The gods of war
A couple of weeks after I was born, the Ensign’s First Presidency message was entitled The False Gods We Worship. President Kimball takes a topic that he treated similarly in The Miracle of Forgiveness, seven years earlier, into new and progressive areas. As I was preparing for my talk tomorrow on Joshua’s final stand before Israel, my mind turned to Kimball’s treatment.
Many of the items that President Kimball discusses would not seem out of place in today’s discourses. However there are a few that are surprising and one in particular that would be considered shocking:
We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel—ships, planes, missiles, fortifications—and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become antienemy instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan’s counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior’s teaching:
“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
“That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.†(Matt. 5:44–45.)
Kimball goes on to explain that if we would only worship the true God and have faith in Him, putting away our idolatrous ways, we would be preserved as in the days of Enoch. If only he would have seen today.
J. Stapley:
I’m not so certain that he did not see our day. I would argue his words are even more for our day than his. This one of my favorite of President Kimball’s sermons. Vietnam had just concluded, and American was in the midst of its bicentenial celebration. The cold war was raging, and it would be several years yet before the Church would put into practice President Kimball’s counsel in opposing the MX missle system in Utah.
The Book of Mormon backs up President Kimball’s message here. If we but worship the God of this land, Jesus Christ, and keep the commandments we will propsper in the land. Nice post.
Comment by Guy Murray — August 26, 2006 @ 11:22 pm
It is said in the last days that the evil men will run to the mountains and hide away and that it would be pretty much useless. The lord can move mountains and he has more power than any nuclear or weapon of mass distruction. When he says he will protect us the least we can do is believe him. I was born in South Africa and I can attest that the lord will protect us from the evils of the world. it might not have been a true war over there but it was close enough with walls of stone to surround us and guns to protect us. Violence is not the tool of the lord it is satans copywrited tool and so when we pick it up and use it, it will harm us instead. LIve by the sword means we will die by the sword. live by peace and we shall live in peace and safety.
Comment by Nicola Pike — August 27, 2006 @ 12:46 am
I think it’s important to keep a little perspective and remember what happened to Kimball in the end.
Comment by DKL — August 27, 2006 @ 2:29 am
But I think it’s great that you think so highly of Kimball’s teachings–provided you don’t find them morally repugnant, like his statements about dark-skinned Indians becoming white-skinned when they accept and practice the gospel. I too think highly of Kimball’s teachings when I don’t find them morally repugnant.
And I don’t have a lot of patience for Christ’s do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do approach to morality (there’s quite a lot of “oh, ye brood of vipers, how shall you escape the damnation of hellfire” in the Gospels), because it’s frankly hypocritical and it’s just not indicative of the kind of moral perfection we’re taught to expect from a man who’s half deity. No, when enemies threaten the safety of my family, friends, or countrymen, I’m willing to commit substantial resources to making sure that they get tracked down and killed. You can call that love if you want to.
Comment by DKL — August 27, 2006 @ 2:38 am
DKL,
That’s a low blow, man. I think Jesus did do as he said when “love your enemy” became “Father, forgive them.”
Anyway, we’ve had the war argument again and again. Suffice it to say that I do not believe Vietnam (arguably what Kimball had in mind) and Iraq (today’s guerre du jour) represent countries that “threaten[ed] the safety of my family.”
I think we are a warlike people. I say that of my own nation, and I say it after four years observing yours at close hand. I’ve got “Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves”; you’ve got “the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air.” War swells our hearts and makes us oh-so-proud.
I have come to believe that although there may be such a thing as a “just war”, war is always the devil’s business. As soon as you enter it, you are on his territory. Which is why we can enter for good reasons (e.g. withstand Naziism) and end up doing Satan’s bidding (e.g. firebombing Dresden). And the terrible irony is that Satan’s bidding (firebombing Dresden) may well be done for good reasons (withstanding Naziism). What an apalling world this is.
I think there is one God of War and that is Lucifer/Ahriman/Set. I realise that is theologically problematic in a religion that celebrates Joshua and Captain Moroni, but so be it.
Comment by Ronan — August 27, 2006 @ 3:47 am
What is a Latter-day Saint to do in times of war? We may deplore it, but are urged by our leaders to participate. Isn’t this what happened during Vietnam? I wasn’t in the Church then, but apparently it was frowned upon to conscientiously object. (Sorry if I’m covering old ground) But what are some ways an active LDS could object to war? We have a great tradition in the BoM of the Anti-Nephi-Lehis, and an example of how that works in the modern world in the Jehovah’s Witnesses. But most Mormons will quickly dismiss you if you bring this up. I’d like to focus on your last paragraph. Is there any feeling at all that we will be preserved if we worship the true God? We are told we must do all that we can do to protect ourselves first. It’s the old Gospel of Self-Reliance.
Comment by Bored in Vernal — August 27, 2006 @ 6:05 am
Yeah, you’re right Bored, it’s clear which side of this divide the vast majority of LDS are on. I wonder about the GAs though. What do they really think about Iraq, for example?
Comment by MikeInWeHo — August 27, 2006 @ 9:24 am
To the covenant people who keep their covenants, God says:
It is a bit hard to argue that the God of Zion’s camp, who described the Revolutionary War as having “redeemed the land by the shedding of blood” is genuinely a pacifist.
However, the practice of building up an army so strong that you don’t need to rely on the Lord is a classic case of worshiping a false god and President Kimball seems to be onto that with the title of his message. On one hand, America seems to have fallen into this trap by thinking we have an invicible military that no one in the world can take on. Those who think we are invicible and can trust in the arm of flesh have it coming. On the other hand, much of the public opinion surrounding the military actions of late show that many of us do not feel invicible and there has been significant debate over the question of whether we are seeking just ends with war as a last resort.
I won’t say which side I think is right, but I think the prominence of that debate is a good thing. It is indicative of the fact that most people are out their trying to get it right, and it seems obvious that there are a lot of people out there praying that God will fight our battles for us and protect us from evil. They may be wrong in their support for the war (or they may be right), but I view it as a good thing that they are not fully dependent on the arm of flesh.
Comment by Jacob — August 27, 2006 @ 11:33 am
DKL: I think it’s important to keep a little perspective and remember what happened to Kimball in the end.
