Paul’s also no fan of the Civil Rights Act.)
Roll tape:
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about race, because I, I read a speech you gave in 2004, the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. And you said this: “Contrary to the claims of” “supporters of the Civil Rights Act of” ‘64, “the act did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of” ‘64 “increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.” That act gave equal rights to African-Americans to vote, to live, to go to lunch counters, and you seem to be criticizing it.
REP. PAUL: Well, we should do, we should do this at a federal level, at a federal lunch counter it’d be OK or for the military. Just think of how the government, you know, caused all the segregation in the military until after World War II. But when it comes, Tim, you’re, you’re, you’re not compelled in your house to invade strangers that you don’t like. So it’s a property rights issue. And this idea that all private property is under the domain of the federal government I think is wrong. So this–I think even Barry Goldwater opposed that bill on the same property rights position, and that–and now this thing is totally out of control. If you happen to like to smoke a cigar, you know, the federal government’s going to come down and say you’re not allowed to do this.
MR. RUSSERT: But you would vote against…
REP. PAUL: So it’s…
MR. RUSSERT: You would vote against the Civil Rights Act if, if it was today?
REP. PAUL: If it were written the same way, where the federal government’s taken over property–has nothing to do with race relations. It just happens, Tim, that I get more support from black people today than any other Republican candidate, according to some statistics. And I have a great appeal to people who care about personal liberties and to those individuals who would like to get us out of wars. So it has nothing to do with racism, it has to do with the Constitution and private property rights.
For anyone considering voting for Ron Paul, please think again. I know that you’re fed up with the war. So am I. I know that you distrust politicians. So do I. I know that you crave change. Me too. But Ron Paul is either a lunatic, a stone-cold racist (seemingly an in-the-hip-pocket-of-the-Slaveocracy racist, which, to be fair, isn’t very different from some other prominent Republicans — see Trent Lott and his recent defenders) or both. And, by the way, what happened to supporting the troops? Calling the Civil War “senseless”; what will that do to morale?
Update: Matthew Yglesias, as usual, beat me to punch. I’d say that I’m getting tired of this. But I’d better get used to it. I’m old and slow. He’s young and nimble.
291 comments
Comments feed for this article
December 24, 2007 at 12:39 am
bitchphd
No comments on this yet? Obscurity has its advantages.
December 24, 2007 at 12:43 am
Rhetorical Spiral » Ron Paul: Lincoln Was A Warmonger
[...] out that that and everything in the above passage is, well, batshit insane, and I’ll let a real historian do the dirty work of really debunking all of this, but perhaps someone should go tell Mr. Paul about Fort Sumter. No, wait, don’t tell me, [...]
December 24, 2007 at 5:10 am
DrEast
“Allowed the Union to blow apart to avoid bloodshed?”
That is exactly what he should have done. What’s so great about the Union?
December 24, 2007 at 5:36 am
ari
If that’s your point, okay. Just so we’re clear.
December 24, 2007 at 6:24 am
David Carlton
“To Horace Greeley he famously infamously said: ‘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.’”
A correction–Lincoln did *not* say this to conciliate the South prior to Fort Sumter. He wrote this letter in the Summer of 1862, even as the draft of the Emancipation Proclamation was sitting on his desk. I’d say the best reading of this letter [ambiguous as so many of Lincoln's pronouncements were--We keep forgetting that he was a politician] is that he was preparing the nation to accept Emancipation as a means to preserve the Union. It was, after all, an enormously controversial move, and risked splitting support for the war effort among a white population still very much committed to white supremacy. But placed in its context, it means something very different than what Lincoln’s detractors think it does.
December 24, 2007 at 6:29 am
ari
Sorry, I wasn’t implying that he wrote that to conciliate the South prior to the war. I thought the link would make that clear. But I’ll clarify what is an ambiguous part of the post. Thanks for bringing this to my attention and for the rest of your thoughtful comment.
December 24, 2007 at 11:13 am
Tom Paine
It sounds as if you know your Civil War history. When I was in college it seemed as it even though the Civil War was long ago, both academics and non-academics still debated its causes and if it could have been prevented.
But as for me re-thinking my support for Ron Paul – not a chance – the Civil War happened a long time ago – now Americans have to deal with an Imperial Presidency, a war based on lies, and a threat to our liberties.
But if you are a Democratic Party member, how can you defend their top tier candidates’ stand on Iraq and the threat to our civil liberties? Paul would end the Iraq war immediately, unlike the Democrats who use language like ‘phased withdrawal’ to indicate that there would still be a US presence in Iraq for years to come.
Democrats would also tinker with the Patriot Act, not eliminate it like Paul would.
And do the Democrats call for an end to US Imperialism like Paul proposes?
So instead of asking me to re-think my support for Paul, perhaps it is you Democrats who need to re-think your support of a party who enabled Bush to wage imperial war and dilute our liberties.
December 24, 2007 at 11:30 am
anon
You should re-read Edmund Wilson’s essay on Lincoln in “Patriotic Gore.” Paul basically follows the Wilson line. Is Wilson a nut?
December 24, 2007 at 11:37 am
ari
Thanks for stopping by Tom. All of the points you make have some merit, to be sure. And I think the positions you’ve outlined are what many people see in Congressman Paul. But, in the end we’ll have to agree to disagree, because I can’t support any candidate who comes across as tacitly anti-Union and even a little tolerant of slavery. It’s hard for me to read Paul’s comment in any other way. Put another way, I understand that many people support Paul because of his position on civil liberties. I respect that. And, inasmuch as Paul’s surprisingly wides and very deep support might shape the debate over the rule of law, I thank his supporters. Regardless, I can’t help but find their chosen candidate a bit out there. Have a wonderful holiday season.
December 24, 2007 at 11:57 am
Bruce Moomaw
Actually, David Carlton’s correction is irrelevant — our host didn’t specifically quote that particular statement of Lincoln’s as evidence that Lincoln said he was willing to compromise on slavery before the Civil War started. He doesn’t have to; Lincoln said precisely the same thing on numerous other occasions during his campaign — including on one visit to South Carolina. (He made that trip despite the fact that not only was he not on the ballot in that state; NOBODY was on the ballot in that state, since it didn’t allow its people to vote for President at all till after the Civil War.)
December 24, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Tom Paine
Thanks for the civil discussion Ari:
But just because Paul believes that slavery could have been ended by means other than war doesn’t necessarily mean that he is a “little tolerant of slavery.”
To me, that is somewhat akin to the neo-con argument that if you don’t believe in invading Iraq to liberate them from the brutal dictator Saddam, you support his tactics.
And what is so great about a union of states whose land was in many cases acquired unjustly?
December 24, 2007 at 12:02 pm
out of the loop
Neither Paul’s comments nor the comments in this blog provide an accurate portrayal of the causes of the civil war. One thing that is for sure: it wasn’t fought to “free the slaves.” Like all other things that have to do with politics and war, the civil war was the culmination of shifts in political and financial power in the preceding decades. the agricultural south was becoming relatively less powerful and the industrial north relatively more powerful with the growth of the industrial revolution. just as the invasion of iraq now is justified by Bush in terms of bringing freedom, the civil war has been justified in terms of ending slavery. but, let’s not be naive. Paul’s analysis isn’t sensible, but neither are the knee jerk responses against it that seemingly accept the false argument that it was fought to free the slaves. let’s all grow up. russert and paul are no more wrong (and not more right) than are the bloggers going after them on this. paul’s probably right about one thing. the civil war cannot be justified on the basis of an effort to end slavery. that’s a false justification. slavery had to be ended, but no war needs to be fought.