What do you mean? As I see it, in the end President Kimball became a great prophet, got old, and then died…
Comment by Geoff J — August 27, 2006 @ 11:54 am
Geoff J, that’s exactly what happened, and we should lose no opportunity to say so. Indeed, it should serve as a lesson to us all.
Ronan, saying that we are a warlike people is like saying that a guy with love handles is obese. Aside from the American Civil War, where a war-mongering President interceded in an extra-Constitutional capacity to thwart the self-determination of a people, you’ll be pretty hard pressed to identify a time in the past 2 centuries in which democracies have waged war on each other.
The problem with Vietnam is that the Democrats pulled American troops out, inviting the North Vietnamese to take over South Vietnam, which they did almost one year to the date that the American troops completed their evacuation. Make no mistake, North Korea would have done the same thing had the Democrats pulled American troops out of South Korea. Wouldn’t it have been great if that had happened? Indeed, by keeping troops in South Korea and ensuring a prosperous South Korea, politicians of that time robbed the Democrats of our day of an important opportunity to bemoan an (apparent) American military loss. If you want to talk about a real military loss (not just one created suis generis by defeatist politicians), let’s talk about the Suez Canal.
Comment by DKL — August 27, 2006 @ 12:23 pm
Ronan, the “Father, forgive them” line is normally taken to indicate the Roman soldiers who were following orders in crucifying him. That’s why he said it on the cross, and not at the sentencing. The New Testament records Christ as having nothing but vitriol for the Pharisees of Jerusalem, obscuring the fact that Christ’s teachings were entirely consistent with the teachings of the Pharisees. Even Christ’s claim to be the messiah would have been greeted with a wait-and-see brand of optimism (as Gamaliel–a typical pharisee in history, but atypical in the New Testament–displays in Acts 5).
Comment by DKL — August 27, 2006 @ 12:32 pm
Ha ha! The French, Brits, and Israelis won the Suez war, then the Yanks stabbed them in the back. 50 years on and we’re still bitter about it. I mean, Ike threatening to sell off US sterling reserves? What a bastard!
Jacob,
That’s a good point about building a military so strong that you think invincibility has been achieved.
Comment by Ronan — August 27, 2006 @ 12:37 pm
DKL: Geoff J, that’s exactly what happened, and we should lose no opportunity to say so. Indeed, it should serve as a lesson to us all.
Ha! Ok, I’ll bite. What does “what happened to Kimball” have to do with this post?
Comment by Geoff J — August 27, 2006 @ 1:22 pm
Off topic: I like the Def Leppard song, “Gods of War.”
On topic: I am not a student of foreign policy, but in the nature of general comment I think that any lessening of war-like tendencies must be accompanied by a foreign policy that takes the golden rule seriously. Maybe that’s naive.
Comment by Jared — August 27, 2006 @ 2:11 pm
Wow,
Taking the pharisees side in the debate, just when you think you have seen it all. I agree the savior had some of his harshest, choicest words for the Pharisees, but that would lead me more to the question of what they were doing wrong than accusing the savior of vitriol. That is a position only a political scientist could make. Yeah, that Jesus of Nazareth sure had it coming, Puh-Leaze.
Comment by Doc — August 27, 2006 @ 2:38 pm
One of the comments was that the Civil War was against the people’s will, and that Lincoln acted unconstitutionally. Is that ever wrong?
The South had between 9 & 10 million people. About 1/3 [over 3 million] were slaves. Almost as many as fought for the South, escaped the South and fought for the North. Thus, the South’s decision to secede did NOT represent the majority of the South. Even Thomas Jefferson, who made some statements in favor of secession as a principle, thought that secession was bad if done for wrong reasons; otherwise, the nation could not last if any state, when displeased, could leave the Union.
The Civil War ended slavery.
About another’s comment on President Kimball, I know of nothing “morally repugnant” about President Kimball’s teachings, only something “morally repugnant” about the commentator who said that.
Comment by YL — August 27, 2006 @ 3:17 pm
DKL,
the US and other “democracies” have engaged in countless wars. The US was founded on the eradication of one group and enslavement of another. we have invaded the philippines, many south pacific island, most of central america, assassinated leaders such as allende, all for economic interests. we have overthrown many democracies that were not to our liking. war like, hell we’ve been involved in more wars and destruction than any nation on the earth.
and as to scriptures citing any of these events, there is a difference between observation and endorsement.
lastly, I agree Christ had it coming. why? cause he chose to denounce evil, the evils of his day and not check out of society as many Christians do or take arms as many do, but to take up the cross. this is my Christ. the one who counts the costs of civil disobedience even to the cross.
what are we to do as LDS? I pledge allegiance to one man, Christ. and him only after the cross and his resurecction 3 days later. He told us and we have our answer, the sermon on the mount.
Comment by josh madson — August 27, 2006 @ 3:37 pm
Jared: Off topic: I like the Def Leppard song, “Gods of War.â€
The Pink Floyd song, “Dogs of War” is much better, and most dyslexics don’t know that it isn’t about deities.
YL, there was never any pretense that the Civil War was about slavery until Lincoln could use the issue to keep Great Britain from recognizing the CSA and therefore block financing from European banks. The CSA seceded from the USA, just as the several states seceded from the Articles of Confederation 80 years earlier–in spite of a clause in the Articles themselves that explicitly made the Articles binding in perpetuity.
Lincoln never had any pretense of being an abolitionist, he had no real interest in the fate of slaves as such, and the Emancipation Proclamation was a ploy no foment insurrection among slaves in the CSA. (Lincoln’s own 2nd inaugural address, which attempts to explain the war, fails utterly in connecting the issue of slavery to the outbreak of the war.) In fact, in an effort to prove that the war was not being fought over slavery, President Jefferson Davis offered to free the slaves in exchange for recognition by Great Britain, but by the time word reached Great Britain about this, the CSA had already lost Antietam and this caused foreign powers to be more circumspect about recognizing them for strategic reasons.)
(Charles Francis Adams, the grandson of John Adams worked in England to block this recognition, advancing lies and propaganda to damage CSA interests, thereby heaping disgrace onto a family name by preventing the self-determination of a nation [the CSA], and working counter to every principle his grandfather John Adams had stood for when working to secure the self-determination of another nation [the USA]).