December 24, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Liam
Ron Paul on NBC Sunday Morning:
He is one scary crackpot.
He said that the civil rights bill that ended segregation should never have been put in to law.
Then he said that Abraham Lincoln should not have fought the Civil War.
Does Ron Paul even know which side in the Civil War started it, and attacked the other side first?
This guy is a racist creep.
A brief history lesson on who actually caused the civil war. Some one please have Ron Paul read it, so he doesn’t continue to make a complete fool of himself with his statement about how Abraham Lincoln should not have fought the civil war.
If Ron Paul is so ignorant about which side started the civil war, and tried to leave the Union, then how the hell could any rational person want such an addled moron as President of the United States now!
Reality check; Mr. Paul.
January 1861 — The South Secedes.
When Abraham Lincoln, a known opponent of slavery, was elected president, the South Carolina legislature perceived a threat. Calling a state convention, the delegates voted to remove the state of South Carolina from the union known as the United States of America. The secession of South Carolina was followed by the secession of six more states — Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas — and the threat of secession by four more — Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. These eleven states eventually formed the Confederate States of America.
February 1861 — The South Creates a Government.
At a convention in Montgomery, Alabama, the seven seceding states created the Confederate Constitution, a document similar to the United States Constitution, but with greater stress on the autonomy of each state. Jefferson Davis was named provisional president of the Confederacy until elections could be held.
February 1861 — The South Seizes Federal Forts.
When President Buchanan — Lincoln’s predecessor — refused to surrender southern federal forts to the seceding states, southern state troops seized them. At Fort Sumter, South Carolina troops repulsed a supply ship trying to reach federal forces based in the fort. The ship was forced to return to New York, its supplies undelivered.
March 1861 — Lincoln’s Inauguration.
At Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, the new president said he had no plans to end slavery in those states where it already existed, but he also said he would not accept secession. He hoped to resolve the national crisis without warfare.
April 1861 — Attack on Fort Sumter.
When President Lincoln planned to send supplies to Fort Sumter, he alerted the state in advance, in an attempt to avoid hostilities. South Carolina, however, feared a trick; the commander of the fort, Robert Anderson, was asked to surrender immediately. Anderson offered to surrender, but only after he had exhausted his supplies. His offer was rejected, and on April 12, the Civil War began with shots fired on the fort. Fort Sumter eventually was surrendered to South Carolina.
April 1861 — Four More States Join the Confederacy.
The attack on Fort Sumter prompted four more states to join the Confederacy. With Virginia’s secession, Richmond was named the Confederate capitol.
December 24, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Ivan
Out of the loop, you’re pretty mistaken:
>russert and paul are no more wrong .. than are the bloggers
>going after them on this.
Actually, Ron Paul is entirely and completely full of shit, and the bloggers are correct.
His argument assumes the (as you already granted, incorrect) premise that the war was fought to free the slaves (otherwise, how could buying the slaves have avoided the war as he argues?).
But as you’ve agreed, the war wasn’t even fought to free the slaves; the war was fought, as this blog correctly noted, because the South wanted to secede primarily over the ability to *expand* slavery into new territories (yeah, people point to other possible reasons, but the fact of the matter is that every single state’s declaration of secession hammers the point repeatedly: slavery, slavery, slavery).
Care to explain how “no war needs to be fought”, given the above? What should’ve happened? Should Lincoln have let them go? Should he have acquiesced to their demands over expansion?
December 24, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Damn Yankee and Proud
Wow the southern racist revisionist scumbags are out in force today.
All it takes is one loss of message discipline by Ron Paul to turn the “party of Lincoln” types into raving crypto slavery advocates.
The Civil War was fought to preserve the Union. Southern states were seceeding to protect the institution of slavery. They lost, and slavery ended. If you have a problem with that, maybe you don’t belong in the United States of America. In fact, I doubt you belong in the human race. And you are certainly a certified kook sorely lacking in education.
December 24, 2007 at 1:19 pm
me
“Lincoln didn’t go to war to ‘get rid of the original intent of the republic.’ …Lincoln went to war to preserve the Union.”
Paul sounded like an idiot, but you’ve managed to elide a century of debate over the nature of the Constitution. What do you make of the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, the Hartford convention, and the nullification crisis? It’s not right-wing nutbaggery to argue that many Americans believed in the compact theory of the Constitution.
And how did that whole “ending slavery” thing work out, after the war? What would, say, Ransom and Sutch argue about the northern commitment to ending racial subjugation?
December 24, 2007 at 1:38 pm
me
“The Civil War was fought to preserve the Union. Southern states were seceeding to protect the institution of slavery. They lost, and slavery ended.”
And that’s why Rutherford B. Hayes ended the military occupation of the South. And it explains sharecropping and Jim Crow and everything.
Whiggish fairytales.
December 24, 2007 at 1:43 pm
MAKE ME CA$H
take a break from the thought.
Visit http://makemecash.wordpress.com
December 24, 2007 at 2:02 pm
improbable
Tom Paine’s question about the value of preserving the union is a good one.
It seems that letting them secede, and preventing them (militarily if necessary) from gaining taking new territory in the west might have been a plausible option. The union would still have been a big strong industrial country. The confederacy would probably look something like the Caribbean today.
This isn’t my country, so I don’t know the civil war very well. Is there an agreed answer to this?
December 24, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Jymn
You have to remember too that the Civil War is still THE war in the south. There’s no real importance put on any succeeding war. The south lost and many southerners still speak of the loss in present tense. They are still pissed. They still hate Lincoln and the North. With a passion. And underlying it all is an incredible rascism that is passed in whispered jokes between almost every southerner I ever met. It is indeed a passion, this civil war, that only a loss can smart so bad.
December 24, 2007 at 2:34 pm
jw
Sorry, but Mr Paul is nothing like a “nut” in the first case. He’s saying that Lincoln went to war for the idea that Southern states did not have the right to secede from the Federal Republic, whereas the Southern states felt they did. This debate has been going on ever since the war itself, and you add nothing to it here. He also states his sense that, since other countries were ending slavery, the southern states would be coming along soon as well. Again, a reasonable enough position. Was “preserving the Union” and a century of Jim Crow (extending to more than fifty years after even Brazil ended slavery) worth 600,000 lives? This is, frankly, not something I can answer. I personally am not going to go to war to prevent the Limbaugh Nation from seceding; my feeling is that we’ll have a much better (if smaller) country without them. I see only two arguments for such a war: 1. the survival of MY part of the country depends on union, or 2. ending Limbidiocy, which would be a moral reason parallel to ending slavery. I don’t think the first argument was makable in either case.
December 24, 2007 at 2:35 pm
deacon
This statement is flatly incorrect:
“The rest of the Confederate States followed. This was still prior to Lincoln’s inauguration, mind you, and the president-elect needed to try to persuade the Border States to reject rebellion.”
The border South states had not yet seceded, and did not do so until after the events at Sumter and Lincoln’s call to arms. Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas had all explicitly rejected the idea of secession at the point in time you reference. As you well know many well respected historians — most popularly Daniel Crofts — argue that these states ultimately seceded, and a civil war took place, only because Lincoln and the Republican party pursued an overly aggressive course of action in dealing with the seceded states.
The Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery, as Ron Paul and 99.9% of the American public assume, but it may well have been fought because of Lincoln’s aggressive policy.
December 24, 2007 at 2:47 pm
me
“The beatings meted out to black voters, the assassination of black leaders, the intimidation of black candidates, and the breaking up of meetings suggested in 1867 so of the techniques of terrorism that would be embellished in the next few years to expedite the political emasculation of the freedmen…Except for a few sporadic skirmishes, election day in the South passed quietly — and with it, some mistakenly thought, the old political and social order.” — Leon Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery, 555-56.
“It must be remembered and never forgotten that the civil war in the South which overthrew Reconstruction was a determined effort to reduce black labor as nearly as possible to a condition of unlimited exploitation and build a new class of capitalists on this foundation. The wage of the Negro worker, despite the war amendments, was to be reduced to the level of bare subsistence by taxation, peonage, caste, and every method of discrimination.” — W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880, 670 (from the final chapter, “Back Toward Slavery”).
“In the end, however, the South could boast of white amnesty but had rejected black suffrage. The irony was not merely that the South had lost the war and won the peace by nullifying reconstruction, but that it was actually rewarded through congressional apportionment, when the southern states gained more congressional seats and more electoral votes, by having counted the entire free black population, yet prevented the blacks from voting…For the southern Negro, the end of reconstruction meant nothing but defeat, for the southern whites, who became finally reconciled to the end of slavery, decided to treat the blacks as peasants instead. As a result, the Negro was subordinated politically, economically, educationally, and socially…The South, then, had never been truly reconstructed or reformed, and in many respects it had not been fundamentally changed.” — William Gillette, Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869-1879, 378-79.
W.E.B. Du Bois was obviously a right-wing nutjob — the South lost the Civil War, and slavery ended. That’s it. End of story. Full stop.
Right?
December 24, 2007 at 2:52 pm
jw
I should add that, while I might not fight in a war to end Limbidiocy, I probably WOULD fight in a war to end slavery if I didn’t think it would end any other way. The two are not equivalent.
December 24, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Liam
Ron Paul also told Tim Russert that he still believes that the passage of the Civil Rights bill, which ended racial segregation, was wrong. Paul is crypto white supremacist.
He is no better than Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, and Trent Lott on that issue.
The Nostalgia of Trent:
O he wished he were in a Strom led land,
Where non-whites’ rights were forever banned;
Lynch away, Lynch away, Lynch away Dixicrats.
December 24, 2007 at 3:22 pm
rob
Why has being a “racist” become such a cardinal sin in our society?
December 24, 2007 at 3:23 pm
7oby
I just wanted to mention that I come from south Mississippi and down there, hell all over the state, people still boil inside over the civil war. Many lost quite a lot more than just their slaves. And, many believe it wasn’t over slavery as much as it was over business, the way the south made it’s money was efficient (while pretty evil). I’m not necessarily in agreement, but “Intelligent Design” is just one thing they want taught in schools alongside science. “The War wasn’t about slavery” is the other.
Is it really a victory if nobody’s learned anything? Is Dr. Paul’s interest in alternative histories (what WOULD have happened if things happened differently) something to be scorned? The two most popular themes for alt histories are “What if Napoleon won?” and “What if the Civil War ended differently?”. Why not “What if the Civil War was sidestepped for something more civil?”
It’s not like he has a plan to subsidize creation of a time machine to go back and change it to the way he would like to have seen it go. Ron came back on Bill Maher in May after the interview in March wherein they discussed this civil war issue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo6KIusCBoU
December 24, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Liam
Why do so many people who live in what was the Confederate states, go bonkers over any perceived slight toward the Stars and Stripes, but at the same time insist that they have the absolute right to fly the Battle flag of the Confedracy: The flag that symbolizes that they wanted to leave the Union and no longer be among the stars and bars of the National flag.
Make up your minds, all you retro rebels; which flag is your national flag, and if it is the confedrate one, then you are not American, so go ahead and secede, and good riddance to you.
You have not right to complaint about any disrespect toward the stars and stripes as long as you choose to honor the flag of those national traitors who sought to break away from the USA.
December 24, 2007 at 3:46 pm
JW
“I’m old and slow”.
Yeah? Well, I’m old, slow, and increasingly cantankerous.
Did you ever see the National Lampoon cover of the old, old, withered old man staring out his upstairs window to the ground below? The caption had him shouting, “Hey you young people- GO TO HELL”!!!
That’s be me the day after tomorrow. Leastwise, in another 20 years or so.
December 24, 2007 at 3:56 pm
anon
ari,
do you have a take on the edmund wilson-gore vidal line on lincoln?
w/o being neo-racists, they do portray lincoln as a bismarck like statesman intent on consolidating his own/federal power. doesn’t mcpherson also say, in effect, that lincoln’s war made the u.s. safe for national consolidation–whether that be corporate rule (lincoln helped establish the rule of the railroad barons, didn’t he?) or eisenhower’s sending the troops to little rock? i happen to think that lincoln, among other achievements, did co-opt the civil war as an opportunity to end slavery (and admire him for it) but that does not mean that history–the past we inherit today–might not be better had lincoln not gone to war and legal slavery ended in some other way. the south does not acknowledge the north’s dominion and works to subvert the north’s victory–often with the aid of the north. wouldn’t you love to see how the country would function w/o the red states’ input? at any rate, the varying comments posted here suggest that the civil war is not over, is ongoing, and can’t be contained by a historian’s self-confident recounting of “the facts.” clearly, people do not agree what those facts mean. in the end, history is known only through conflict, which means that only in plato’s republic can “we” agree about what the civil war was for or whether it is even over. i wish lincoln’s union had won–but it is hard to say that they–we–did. paul may seem to some of you a kook–but the “racist” and “ignorant” views some of you attribute to him have plenty of support in the senate, the congress, the executive branch, and on the supreme court bench. fwiw (and i may be wrong), i dont think paul himelf is a racist or want to promote racism–just a little utopian in a recognizably american way. would the democratic candidates were too.
December 24, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Alexia
I swear you people only hear what you want to hear. Paul said the reason that he wouldn’t have voted for the Civil Rights bill AS IT WAS WRITTEN was because it gave away too much private property rights to the federal government. It had nothing to do with racism, and he specifically mentioned that it was wrong for the federal government to have segragated the troops for as long as they did. But everything else still came down to the question of personal liberty or federal government interference. As always, Paul opted to side with the Constitution.
December 24, 2007 at 4:13 pm
blah
You obviously know absolutely nothing about history. Suggest you look the real reason the Civil War was fought before you mouth off about what you don’t know about.
December 24, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Paul Davies
The point that hits me the hardest in all of this, is that Lincoln’s policy, the one that he tried to interest Congress and the border states in, was gradual, compensated emancipation. The Federal Government would compensate each state that agreed to emancipate its slaves by 1900. The plan failed because the abolitionists wanted immediate emancipation and the slave holders didn’t want emancipation at all.
December 24, 2007 at 4:40 pm
i am the son
The civil war was almost 150 years ago, and slavery still exists today as the trial of that couple in the Eastern States will prove, and they are only the ones we know about. If Ron Paul is a racist, then he shouldn’t hold any government position.
The voters will decide one way or another, and that’s a scary thought.