Lincoln’s thirst for power led him to hold elections that required voters to take oaths before voting, forcefully disbanded the democratically elected republican governments of states, and ensured his own re-election by stuffing the electoral ballot box with results from sham governments that he set up to submit votes for the CSA states that were no longer in the union. He might as well have been a far-eastern warlord for the contempt that he showed for freedom whenever it brushed up against his thirst for power.
Comment by DKL — August 27, 2006 @ 4:11 pm
From Steve Sailer:
War: the human race just isn’t trying very hard anymore
As part of my daylong obsession with providing some perspective on war in the modern world, in contrast to the fevered discussions you’ll find elsewhere, I took a look at military spending as a percent of the economy.
n 1944, the U.S. spent 38% of its GDP on the military. The U.S. defense budget ran around 9% of GDP in the 1950s after the Korean War, and was fairly similar in the 1960s. In the 1980s, it approached 6%. Today, even while fighting in Iraq, we’re down around 4%.
And yet, despite this decline, we spend 47% of all the money on the military in the world, by one estimate. According to the CIA World Factbook, the world only spends about 2% of the global gross product on the military today.
Lots of other countries that you might think of as big spenders, aren’t. According to the [CIA] Factbook:
Iran, which everybody knows intends to blow up the world, is spending all of 3.3% of its GDP on the military.
China which is widely said to be hellbent for leather to displace us is spending 4.3% of their GDP on their military - a bit more than us relative to the size of their economy, but hardly comparing to the Soviet Union’s devotion to arms back in the bad old days. (I saw one estimate of 15-17% in 1988, but I bet it might have been even higher.) Taiwan, which is supposed to be so threatened by China, is spending all of 2.4%.
South Korea, which has crazy North Korea across the border, spends only 2.6%. Then there are Pakistan 3.9% and India 2.5%. Others include Australia 2.7%, Canada 1.1%, Libya 3.9%, Syria 5.9%, Egypt 3.4%, Turkey 5.3%, Kuwait 4.2%, Vietnam 2.5%, Indonesia 3.0%, Rwanda 2.9%, Cuba 1.8%, Venezuela 1.2%, Colombia 3.4%, France 2.6%, United Kingdom 2.4%, Germany 1.5%, Brazil 1.3%, Japan 1.0%, Kazakhstan 0.9%, and Mexico 0.8%. The two countries that claim zero spending on the military are Iceland and the Dominican Republic.
So, who are the big spenders? Israel 7.7% (a lot, but less than the U.S. spent in the 1960s), Angola 8.8%, Saudi Arabia 10%, Oman 10.0%, Qatar 11.4%, and Jordan 11.4%.
Nobody knows much about North Korea, but the Factbook suggests 12.5% as a guess.
So, who had the highest military share of all those I looked at?
It’s the War Nerd’s favorite foreign country, Eritrea at 17.7%.
In summary, the human race just isn’t trying very hard anymore to blow each other up.
Comment by John Mansfield — August 27, 2006 @ 4:40 pm
“The problem with Vietnam is that the Democrats pulled American troops out, inviting the North Vietnamese to take over South Vietnam, which they did almost one year to the date that the American troops completed their evacuation.”
Read Graham Greene’s The Quiet American and you will see how, if only our generals had paid more attention to the French experience, a tragic war might have been avoided. Viet Nam was always about the determination of a nationalist movement to unify the country. Even the chief war architects, most notably Robert McNamara, later repented their belligerance. And why shouldn’t the Democrats have urged the removal of American forces? Of what value was Viet Nam then or now to our national interests?
Comment by Paul Wright — August 27, 2006 @ 4:43 pm
Pacifism schmacifism.
Who said that “building the kingdom of God” was inherently anti-war? Who ever said that the spread of the Gospel couldn’t benefit from a few choice wars here and there?
My primary concern with world politics is the spread of the true Gospel of the Living God. If a war furthers that objective, so be it. If the destruction of the United States is required for its accomplishment, that is terrible, but so be it.
The United States, like all other nations, is merely a tool in God’s hands. “Shall the axe boast against Him that heweth therewith?” Tools are meant to be used. When they are no longer useful, I do not intend to be overly-sentimental about putting them aside.
Roman Catholicism benefitted inestimably from its ties to the Roman Empire. For quite some time, its fate seemed inextricably linked to the well being of Rome.
But as it turned out, when it was time to move beyond Rome to other things, Catholicism did so. The Fall of Rome was terrible, but Christianity endured.
Can we expect anything less of God’s one true religion?
Comment by Seth R. — August 27, 2006 @ 5:20 pm
The Democrats pulled the troops out of Vietnam? I guess we really don’t have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore.
Comment by Jonathan Green — August 27, 2006 @ 5:22 pm
The President Kimball quote calls to mind statements made by Pres. Snow and FP member J.R. Clark on the subject of war and peace, all in striking contrast to our Sunday School lesson today, where he had occasion to review the over-the-top sordid events and mass slaughters and rapes recounted in in Judges 19-21:
President Lorenzo Snow [From speech originally delivered at the Centennial Services in the Salt Lake Tabernacle on January 1, 1901. It was published as a pamphlet.] :
The following is a statement apostle and First Presidency member J. Reuben Clark drafted in February 1945 for use by the First Presidency. It was not published, but the FP used it in lobbying legislatures against a peace-time military draft.
Elder Statesman: A biography of J. Reuben Clark, (Salt Lake City: Signature Books (2002)). 307-308, citing manuscript draft, 5 Feb 1945, of statement against peacetime conscription, folder seven, box 371, JRC papers, BYU Special Collections.
Comment by Stirling — August 27, 2006 @ 5:27 pm
I’m not so certain that he did not see our day. I would argue his words are even more for our day than his.
We were going over some of those today in Gospel Doctrine
like his statements about things he had actually seen. I’m still uncomfortable about the case I saw. There are some miracles I’d rather have not encountered.
A lot not to think about this week, maybe I’ll think more next week.
Comment by Stephen M (Ethesis) — August 27, 2006 @ 5:29 pm
Seth,
You state that your concern is the spread of the gospel and building up of the kingdom; and that such building may include war and violence.
The second you spread the gospel by force, war, violence it ceases to be the gospel.