December 24, 2007 at 4:44 pm
ari
Anon, hello again. Thanks for coming back. You raise several reasonable questions here. So, let me try to answer them — to the best of my rather limited abilities. First, if I read you right, did Lincoln go to war to consolidate federal power? No, I don’t think so. But, once the South thrust war upon him, Lincoln did consolidate federal power in ways that were to that point unimaginable. Did he do that because he was mad for power? Nope again. At least I don’t think there’s evidence to support such a contention. Instead, he grabbed power because that was the best way he knew to win the war. And, by the way, most historians, McPherson included, suggest that the North’s centralized system of governance was one key to victory. The Confederacy, held together much more loosely, never could mount an effective war effort, much to Jeff Davis’s disgust.
At the risk of belaboring part of this point, and here I’m addressing many of the other people who have commented tonight, Lincoln didn’t want war. At all. Indeed, he did nearly everything he could to avoid it — short of compromising on the issue of allowing slavery to expand into the West. That’s why I used the sucked egg quote above. This isn’t a small point, by the way. Lincoln no more wanted to fight than he wanted to free the slaves. He went to war to preserve an iteration of the Nation that he believed worth saving. And then, as the war dragged on, he decided that he would have to remake the nation — by freeing the slaves — in order to secure its future. There can be all manner of disagreements, founded in counterfactuals, about whether the costs of the war were worth it. But there really isn’t much room for debate about whether Lincoln wanted the fight so that he could create a huge federal apparatus, squashing the rights of the states.
Now, here’s the question that I’ve left alone: what about the unintended consequences? Including, but not limited too, the massive consolidation of political and economic power in the hands of the few. Let me first say that, yes, that’s what happened. But I think, as I’ve intimated immediately above, that these consequences were unintended. In other words, Lincoln didn’t win the 1860 election, push for war hoping to gain power, and then reward railroad barons and various other plutocrats with the spoils of war. Again, the question of intent seems quite important here. And the answer is pretty clear as far as I can tell from the sources.
You then raise the question: would we be better off today had slavery ended in some other way, some more gradual manner of emancipation, presumably accompanied by some kind of compensation for slaveholders? The answer depends, I think, on too many factors ever to be knowable. Not to mention the moral issue of whether allowing slavery to have continued for even another moment is defensible. I know, I know, we have to stack that moral imperative up against the loss of 600,000 lives and untold treasure. I’m not an ethicist, but I think the idea of relegating a generation of slaves to some ill-defined additional amount of time in bondage is too horrible to contemplate. Also, remember that Lincoln didn’t enter the Civil War thinking that he would free the slaves. He entered the war to preserve the Union.
Finally, you raise an interesting issue about the way that the war is still interpreted, the collective memory of the conflict if you will. I’ll be posting more about this issue tomorrow, so forgive me if I leave that question alone for now. I’d hate to steal my own thunder.
Again, thanks both for the comments, the questions, and most of all, for the civility. It’s been my pleasure to correspond like this.
December 24, 2007 at 4:47 pm
ari
me x2: no, I’m not eliding a half a century of debates over how to interpret the Constitution. I just think those debates almost always boiled down to what would become of slavery in the future.
December 24, 2007 at 4:50 pm
ari
improbable and jw: you both ask if the country would be better off without the South. I don’t know. Which isn’t to say it’s not a good question. Just not a good question for this historian to answer. In other words, I’m not going to speculate. Sorry.
December 24, 2007 at 4:53 pm
ari
deacon: I think you’ve misninterpreted what I wrote in order to support your argument. Well played. Also, no, the idea that the rest of the Confederacy fell in line because of Lincoln’s treatment of the early secessionists is nonsense. The South had made it clear that it would not be satisified with anything other than Lincoln allowing slavery to expand into the West. Maybe a short-term compromise could have been crafted. But there had been enough of those. Too many to detail here.
December 24, 2007 at 5:08 pm
fgd
Ron Paul said that the best way to end slavery was to do it the same way that every other civilized country did it: by having the government buy slaves and release them. It’s much cheaper in the long run than a civil war. RP saying this shows that he has a good handle on rights and domestic policy.
This article is nothing but an uneducated smear.
December 24, 2007 at 5:10 pm
anon
ari,
thanks very much for the response. i asked the wilson question only to suggest that paul is not some isolated loon–just someone whose version of history you may not care for or want to endorse. i think history is mostly unintended consequences and then we who come after project our desires into the history we say the dead intended. i think what lincoln intended is “academic” in its most pejorative sense (thougha lot of fun to debate, just as could the 07 patriots defeat the 72 dolphins is fun to debate). what people intended and what happened rarely coincide, though i know historisns are generally trained to think that they do. i dont think lincoln wanted to go to war either. i do think he was happy to be the one to get the credit for ending slavery and i think w/o his political genius, slavery may very well had gone on longer–ironically, to the point where some (to we who follow) better conclusion might have happened. or not. no way to prove any of this of course. and in the end it is futile to ask how would things be different except to try to understand better how they are, or seem to be, now. and, from my point of view, paul’s position has become the de facto majority position (bush, lott, roberts, scalia, poor thomas et. al.) in practice, if not in spin. the spokesman for ge, russert, is called out by his masters to debunk paul as crazy. but we academics should be careful not to help russert too much sicnce such moments, like lottt and thurmond, are clealry “teaching” opportunities to show those less consumed with the truth of the dead than we are, how the dead continue to speak through us, perhaps most poignantly when we don’t know that they are.
December 24, 2007 at 5:16 pm
wellwellwell
Paul believes in principles of non-violence to his very core. Why is this so crazy? Instead of war, let’s find other means to settle our differences. WHY IS THIS SO CRAZY?
December 24, 2007 at 5:19 pm
trademark registration
You comment about how Paul is “a little tolerant of slavery” sounds like link baiting to me. I thought this was a serious discussion…
December 24, 2007 at 5:21 pm
ari
Me, what are you getting at with those quotes? I don’t want to pick a fight, but did I ever say that the South lost the war? No, because, in a broader sense, I agree with the people you’ve cited and with Nicholas Lemann, whose new book, Redemption, makes the same argument. The failure of Reconstruction gave the South the victory in the last battle of the war. It took until the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s to seize for African Americans basic freedoms. Which is why I find it so astounding the Congressman Paul stands with white supremacists against the Civil Rights Act.
December 24, 2007 at 5:32 pm
ari
tr: I’ve never heard the term link-baiting before. But it’s a good one. That said, no, that’s not what I was doing. Congressman Paul explicitly says in the interview that emancipation by other means, means that no doubt would have required more time, would have been preferable to the Civil War. Tell me how that doens’t suggest a bit of tolerance for slavery. I’m really not trying to inflame passions here; I’m just not following your defense of Paul. Which is to say, I understand the people who argue above that letting the South go would have been preferable to war. I understand the people above who espouse a purely pacifist position. No war under any circumstances. But I don’t follow the people who want to have it both ways: Paul wants to avoid war but he also was on the side of the angels when it came to slavery. Nope, I don’t understand that one at all.
December 24, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Rick B
It should be clear that Dr. Paul agrees with Dr. East above. Neither consider the American union of any value, which makes them extremist state’s rightests.
A person with such beliefs is unsuited to become the President of the United States - to say the very least, since their view amounts to treason.
December 24, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Rick B
To Tom Paine,
And who lied their way into this war? Bush and the Congressional Republican Party.
I find very little about the leadership of the Democratic Party that I consider positive, but they didn’t start this war, they didn’t lie to the public to get it, and they haven’t pushed the Fascist forms of authoritarianism that the Republican Party have made the touchstone of belonging to their party (along with demanding that every one in America respond positively to their catechism “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and to you accept the Bible as true theology, history and science?”)
The structure of our political system prevents any third party from being effective, so the choice is Republican and Democrat. The option is to choose the lesser of the two evils, and then try to take it over. That is what the religious right did with the Republicans, and now for the rest of us that is what will drive us to the Democratic Party.
Ron Paul is a fruitcake. with really insane ideas.
Ron Paul would be worse as President than the worst President that American has ever had - George W. Bush. But Ron Paul has one major advantage. Frequently it takes a truly insane person to ;publicly state the truth to the public. That insane person in this election season is Ron Paul, but there has not been a candidate if equivalent insanity with similar public support in the last hundred years at least. And Huckabee would be even worse.
Bush, Cheney, Paul, Huckabee - tells you a lot about the current Republican Party, doesn’t it? As bad as it is, (and it’s pretty bad) the Democratic Party can’t approach that level of pure insanity.
December 24, 2007 at 6:04 pm
aletoledo
I’m glad to see a couple people already commenting on the unfiltered event surrounding the Civil War. Everyone should remember that history books are written by the victor and learning both sides isn’t easy. I’d like to chime in with a few historical facts…
It seems that most people are acknowledging that the Civil War wasn’t initiated because of slavery, but that this was a lucky coincidence. Every agrees that slavery was bad, Paul is saying that there were alternatives to killing 600,000 Americans.
The next defense of going to war some appear to be using is that secession was somehow illegal and Lincoln had the right to force them to stay. If the idea of forcing people to remain in a democracy doesn’t seem a bit odd, then perhaps Lincolns approval of the secession of West Virginia away from Virginia will make you scratch your head. So clearly secession wasn’t illegal as long as it was in the north’s favor. Imagine for a moment that Poland was to leave the European Union, would you really expect the then to be invaded to force them back in!
The third defense appears to go along the lines that the South started things by attacking Fort Sumter. Thats a debatable position because South Carolina was no longer part of the US and all land at that time was forfeited to the new government. Despite this obvious logic, they still attempted to purchase the land from the Union, but Lincoln refused to accept this. This refutes the claim that Lincoln did everything he could to avoid war.
So pondering these issues in an unbiased manner, I think it’s easy to decide that both sides had their points to be made. Using our own logic as applied to the modern Iraq war, there were probably a lot of obvious economic benefits to forcing the South to stay in the Union. The really scary thing to consider is if in another 100 years Bush will be viewed as attcking Iraq to liberate them from Saddam!
The final point I’d like to make was the statement by ari that the North won the war because of it’s centralized government. I think it’s generally recognized that the North out-produced in military equipment and the South required imports of weapons to bridge the disparity. It turned into a war of attrition and the north had all the advantages in this type of warfare. Neither government style realistically made much of a difference in this regard when compared to the industrial might of the North.
December 24, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Rick B
Liam,
Your statement
is quite accurate.
You have to know the area of rural Texas south and slightly west of Houston to understand his beliefs. It is extremely Racist and highly xtian fundamentalist (the two are opposite sides of the same coin.) It is an area that received many Whites who left Houston when the Houston schools were desegregated in the late 60’s, so the racisists were concentrated there. It’s not a good place to be a Jewish student in the public schools, either.
The evangelical xtians (like Huckabee) provided the philosophical basis of Racism as the federal government was forcing desegregation. That is a major reason why the concept of Biblical Inerrantism is so popular there. They claim that the Bible justifies slavery. Don’t forget that the Southern Baptists convention only grudgingly apologized for their support of slavery in the 1990’s. If they have ever apologized for their support of segregation, I am unaware of it.
The Texas racists have pushed the belief that slavery was not the cause of the Civil War for many decades. It is common wisdom there.
As High School students in Texas we used to call the Civil War the “War of Northern Aggression.” (Somewhat accurate in a geographical way.) Attorney General Ashcroft was one who pushed that idea also. No surprise - Missouri is culturally very similar. So are Oklahoma and Kansas. All are more rural than Urban.
Ron Paul speaks for those people. Don’t ever forget that.
December 24, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Liam
Recall a certain Texan named Tom DeLay. Recall how DeLay ran an Illegal Campaign slush fund.
Ron Paul accepted a nice chunk of that illegal fund from Tom Delay.
Libertarian my arse! When Tom Delay bought someone they stayed bought. Were Ron Paul to become president, Tom Delay would have his ear. I bet that Delay has enough on Paul, that he could not refuse to heed Tom Delay.
December 24, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Rick B
JW
The question of whether the states were an association of states or were a single nation was answered when the U.S. Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation.
The only reason to have brought the issue up again, once it was resolved, was because of the mental illness of slavery. Only the Southern sickness of slavery made the unity of America an issue. Like modern Republicans, the southerners weren’t willing to give up the belief that they were superior to another group of human beings, in the case of the South, the African Negro slaves.
Ron Paul is an UnAmerican nut.
December 24, 2007 at 7:27 pm
David
I agree with the other commenters above that an interest in alternative histories shouldn’t be frowned upon, even if we’re looking at events that most would agree moved society forward in a wholly positive direction. Just because the Civil Rights Act did a world of good for people of all colors, doesn’t mean that it becomes unassailable. Particularly in the case of Paul, I have a feeling he would fight equally hard for the property rights of all regardless of color. Granted, it seems he believes forcing integration was stepping outside the bounds of what government should be kept to. I would argue that he isn’t ignoring the good that came from it, but rather recognizing that once we let government out of its cage, even for the best of reasons, we will lose our freedoms and liberties as a result. Is this racist? I’d argue not.
However, I do think Paul has an incorrect take on the root causes of the Civil War. The doesn’t mean, however, that I find his thought-experiment of a non-violent solution to the Civil War and slavery abominable. Ari, you’ve made the comment that the Civil War ended slavery the quickest, and thus qualifies Paul in not supporting it as “a little tolerant of slavery.” I think that’s selling the effects of blowback a bit short. While slavery as an institution didn’t exist anymore, there’s no way to verify an alternative approach wouldn’t have improved race relations more over the next 50 years than war. Again, I find the criticisms to be both partly and partly not justified.
Finally, Ron Paul will still get my vote if he’s on my ballot, because I believe him to be an honest man who will scale back the power of the presidency as no other candidate will. I disagree with him on a number of other issues, but I think at this point, this is the most important issue facing the US government today. The balance of power needs to be re-tilted away from the presidency to the legislature, and regardless of what Paul believes of the Civil War, I think he’s the best person for the job today.
December 24, 2007 at 7:36 pm
gjdodger
I’m surprised no one else has commented on this. Ron Paul got a campaign contribution from the neo-Nazi organization Stormfront. His views are compatable with theirs. http://belowthebeltway.com/2007/12/19/the-ron-paulstormfront-story-hits-the-msm/
December 24, 2007 at 7:47 pm
bill
Wow, is this weird. The neo slave holders blame Lincoln for his being overly aggressive. This is in the face of a series of states declaring that they are no longer part of the united states, and attacking the united states!