And as for those you kill, they still have their opinions and still need the gospel. you’ve merely changed the venue to the spirit world. The kingdom is built up by changing hearts and minds not destroying them.
love your enemies, bless them that curse you, turn the other cheek, don’t even have thoughts of murder or killing. Jesus and his gospel are not imperialistic and spread through force, much to the dismay of many Jews of his day. Apparently you didn’t get the memo.
Comment by Josh Madson — August 27, 2006 @ 5:57 pm
Paul, I’ve read Greene’s short story and seen the movie. The one that speaks to the issue much more is The Ugly American.
Paul, the architect of the policy in Vietnam was Eisenhower. In (around) 1956 (perhaps 1954?) the French suffered their final defeat and withdrew from Vietnam. The French never got past the problems associated with their being imperial overlords. Eisenhower felt that the USA was uniquely suited to protect South Vietnam from Chinese communism, because it didn’t have the baggage associated with Colonialism, and because Ho Chi Min had been an ally of the US in his opposition to Japan during WWII (he was actually air-lifted from Vietnam and taken to Guam or Honolulu [I can't remember] in order to treat him for malaria). This led Eisenhower to publicly commit to filling the void left in Vietnam by the French after they left. Kennedy’s policy merely fulfilled Eisenhower’s policy goals, and MacNamara mismanaged the implementation.
The French lost because they mismanaged the war and had goals that were unattainable. The Paris treaty that Kissenger negotiated to end the Vietnam war dictated terms roughly equivalent to the terms according to which the Korean War ended. There was no “miscalculation.” There was an end of the war, and a Vietnam divided along the lines that it had been divided on for at least 15 years already. Nor were the Vietnamese any more attached to a unified Vietnam than the Koreans were attached to a unified Korea.
Make no mistake: America achieved at least some of its goals in South Vietnam–it wasn’t a total loss, as was (for example) the war of 1812, wich achieved none of its goals and the negotiated end was less favorable to the US than the status quo before the war. Moreover, the Paris treaty and Nixon’s troop commitments set the stage for a preservable peace. The Democrats pulled the rug out from under this peace by removing all the troops, and inviting North Vietnam to violate the treaty without consequence.
Comment by DKL — August 27, 2006 @ 6:05 pm
I remember kicking my co-author under the table when he, while talking to a very conservative Southerner, referred to the Civil War as “the war against Northern Agression.” I cannot reach DKL to kick him, so I’m doing it virtually. I disagree that Lincoln’s 2nd inaugural address failed to link slavery to the outbreak of the Civil war. “If we shall suppose that …[God] gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense [referring to slavery] came, shall we discern… any departure from the divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?” Not only does Lincoln link slavery with the war, he suggests that God willed the war as a punishment to any involved in the slave trade. And though Lincoln was NOT an abolitionist, he did say–before the war–”If slavery is not evil, then nothing is evil.” I love the sermon Jonathan refers to and remember when Pres. Kimball soundly condemned all involved in the development of the MX missile. It was a terribly controversial statement at the time (and seemed especially controversial given the support the Church had given the effort against Viet Nam and its strong counsel to young Mormon men to NOT avoid the draft.) Pres. Kimball’s statement on the MX made all the major newspapers. I’d love to see headlines today like those. I have considered the wars the U.S. has fought and wondered if any were actually necessary. I’d say that perhaps there were two: the Civil War and WWII (and I’m not fully convinced on either). But the fact that we are a “warlike people” is supported by the extremes we went to once involved in those possibly justifiable wars–new, more effective killing machines in the Civil War, and firebombing and nuclear bombs in WWII. DKL comments that we rarely see DEMOCRACIES fighting each other, but that’s one of the issues. We generally do not see strong countries carrying their popular support to fight other strong countries wielding THEIR popular support. We see bullying of strong nations over weak, often Third World nations, and we casually drop euphemisms for the truth of what these nations are doing. For example, we’re not killing thousands of innocent Iraquis or Vietnamese, we’re fighting “a war on terror” or a “war on Communism.” Euphemisms are a favorite tool of warmongers. (See Hannah Arendt’s _Eichman in Jerusalem: The Banality of Evil_.) Can good come out of these wars? Sure! It’s a good thing to get Saddam Hussein out of power, but he’s one of many puny megalomanics in this world. And was his capture worth the price paid and yet to be paid? Obviously, there’s a debate there. My opinion is pretty obvious. If the draft were to reappear in the U.S., I would personally drive my son to Canada to avoid it–not just because I’d want him out of harm’s way, but because I fear what the acts of war would do to his soul.
Comment by Margaret Young — August 27, 2006 @ 6:17 pm
Whether or not Lincoln invaded the South because of slavery, the fact remains that he was a vicious, brutal, wicked warmonger for invading another country unprovoked. He clearly failed to “love thy enemy.” He must have been from Texas.
Comment by Eric Russell — August 27, 2006 @ 6:25 pm
Josh Madsen: The second you spread the gospel by force, war, violence it ceases to be the gospel.
I see what you’re saying, and I agree with you in a qualified sense. Where I see a problem is here: It may take a war to establish religious freedom, which is a necessary condition for missionary work. So, though the missionaries themselves minister to people with love, the armies are necessary to secure (and protect) the environment that allows their ministry to exist and prosper.
Margaret, you’re right that Lincoln invokes God to justify his war. My point is that he fails to link the outbreak of the war to slavery. It takes more than a self-serving reference to divine sanction (self-serving, because it was self-justifying, even if he made the rhetorical admission that the blade was cutting both ways against the North and the South in order to justify the sacrifices the war entailed). Lincoln said thing condemning slavery, but so did Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, both of whom owned slaves (Hamilton in the north, and Jefferson in the south).
The reason is that slavery was not in any sense the immediate cause of the war, and attempts to explain the outbreak in terms of slavery are invariably convoluted and contrived. The vast majority of CSA soldiers did not own slaves. I’ve yet to find a convincing explanation for why they’d fight in what was effectively a volunteer army to preserve slavery. Kenneth Stamp is the only one I’ve read who actually tries to address this question head on, and his is (basically) that they saw it as part of an overarching lifestyle that they participated in–sheer speculation, and not convincing by any means.