Do they also say that Bush was overly aggressive, after 9/11, and that he should not have attacked bin Laden in Afganistan?
Do they say that Roosevelt was overly aggressive when he asked congress to declare war on Japan after Pearl Harbor?
The Constitution is clear on how states come into the Union, but silent on how they could go out. Declaring themselves out of the United States was unconstitutional. Lincoln, when he was finally sworn in, pledged to uphold the constitution. By that time the unconstitutional rebellion had started. Had he not fought back, they surely would also have fought over the western territory, which would go to the north and the south.
The only people who have questions about the legitimacy of the civil war are unreconstructed slave holders.
December 24, 2007 at 7:57 pm
ari
David, yours is a very thoughtful comment. Thank you. I should note, not to take anything away from what you’ve said, that I don’t frown on counterfactuals as thought experiments. They’re great fun, a historian’s (lay and professional) parlor game that I greatly enjoy. As to the issue of “blowback” from emancipation, there is no evidence that I know of to suggest that a more gradual approach, by the late 1850s at least, would have been acceptable to the leading lights in the Slaveocracy. Given that, I’m not sure how I’d arrive at a conclusion in which the slaves would have been emancipated in anything like a timely fashion, and once emancipated, that their rights would have been respected. Again, though, we’re now into the realm of abstracted speculation, which, while fun, isn’t what I do for a living.
Once again, thanks for an insightful and carefully worded comment, which includes far more light than heat. Your tone is much appreciated.
December 24, 2007 at 8:04 pm
kiru
Two quick points that seem to keep coming up:
First, Paul’s suggestion of freeing the slaves gradually, such as having the government purchase all the slaves and free them, while an interesting idea, doesn’t apply to the US during the civil war. The Union Government wanted an end to slavery, the Confederacy did not. Ergo, if the North freed all their slaves, the confederacy would not, or at best would free them only to buy more slaves. Yes, the north would be free, but if you believe the secession was illegal - as Lincoln apparently did - then endorsing such a path would be irresponsible.
Second, I have a hard time believing race relations in this nation would be better off if Lincoln has just let slavery continue. Yes, the period after the civil war was no doubt tumultuous, but it was made all the more so by the ascension of Andrew Johnson to the Presidency. Lincoln committed the nation to war, and Johnson came in with a very, very lenient bent towards the recovering Confederate States. The argument could just as easily be made that Johnson’s leniency (and the resulting political infighting) is responsible for the stresses and strains that followed. Had Lincoln remained in office, you can bet a great deal of the institutional racism would’ve been met with a far, far sterner hand; whether this would’ve put an end to things is doubtful at best, but it is likely what Lincoln had in mind, and you can’t blame him for failing to foresee this wouldn’t come to pass.
Now, since this thread seems to have gone far deeper into the pro / con of Ron Paul, a note on Ron Paul. I would like to thank Dr Paul and his supporters for attempting to bring attention to some issues that desperately need it. My disgust at our current national debate is vast, and there’s more than enough to go around to all the leading candidates, the media, and their pets. If only someone would give Dr Paul and Dennis Kucinich some time in the spotlight, I think our national debate would be elevated far closer to where it should be, rather than CNN planting questions about jewelry.
Having said that, I cannot support Dr Paul as a candidate; much as he espouses and end to war and opposes Imperialism abroad, he sees no trouble with imposing social imperialism at home, which at the end of the day is what forcing a woman to carry a child to term, or denying marriage rights to any two people amounts to.
Ceasing imperialism abroad only to enforce it at home is not a stance I can support.
December 24, 2007 at 8:43 pm
wellbasically
with David. Paul seems to approach the presidency as a return to a Coolidge-like past. His supporters however seem ready to move beyond him into an individualized future. The Democrats and Republicans still fight the old battle over The Commanding Heights.
December 24, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Daniel Nexon
“It seems that most people are acknowledging that the Civil War wasn’t initiated because of slavery…>”
Yes it was. The southern states, and their leadership, were quite explicit in their statements of secession and surrounding rhetoric that they were pulling out of the Union because they wanted to protect slavery. As historians have very well documented, the southern claim that they were primarily defending “states rights” or some-such developed *after* the end of the Civil War, and was peddled by many of the same people who had earlier spent their time advocating secession precisely to protect slavery.
Lincoln, on the other hand, placed the unity of the Union above the slavery issue. He didn’t mobilize the Union to get rid of the slavery; that was a positive externality.
I don’t think it requires much repeating that Paul’s general stance on states rights (except when it comes to late-term abortion etc. etc.) is straight out of the defense of Jim Crow, so I hardly think the abandonment of Reconstruction is a point of evidence for his position.
December 24, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Adam12
Lincoln should’ve gone further in avoiding a confrontation with the South, even if it meant having to acknowledge the states’ secession (thus, not traversing the shoreline of South Carolina). After Fort Sumter, Lincoln sent Union troops into the South and as a result thousands perished. It was a precarious time in the country’s history, but SOMETHING could have been done to save 600,000 lives. Admittedly many were under the bonds of slavery, but, like Paul says, we could have bought their freedom.
December 24, 2007 at 9:26 pm
ari
Really, Adam, what evidence do you have that the South would have accepted an offer to purchase freedom for all of the region’s slaves?
December 24, 2007 at 10:44 pm
The Family Atomics
aletoledo writes: “The next defense of going to war some appear to be using is that secession was somehow illegal and Lincoln had the right to force them to stay. If the idea of forcing people to remain in a democracy doesn’t seem a bit odd, then perhaps Lincolns approval of the secession of West Virginia away from Virginia will make you scratch your head. So clearly secession wasn’t illegal as long as it was in the north’s favor.”
In the north’s favor indeed. If you actually believe that the southern states had the ability to secede lawfully (you’re an idiot, but) fine, for the moment. But to suggest that there is some kind of inconsistency in Lincoln’s position and West Va leaving Va is willfully obtuse. Lincoln held that a state’s ability to secede from the Union was illegitimate. What became West Virginia was not seceding from another nation but from rebels in control of their own state, and in order to rejoin the Union; clearly a legitimate action. So what is your point? Oh yeah, this one:
“Imagine for a moment that Poland was to leave the European Union, would you really expect the then to be invaded to force them back in!”
Amazing. The United States and the European Union are equivalents. This is what you are arguing? Really? Dude, only 13 of 27 states even use the Euro. But even granting your silly equivillancy: it wouldn’t be just Poland leaving the Union but (let’s say) the other 14 non-currency-using states leaving and in so doing unmaking much the EU.
But backing up to your defense of the states’ right to secede. By ratifying the Constitution they gave up any/had no such right. The Constitution makes clear that the lands of the Union are governed by the federal government and the state government; but the federal government’s power to uphold and enforce the constitution, and the Union it created, supersedes any power of the states (Article 4 and 6). An action against the federal government, such as secession clearly is, is in violation of the constitution the state had ratified– or clearly, it is within the rights of the federal government to object to such a secession:
“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” (article 6, clause 2) Which roughly translates as ’shut up’ to your third ‘point’ as well.
Unsurprisingly, you are also wrong (but not unforgivably) when you say:
“The final point I’d like to make was the statement by ari that the North won the war because of it’s centralized government. I think it’s generally recognized that the North out-produced in military equipment and the South required imports of weapons to bridge the disparity. It turned into a war of attrition and the north had all the advantages in this type of warfare. Neither government style realistically made much of a difference in this regard when compared to the industrial might of the North.”