The bottom line is this: the North was as indifferent to the plight of slaves as the South was. According to the 1860 census record, about 500,000 slaves (1/8 of 4 million total slaves) resided in states that did not join the CSA . The abolitionists were basically a fringe group as defined by the political mainstream of their day (in my opinion, the 1920s-era revisionist account [I want to say it's Charles Beard, but I can't quite remember] that they were old-Federalists scrounging in self-interested ways to be relevant in a changing nation rings true to me). Anti-slavery became a hobby-horse of the North during the war for ruthlessly pragmatic reasons, not related at all to any concern for the rights of slaves. People complain that the goals of the war-on-terror are a moving target, tailor made to suit the needs of changing opinion; such were the goals of the USA in the Civil War, as well.
In any case, the view that the Civil War was fought over slavery gives the USA way too much of a pass when it comes to the history of racism and racial strife on our soil–perhaps to the extant that it belittles the 20th century civil-rights struggle, because it makes it seem less besieged on all sides than it was, and because it seems to create historical precedents for genuinely unprecedented accomplishments.
Comment by DKL — August 27, 2006 @ 6:40 pm
I love Lincoln. I love what he did. I don’t know all the deeper implications of power/politics, what politician isn’t power hungry? But I think he did the right thing.
That fact that there is still a civil rights struggle today and that black people continue to be discriminated against and lynched cannot diminish the enormity of what we accomplished in the Civil War.
Slavery still exists in large parts of the world today, uncondemned. We have a long way to go, but we are a good people.
To paraphrase a quote from AA: “We ain’t what we could be, we ain’t what we ought to be, but praise God, we ain’t what we used to be, either.”
I think if we’re going to get heated up over slavery, we should go to west Africa and raise heck. Those people sold each other into slavery. Without their complicity, the slave, what do you call those guys? dealers? couldn’t have succeeded.
Comment by annegb — August 27, 2006 @ 6:51 pm
Sorry for facts to get in the way of a happy round of denouncing the bellicosity of other people (as if they could), but the stats I quoted in comment 19 indicate that the United States and the world as a whole are not devoted to militarism these days.
Comment by John Mansfield — August 27, 2006 @ 6:54 pm
Margaret, I should add that, though I live in Boston, I was raised and educated (to the extant that I was educated) in Virginia. I realized once I went to college out west that I had been taught a different history than most of my fellow students.
My parents on both sides have deeply Southern roots. I take my Boston-born daughters to (for example) the Stone Wall Jackson Shrine and give them point-by-point refutations of guide narratives on the way home from historical sites that we visit up here that want to congratulate the North for it’s role in eradicating racial strife (as they did in Boston with the school bussing mess of the early ’70s, right?) In any case, I’m fully aware that my viewpoint is a peculiar one, in the scheme of things.
Eric Russell: Well said.
Comment by DKL — August 27, 2006 @ 6:57 pm
DKL,
Im sorry, but this idea that we were stopping the spread of Chinese communism in Vietnam is wrong. MacNamara himself, in Fog of War (a very good movie btw), finally realized this after talking to many Vietnamese leaders of the time. All the wanted was to be independent. They had been fighting the chinese for a thousand years before we ever showed up. Ho Chi Minh wanted free elctions and Vietnam and we wouldn’t let it take place because we knew he would win. Ho Chi Minh had his own Declaration of Independence and interestingly enough died with a copy of John Brown’s autobiography at his bedside.
As to you point that freedom is necessary for the spread of the gospel. There are more than one way to have freedom. I think the Sons of Mosiah is a perfect example of how changing hearts and minds and trusting in the Lord can change political condtions thereby facilitating missionary work.
Comment by Josh Madson — August 27, 2006 @ 7:07 pm
Josh, if you trust MacNamara, then we’ll have to agree to disagree. In my book, he’s no less a mistaken fool now than he was then.
Ho Chi Min was a master propagandist, and he wrote his declaration of independence to ape ours in an attempt to win sympathy from the US at a time when we were siding with the French because they were our allies–many historians believe that this was before communists got involved at all.
But what is indisputable is that North Vietnam was communist and was funded by China. Vietnam did not end up merely as an independent, unified nation, but a communist one under the influence of China. Was this just a coincidence?
Comment by DKL — August 27, 2006 @ 7:12 pm
DKl,
You must get awfully tired stretching forths your arm against the mainstream like that all the time. Have you ever managed to turn it back?
The civil rights movement was a completion of the North’s victory in the civil war, The South ended up winning their way in the reconstruction leading to a system that could not stand, and yet hobbled along another 100 years until the 1960s until it could stand no more. These two events are inextricably linked regardless of whatever counterrevisionist theory of history one buys into.
Comment by Doc — August 27, 2006 @ 7:31 pm
Doc, the problem with your thesis is that reconstruction worked. Blacks are more prosperous in the South than they are in any other area of the nation, and more blacks are moving there than are moving to any other part of the nation (and more are moving there than leaving).
The South generally did have a more severe problem with racism toward blacks than the North. But the problems with racism toward blacks in the North were still legion. Plus, racism isn’t a single dimension phenomenon–it comes in many stripes. Anti-semitism almost entirely something that occurs in the North. The demographics of Jews in the South were indistinguishable from those of non-Jews (something that anti-semitic black-nationalists make a lot of hay out of, trying to blame Jews for slavery). CSA Secretary of Treasury Judah Benjamin was Jewish, and was Jefferson Davis’s closest friend.
In my mind, your notion that the civil rights movement completed the North’s victory is an assault on the accomplishments of civil rights leaders.
Comment by DKL — August 27, 2006 @ 7:45 pm
Josh Madsen,
That really wasn’t my point.
I’m not really eager to go out and “kill the infidels.”
Comment by Seth R. — August 27, 2006 @ 7:46 pm
John (#19),
Nice stats, thanks. It would be interesting to couple this with stats on the historical trends in inter-national charitable giving. I haven’t seen any stats, but I’d bet at the same time our military giving has gone down as a percent of GDP, our charitable giving to other countries has gone up substantially.
Comment by Jacob — August 27, 2006 @ 7:47 pm
You know, I ended out using the original Kimball quote in my talk today. Oddly (at least to me), I almost wept as I read it. Perhaps it is touching, because I am fairly neoconservative and it raises so many questions.
Comment by J. Stapley — August 27, 2006 @ 7:47 pm
John, I hear what you are saying but this year in the US 20,000 people will die as a result of AIDS. Contrast that number with the number of people killed in the “war on terror”. I don’t have numbers for funding for AIDS research but I’m willing to guess its a helluva lot less than 4% GDP. It seems we are still a lot more bothered about bombing each other than we are about looking after the sick.
Comment by gomez — August 27, 2006 @ 7:53 pm
The early reconstruction saw a slew of Black legistators who managed to pass very ambitious civil rights legislation, create racially integrated public school systems, freed slaves were promised 40 acres and a mule and everything looked rosy. The demoralized plantation owners could not and would not stand for this and united in a powerful backlash which completely gutted all this. The South was left with a sharecropper system that was essentially an extension of slavery the rise of the Jim Crow legislation. This is the South which gave birth to the Civil Rights movement a century later. In the meantime, sharecroppers desparately fled North to survive. the African population in Detroit, Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis burgeoned as people prosperity was only to be found with jobs in the industrialized North. I know they must have migrated sometime because their descendants are still there.
Were you referring to better living conditions for Blacks in the South now or then? I very much doubt prosperity in the South at present has anything to do with Civil War reconstruction.
I don’t see how my assertion dimishes anything the leaders of the movement accomplished. It just links them together into one slow but mighty rolling boulder of justice. It emphasizes to me just how gargantuan the hurdles were that needed to be cleared.
Comment by Doc — August 27, 2006 @ 8:13 pm
Oh, and yes, the North was absolutely plum full of its own bigots. We are agreed. I am not trying to pick on the South at all.
Comment by Doc — August 27, 2006 @ 8:15 pm
Doc, you paint a vastly simplified portrait of reconstruction South. To pick a specific example that is more typical, take Jefferson Davis. Bankrupted by spending years in jail without being charged or tried, then released under threat of being recalled, so that he couldn’t hold a job, Davis sold his farm to his former chief slave, taking an IOU in return. When his former slave defaulted on the loan because of the very poor economic conditions of the post-civil war south (and no fault of his own), Davis had no recourse. At that point, he was too old and too ill to run a farm. He ended up giving it away to his former slave.
These “demoralized plantation owners” you mention were mostly former land-owners whose property was confiscated by Lincoln’s illegal property tax which stipulated that the person whose name was on the deed had to pay the tax. The purpose of this was to grab land from soldiers and displace their families while they fought the war. Federal Tax collectors showed up to collect taxes, when some relative offered the funds, the tax collectors confiscated the property and threw the family out on their ear. None of this property was returned (Lee’s mansion, aka, The Arlington House, which sits across the Potomac from DC, and which the USA turned into a cemetery, was returned to the Lee family around 1976, but I don’t recall if this was confiscated under the cover of the extra-constitutional property tax or just as a war trophy.)
There were injustices on all sides, and misplaced blame by the reconstruction and post-reconstruction governments alike. But there was no more corruption or subjugation in the South by virtue of racism than there was in the north by virtue of its political machines and organize crime. Racist courts in the south weren’t any different from tampered juries and payroll judges of the North. Nor are gang wars any different from racist violence. It’s just that racist massacres lend themselves to tragic-toned moralizing like Richard Rubin’s piece on the Colfax Riots in the July/Augest 2003 Atlantic Monthly, and organized crime lends itself to glamorized portrayals in Oscar winning movies and an award winning HBO original series.
The problem with painting the reconstruction in terms of black vs. white waves is that it carries on the myth of the righteous north vs. the evil south. There’s no mystery about how (say) South Carolina grew to despise Massachusetts (and vice versa). But what about Virginia and Maryland? They weren’t so very different from each other. Both were slave states, and Maryland would have joined the CSA had Lincoln not sent (in May 1861) armed Federal Marshalls to dissolve the state legislature, confiscate all weapons (privately owned and otherwise) in the Baltimore region, and institute sham elections that required an unconstitutional oath to be administered prior to voting. According to your oversimplified hypothesis, Maryland and Virginia pursued sharply divergent historical paths after reconstruction. Given their history, proximity, and similarity, this defies common-sense.
Your statement that the civil rights movement is the completion of the northern victory trivializes the achievements of civil rights leaders, because it posits allies and momentum that they absolutely did not have. The north was not on their side. There was no momentum from the victory of the civil war to draw on. They did achieved what they achieved on their own. And I think it’s a bit presumptuous of white people to congratulate themselves about how much the civil war helped blacks, when it really had nothing to do with that at all.
Comment by DKL — August 27, 2006 @ 8:55 pm
Josh Madson,
One of the problems with using the “Sons of Mosiah” story to bolster your argument is that you have to factor in the resultant escalation in warfare between the Lamanites and Nephites because of the division among the Lamanites.
Comment by Jack — August 27, 2006 @ 9:20 pm
While I definitely think there is a current relevancy to Pres. Kimball’s words and think one of Bush’s great failings is to focus on the military too much, I’d object to the idea that we are simply anti-enemy and not pro-kingdom of God. One could argue that the whole neo-Con position (now so often ridiculed) was to build up and help others rather than simply building up armies. So most neo-Cons favored a huge Marshall styled plan for Iraq, Afghanistan and even other parts of the region. They favored having at least twice as many troops so as to maintain the peace and ensure that building projects worked.
I’d further note that we are spending a hell of a lot of money in Iraq and Afghanistan on rebuilding and the like. Now you can critique the competency of how this is done, and I’d probably often agree. But I honestly don’t think we’re in a situation akin to say the Cold War where it was all about the military. In fact the worry I have is that as Iraq gets worse and anything remotely smelling like neo-con ideology gets lambasted that we’re moving back to a Kissengeresque Real Politic that is exactly like what Pres. Kimball was condemning. And that’s what I really fear.
Comment by Clark — August 27, 2006 @ 9:37 pm
I almost used that quote in my lesson today, but I couldn’t find a place to slip it in. Perhaps another time.
It wasn’t war that brought the Gospel to Russia. It wasn’t war that brought the gospel to East Germany.
I doubt that this current war will bring the gospel to Iraq anytime soon. The current “civil war” has made sure of that.
Even in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, we find few instances where war brings the gospel to other nations.
Perhaps someone could enlighten me on some examples?
Comment by Ian Cook — August 27, 2006 @ 9:38 pm
Ian,
Maybe war per se (excluding U.S. military aid to Afghanistan) didn’t bring the gospel to Russia, but the arms race certainly had something to do with it–or at least had something to do with speeding up the decline of the USSR.