You’re not as completely wrong; just in saying that ‘it’s generally recognized’, if you mean by authorities on subject. The disparity in resources was an important factor as you have been so far, but the Confederacy had it’s advantages as well: they had to fight a defensive war (which requires less forces/resources than does an invasion), they had the better officer corp (at least in the beginning of the war).
However the southern government structure was such that it caused a number of obstacles to the Confederate war effort:
1. The central government couldn’t tax its citizens (or at the least, was unwilling to do so). This led to wide-spread inflation as the South was forced to print more and more money to pay for its supplies. The inflation in turn sapped the will of the populace and in many case forced soldiers to choose between fighting and going home to provide for their families.
2. Jefferson Davis could not wield his authority effectively such as when making his states meet the troop quotas he needed. And in several cases state governors (in Georgia and North Carolina) openly defied his orders.
3. There are more but I think these two are enough to make my point. Another point but one that might not fit as squarely on this list is this: The individualistic attitudes that followed states’ secession also led to widespread desertion among Confederate troops leading to a massive desertion of 40% of forces east of the Mississippi in 1864.
In any case, the Union had none of these problems due to its centralized government. Also, this disparity in resources and war-making ability can also be found in the American Revolution; but we won that one. The American revolution also saw the Americans succeeding despite overcoming their being a decentralized government fighting a centralized one (which can also support your point in downplaying the role of a centralized government, to be fair).
In my opinion, it was the disparity in leadership between Lincoln and Davis that tipped the scales in the Union’s favor. Davis was an ego-driven and petty man who was incapable of remaining out of petty internal squabbles with his political opponents, let alone forging important compromises and holding his country together. It was his decision to horde 4.5 million bales of cotton (in the wrong estimation that it would force foreign intervention on their behalf) rather than sell it before the Northern blockade was effective and fill the war chest with gold — a decision that hastened the eventual inflation. He also forced his generals to send their every decision through Richmond for approval and made it impossible for Confederate forces to communicate effectively with one another to form a cohesive war plan — in favor of Davis micromanaging the war effort out of the hands of his generals.
Lincoln was able to compromise within his government with people who openly despised him and acted against him (the Radical republicans hated their own party leader with a fury). Lincoln deployed his diplomatic forces to quell any rising Confederate sympathy abroad (and although it wasn’t entirely successful it) resulted in no official recognition of the Confederacy. And most importantly, although he criticized and made changes in the leaders of the military, he let his generals use their own expertise in tactics and strategy; this ultimately resulted in Grant’s being able to shed the old Jominian paradigm of war on his way to victory.
December 24, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Tim
How the US Civil War could have been avoided is an excellent question and topic–even if just as a thought exercise. I welcome politicians talking about avoiding war in public. Period.
December 24, 2007 at 11:36 pm
me
Ari,
The quotes were a response to “Damn Yankee and Proud,” in his or her post at 12:39: “They lost, and slavery ended.” They didn’t, and it didn’t; the southern “redemptionists” substantially won the peace with mass violence, economic manipulation, and political fraud. As you note, it took another century to consolidate the most basic victories won in the Civil War. The destruction of slavery was the critical moral issue facing the country, but it didn’t really happen. The Civil War failed, which should make us willing to at least discuss other paths that may have taken the country to the same morally necessary goal. That discussion is not neo-Confederate nostalgia.
David Blight has done some exceptionally perceptive recent work on the tensions between the war aim of preserving the nation and the later war aim of providing substantial freedom to emancipated slaves. These were irreconcilable goals; northern and southern whites looked to one another as countrymen again, after the war, by throwing their black countrymen under the bus. As Brooks Simpson wrote, “Reconstruction began at Fort Sumter.” The war was fought over two goals that pushed in opposite directions — national reconciliation, and black freedom and equality — and so could not have fully succeeded. This wasn’t a problem of personalities, and Lincoln’s survival wouldn’t have made a difference.
War, in other words, carried inescapable costs. It had failure built in. Hating slavery, and hating the southern defense of it, we can still see that the thing didn’t work, and took a hundred years to fix. The defense of the war in many of the comments here is reflexive, and built on this facile assumption about slavery ending in 1865. The Civil War was not a success.
December 25, 2007 at 1:29 am
aletoledo
@ Daniel Nexon
“the southern claim that they were primarily defending “states rights” or some-such developed *after* the end of the Civil War,”
Look at the link you gave for for the secession of South Carolina and you’ll see written all through that document the case for states rights. Yes you’re right that the examples given were all based in terms of slavery, but the politics of the issue were property rights. Just look at the Dred Scott case to see why they claimed property rights and you’ll see that same claim of property right violations listed in the very same linked reasons for secession.
In the end though, the Constitution never outlawed slavery, that required the 13th amendment. South Carolina would not have needed to secede purely out of fear of having having an amendment passed, because they could have easily blocked it. What they couldn’t block and you never mentioned, is the reason most wars are fought and that is money. The northern tariffs were isolationist and made the South bear the brunt of the negative repercussions.
It sounds easy to say that the North marched to free Slaves and Southerners were pure evil been on having slaves. Yet the fact is that money makes the world go run and wars aren’t fought without a financial reason (or for power, which relates then to money) .
@ The Family Atomics
“Lincoln held that a state’s ability to secede from the Union was illegitimate. What became West Virginia was not seceding from another nation but from rebels in control of their own state, and in order to rejoin the Union”
So it’s illegitimate to secede from the Union, but its some how legitimate for counties to secede from the state. That is a peculiar double standard, since the Constitution doesn’t even address the right of secession of a state and yet it does address division of the states themselves. So it doesn’t matter if Virginia was a foreign nation, it violated the US Constitution (assuming they were still part of the Union) to have a state divide without the approval of the whole state!
” Lincoln was able to compromise within his government with people who openly despised him and acted against him ”
Those acting against Lincoln were imprisoned without hope of Habeas Corpus by the tens of thousands. Nobody was safe, not even an Ohio congressman who after disagreeing with his policies was literally kicked out of the country. Lincoln even issued an arrest warrant for a SCOTUS Justice when he disagreed with him. Everyone learned quickly to fall in line with Lincolns dictates or else. So its interesting that you equate Davis the lesser man, while Lincoln did things that would make GW Bush cringe!
December 25, 2007 at 2:36 am
abb1
“Paul’s general stance on states rights … is straight out of the defense of Jim Crow”
“…a little tolerant of slavery…”
You know, it’s gotta be possible to be both against racism and for a greater state autonomy, state rights. Just like it’s possible to be both against stalinism and for greater equality and wealth redistribution. You accuse the guy of radicalism, but look at your own rhetoric.
One can be against slavery and pro-union (though I don’t really understand why larger union is necessarily better than a smaller one) - while at the same time being against killing 600 thousand people to immediately end slavery and to preserve the union.
Does it make sense? If not, who is the extremist here?