Comment by Jack — August 27, 2006 @ 10:27 pm
RE: Viet Nam, while the ground might have been set by Eisenhower and Kennedy I think it took Johnson to really screw it up. By then Nixon wanted to save face and was, in some ways, starting to turn the war around. However arguably it wasn’t worth it for the face saving and ultimately public opinion was too far gone by then. Further I think one can point to a lot of unethical behavior on our side.
RE: Wars by Democracies. While there haven’t been wars between Democracies I think many Democracies have launched wars for purely selfish reasons many times including the US who seems to have invaded quite a few Carribean islands, Central American nations and even Hawaii for rather questionable reasons.
RE: The War of 1812. While I tend to favor a Canadian view on it all, I think though it was that war that really solidified the US as a true nation. It was an unnecessary war often pushed for questionable reasons. And the US was lucky that most of Britain’s crack troops were busy with France. Further the major victory the US won came after the war was technically over. Still, I’m not sure I’d ultimately call it a defeat. The US gained a lot from it even if the Plains of Abraham once again made US Generals look bad.
Comment by Clark — August 27, 2006 @ 10:28 pm
DKL,
Agreed, the North should not get credit for the civil rights movement. I would never make such a claim. They dropped the ball on reconstruction. They lacked to political will to make changes stick which then took a century to take hold again through the remarkable achievements of the Civil Rights leaders. I merely tie the two together because many of the changes Civil Rights brought were in action ever so briefly in the Post War period before being snuffed out.
As for the reconstruction taking its toll on everyone, land owners included, with injustices on all sides, what can I say. Sounds like maybe SWK and his point about the false gods of war (and the tangent comes back full circle.)
Comment by Doc — August 28, 2006 @ 6:25 am
The U.S. Civil War was about whether states could elect to dissolve bonds with the federal government or not, but what was succession about? Well, the South Carolina Declaration of Succession was plain enough on that. “[A]n increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery” was interfering with slaveholding. Also:
Comment by John Mansfield — August 28, 2006 @ 6:38 am
Please replace “succession” with “secession” in the above. My apologies for such ugliness.
Comment by John Mansfield — August 28, 2006 @ 6:51 am
You know, one of the things I love about DKL is his exceptional skill at scriptural exegesis, that takes into account deep knowledge and understanding of hermeneutics, historical context and every subtle nuance of rhetorical style and skill. That, and the way he eschews trendy pop trash authored by atheists for the more intellectually rigorous pursuits of textual criticism by skilled philologists. Also, its good to see he doesnt mix his personal politics and animus with his views on the scriptures. BIG HUGS, DKL.
Comment by Extreme Dorito — August 28, 2006 @ 7:11 am
John, first, South Carolina’s declaration does not speak to the CSA. Second, the declaration uses the term “slave owning states” instead of “The South” because it is trying to influence the actions of other slave owning states–not just the slave-owning states of the South. If it had simply said, “The South,” it would have no ability to appeal to non-Southern slave states like Maryland or Deleware. Thus, your citation gives an incorrect impression by ignoring the political context of a political document.
People always bring up this declaration to avoid the real issues of the war. As I commented earlier, “The vast majority of CSA soldiers did not own slaves. I’ve yet to find a convincing explanation for why they’d fight in what was effectively a volunteer army to preserve slavery.”
Extreme Dorito, I’ll pit my scriptural exegesis against yours any day. The problem with the New Testament is that it contains no latent theology. It is a mess of contradictions that must be approached with a full-blown theology already in hand in order to be made sense of.
Hermeneuticists are inclined to say that this problem exists with every text, because all texts require a contextual framework in order to be understand. But some texts are friendly to a greater multiplicity of frameworks than others (e.g., the statement, “The working man deserves a fair shake” is friendly to more frameworks than the statement, “All working men should earn at least US$50,000 for working 200 8 hours workdays”). The New Testament is friendly to a set of frameworks that approaches the largest possible set of frameworks possible. This is what causes the confusion among religions that Joseph Smith noted and that continues to this day.
Comment by DKL — August 28, 2006 @ 8:53 am
David,
Your exegesis is terrible, always has been. That isnt up for debate. You are grossly ignorant of the Scriptures, and have displayed that ignorance in so many ways so many times its just redundantly stating the obvious. Your statement above simply proves the point that your approach to them is nothing but a rollup of personal politics, selective sophistry and heaping helpings of ignorance.
Kurt, the Extreme Dorito.
P.S. Anytime you really want to duke it out. Start up a blog and post on something Scriptural, and I will tear your arm off and beat you with it.
Comment by Extreme Dorito — August 28, 2006 @ 9:23 am
RE: #53, #54
Speaking of warlike people…
Is anyone else having a little chuckle about this thread?
Comment by Halcyon — August 28, 2006 @ 10:42 am
That’s great, Kurt.
Halcyon, I love this thread. It both amusing, entertaining, and edifying all at once. And yes, I’ve gotten several chuckles.
Comment by DKL — August 28, 2006 @ 11:28 am
David, I’m not following you. Are you saying that South Carolina (as well as Mississippi, Georgia and Texas didn’t secede from the United States because 1) fugitive slaves were not being returned to their owners, 2) expansion of slavery into new territories was being impeded, and 3) protectionist tarriffs that benefitted the industrial northeast were harming agricultural states, but only claimed those were their reasons because that was the politically clever stance to pose? And that the existence of the CSA was unconnected to the calls of legislatures of several seceeding states for such a union?
Also a tidbit: the Mason-Dixon line is the northern border of Maryland.
Comment by John Mansfield — August 28, 2006 @ 11:38 am
It would be quite daring to issue proposals of living peace in the midst of warfare.
One of my favorite stories is of a Zen monk in Japan during the reign of the samurai. A village is in the path of an oncoming band of samurai warriors, and all the villagers evacuate to the nearby hills except for one monk, who remains seated in meditation in the village square. When the samurai arrive, the leader confronts the monk and says, “Why have you not fled the village? Do you not know that I am the sort of person who could run you through without batting an eye?” The monk responds, “Do you not know that I am the sort of person who could be run through without batting an eye?”
I’m also reminded of Gandhi’s response to violence that erupted in the first nationwide civil disobedience campaign that he led in India. Although thousands engaged in non-violent protest and submitted to arrest, in several places, mob violence resulted in death and looting.