December 25, 2007 at 4:02 am
raymonty
GOOD STUFF
December 25, 2007 at 5:04 am
p parker
That Tim Russert is an ignorant gasbag is made as a dismissive aside is unfortunate. The Ron Paul lunatics may come & go but until you inform the public that our press today is an elite group that keeps us uninformed (or misinformed) these important topics you discuss will continue to disappear down the memory hole. I know more than I need to about the candidates clothing & hairdos, or what they said or thought in grade school. Go after the mandarins in the press. The general public seems unaware of their bias. They think they’re fair (or too liberal) Don’t worry about Fox news or Limbaugh. Their bias is more honest than those at the NY Times, Washington Post or NBC. Don’t dismiss them. Hammer them
December 25, 2007 at 7:00 am
Daniel Nexon
“You know, it’s gotta be possible to be both against racism and for a greater state autonomy, state rights. Just like it’s possible to be both against stalinism and for greater equality and wealth redistribution. You accuse the guy of radicalism, but look at your own rhetoric.”
Oh, whatever. Paul explicitly argues for states rights in the context of attacking policies that extended civil rights to blacks. This isn’t some sort of slippery slope argument, but a restatement of his own argument.
December 25, 2007 at 7:30 am
bill mcwilliams
What is TPM and why do you use acronyms that only certain readers will know?
If you can’t refute Ron Paul’s points (yes, I know that Russert couldn’t or didn’t, either) and you want more clicks here, then you should at least learn how to communicate what you mean in a clear way. This isn’t texting, you know.
December 25, 2007 at 7:32 am
bj
You notice how he says “You, you buy the slaves and release them.”
Isn’t release what you do to fish?
December 25, 2007 at 7:36 am
Liam
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
According to Ron Paul that only applied to white people. By the way I am a white person.
Ron Paul feels that only white people should decide when and how black people should be treated as equals.
He did not wanted them emancipated. He claims that he wanted the slaves freedom to be purchased by the Federal Government. Keep in mind this is the same Ron Paul that claims that the Federal Government should never be allowed to raise revenues for such expenditures. He claims that only the individual states can make such decisions.
So now we have Ron Paul talking out of both sides of his mouth. He says that States Rights are supreme, and then turns around and declares that the Federal government had the right to spend money to purchase the freedom of slaves, and the slavery states would not be in a position to refuse.
We all no the real truth. Ron Paul is a crypto racist, and dealing out race baiting cards to the vile scum who to this day engage in virtual sheet wearing, and yearn for the past when lynching went mostly unchallenged.
Ron Paul said that he is still, to this day, against the civil rights bill that was enacted to end racial segregation.
Ron Paul is telling us that he does not respect what The Founders of the nation declared. Once more; here is what they said; Someone ask Ron Paul why he thinks that black people are not to be treated in such a manner, but should merely submit to the time frame and tender mercies of white strangers.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
December 25, 2007 at 7:37 am
John McCumber
I’m no libertarian, but Paul is right: we should have immediately freed the slaves by purchase, let them move North, and let the South go its own way. That way the United States would have gained all the smart, creative, hard working Southerners while isolating the Southern whites in their own country, which they could then run according to evangelical law.
December 25, 2007 at 7:38 am
Virginia
It was obviously silly for Paul to take on this irrelevant issue in the first place, but as an intellectual exercise I have to say he echoes some things I have been thinking for a long time (and I should point out that I am a die-hard Democrat and liberal).
I’ve increasingly come to the conclusion that it was a mistake to fight the Civil War. Lincoln should have let the South secede. I think there is a strong argument to be made that we would be better off today. Why?
–Not only would we have saved the 600,000 lives – we also would have avoided this damn Civil War mythos that still haunts the nation today. No Confederate flags. No “lost cause.” No Charlie Daniels.
–The stupidest line in the whole interview was idiot Russert saying “We would still have slavery today.” Poppycock! Paul was right in saying that slavery would have been gone in a few decades. The last Western country to abolish slavery was Brazil, in 1888.
–If the South had been allowed to secede, it would have been totally isolated within a few short years – just as South Africa was in the late 20th century. Slave owners would not have been able to take their “property” outside the Confederacy. The fugitive slave network would have exploded. The pressures to abolish would soon have been overwhelming. I think it quite probable that most of the Southern states (certainly Virginia, for example), would eventually have petitioned to rejoin the Union – but on our terms!
–I’m frankly sick of the Southern tail wagging the dog in our national politics. I think an amicable divorce might have been the best thing. Let them have their medieval theocracy. Give us back our Enlightenment democracy!
December 25, 2007 at 7:54 am
abb1
Look, his positions are near-absolutist positions in many respects, and I understand the reaction, the polemical impulse.
But if you think about it, there’s nothing irrational in his rhetoric; it’s not racist, it’s not superstitious, it’s not nihilistic, he’s just a bit overzealous in advocating some concepts that, in and of themselves, are not at all objectionable: local autonomy, property rights, constitutionalism - sure, at the expense of some other concepts that are also very important.
He is not “more than a little nuts”, he is just a little nuts.
December 25, 2007 at 7:56 am
Liam
Reality Check.
The South started a War of aggression against the military of the National Government.
Enough with all this blather about how Lincoln should not have resisted such Raw naked aggression. The North purchasing the slaves from the South is really a lame excuse. If the South refused to sell them, what would you do then. You have already declared that you are not going to fight back when they have attacked you.
Now ask Ron Paul, where was the Federal Government supposed to get all that money to purchase the slaves from the south. Keep in mind; Ron Paul says that the Federal Government has no right to raise revenues for such enterprises.
Finally. People can start spinning scenarios now, looking back at what has transpired, why it would have been better if Lincoln had let the South go.
Hindsight is 20/20. Lincoln had to make a decision then, and he did not have any way of knowing what would transpire in the hundred years after his death. I suppose he might have decided differently if he had been guided by some future vision type, such as Ronald Reagan’s Astrologer.
December 25, 2007 at 8:13 am
John N
That Ron Paul is over the edge is not simply based on his very odd comments on Meet the Press. His website clearly argues that the UN is out to take away our guns and that we should return to the gold standard for our money.
And as for the quotes on Meet the Press - he knows what show he’s on. He has one minute to answer. He has to choose what to say, what arguments to make, what to ignore. He chose not to praise the Civil Rights movement as a great moment in the progress of American citiizens towards individual liberty - a great moment with some side effects. No, he chose to frame his answer around the great insult done to property rights. Knowing full well that Blacks more or less couldn’t own much property as long as they had less rights than whites. And — if he isn’t stupid — he knows full well that ‘property rights’ is code for ‘keeping the blacks down.’
If he really cared about defending individual right against the government he would be praising how the Civil Rights movement empowered a whole class of people who were being oppressed — and oppressed by the government.
Given Paul’s near total silence on issues of CORPORATE power, I suspect (but can’t claim to have proven) that he is just another neo-liberal desiring a return to wealth-based govenment.
As for Lincoln. I am not a professional student of these issues, but have read a number of histories of the time. I have yet to see any suggestion that there was a serious peace movement in the south that Lincoln could have engaged with. Who in southern leadership was willing to sell off the slaves? Or content with no expansion of slavery to the west?
December 25, 2007 at 8:15 am
abb1
“If the South refused to sell them, what would you do then.”
You would, for example, refuse to trade with them.
But even without doing anything at all, it’s quite obvious that the institution of slavery was already archaic, rapidly declining, on its way out. Industrial revolution, capitalism destroyed slavery not the war. It started making more economic sense to rent or lease than to own workers, that’s all there is to it.
December 25, 2007 at 8:48 am
bookstoysgames
Ron Paul was half right here.
He is absolutely right that it would have been better to have a gradual emancipation, just like the British Empire (see the movie “Amazing Grace”) and Brazil did, with comp