He later wrote:
–Gandhi’s Autobiography (Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1948), 565-66.
I suspect that part of what would be required to truly wage peace would be to have people like the monk, or the Anti-Nephi Lehies, who have mastered themselves enough to return equanimity and peace when confronted with anger and violence.
Comment by greenfrog — August 28, 2006 @ 2:48 pm
John Mansfield, I’m aware of where the Mason Dixon line is. Aside from learning about it in High School, the highways are marked to identify it when crossing it (which I do with regularity when I visit family). The misconception isn’t where the Mason-Dixon line lies, but that it definitively demarcated the South. Maryland was never (and has never been) considered part of the South.
The tariffs were primary cause for secession. In fact, the tariffs were so much on the front of everybody’s mind that the CSA Constitution explicitly forbade tariffs and duties for protectionist purposes (something that the South had believed to be prohibited in the USA Constitution because protectionism is not listed as an appropriate reason to create tariffs, but which the Supreme Court said in an 1816 decision was not). Thus, the CSA constitution (which is superior to its contemporary USA counterpart in nearly every regard) was the first governmental constitution to expressly forbid protectionism and guarantee some measure of free trade.
Fugitive slaves had regularly not been returned for decades, and the expansion of slavery was an ongoing battle (as Kansas demonstrated, where attempts to let the territory decide whether to be slavery or anti-slavery resulted in a rush of pro-slavery and anti-slavery interests and wholesale slaughter as they battled for supremacy). Nothing had changed on that front, and there was nothing that was coming to a head as far as expansion. These were added to the list of grievances for the same reason why the list of grievances in the Declaration of Independence is so long; viz., they wanted to list every conceivable ground for propagandistic purposes, and not just those grounds that were actionable.
And the tariff had nothing to do with slavery. Similar tariffs nowadays would also be damaging to the South.
(Incidentally, the legal defense which is provided by the South Carolina secession act in rock-solid, if brief. If you want a more elaborately argued version, Jefferson Davis provides a very comprehensive analysis of the legal basis for secession from the point of Constitutional Law in his memoirs.)
Comment by DKL — August 28, 2006 @ 3:44 pm
Dude,
I don’t quite know how to tell you this but the war was 150 years ago. The south lost. There’s no need to keep fighting it.
Comment by sojourner truth — August 28, 2006 @ 4:38 pm
DKL says “Maryland was never (and has never been) considered part of the South”, and, as usual, is dead wrong. But, hey, why let the facts interfere? Sure, Maryland wasnt a clear cut case during the Civil War, but to even suggest it wasnt part of the South is just plain wrong.
Comment by Extreme Dorito — August 28, 2006 @ 4:42 pm
Extreme, your link doesn’t say what you claim it says. It says that Maryland was a border state. It is on the border of the North and the South on the Northern side, which means (as I said) that it wasn’t part of the South. Indeed, if you click on the link there to “border state,” the map shows exactly that. It seems that your exegesis of Wikipedia articles is as bad as your exegesis of the New Testament and the Word of Wisdom.
sojourner truth, nobody’s fighting the war, even metaphorically–just trying to abolish lingering ignorance and misconceptions.
Comment by DKL — August 28, 2006 @ 5:00 pm
I heard a rumor once that Maryland voted to remain in the union primarily because Lincoln had posted union artillery around the capitol building while encouraging the state government to participate in a free and uninfluenced vote. FWIW
Comment by HP — August 28, 2006 @ 5:18 pm
DKL 18
For a change I actually agree with some of your statements in your comment 18: namely, Lincoln did not fight the war ORIGINALLY to end slavery; initially he fought to preserve the union. And you’re right about the Emancipation Proclamation: it was just a military order ending slavery only in slave states, not in pro-union states where slavery still existed.
But many Southern states seceded because of the issue of slavery. Because the South insisted that it had the right to expand slavery to the west, and because Lincoln strongly opposed the expansion of slavery to the west, many Southern states seceded from the union after Lincoln was elected and even before he took office. So Lincoln did not fight INITIALLY because of slavery, but the South did secede initially because of the issue of slavery. Thus, the South fought to maintain its slavery.
As the Civil War progressed - as you yourself said - Lincoln made slavery an issue. But it’s not the Emancipation Proclamation that warrants his being praised for his efforts to end slavery. Lincoln began the movement for the 13th Amendment to the Constitution - which amendment did end slavery. Lincoln was shot before the amendment was ratified, but the process for that amendment began under him.
Regarding Jefferson Davis’s offer to free the slaves, I don’t know about - except that the rest of the South obviously would never have freed the slaves. How do we know that? Lincoln had already suggested a plan for ending slavery that was similar to the plans of Joseph Smith and James Madsion: sell public lands and use the money to buy the slaves’ freedom. The South was not interested. For DECADES, the South had rejected numerous efforts by others to end slavery. In fact, the South seceded from the union because the South felt Lincoln would not allow the expansion of slavery into the west.
Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Address blames both the North and the South for the war - which was a just blame because: many Northerners had profited from slavery [e.g. the Northern cotton manufactureres profited from the cheap slave-grown cotton].
Charles Francis Adams’ diplomatic effort with Great Britain during the Civil War [that kept Great Britain from recognizing the South], is considered by an overwhelming consensus of historians as one of the great diplomatic achievements in American history.
The South was not the only villain. As Lincoln implied in his greatest speech of all - his 2nd inaugural address - too many Northerners had profited from slavery. Too many Northerners wanted slavery to continue in the South. But the South wanted to expand an abominable institution [slavery] - which was not a justifiable reason to secede.
Comment by YL — August 28, 2006 @ 5:22 pm
Sure, slavery expansion issues went back to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, and industrial tariffs went back to Alexander Hamilton. Was there a new tariff in 1860 or on the table for 1861 that triggered secession? Election of the first Republican president was something new, and why did the southern delegates bolt the Democratic convention of 1860? The complaints about interferences to slavery in the state legislatures’ causes of secession are too prominent to be considered just finishing touches or anything less than the main complaints; Mississippi’s mentions nothing else.
Comment by John Mansfield — August 28, 2006 @ 7:21 pm
YL, I appreciate your bringing a less simplified, more sophisticated view of history to the table. I also appreciate that you’ve attempted to answer at least some of my arguments, rather than simply introducing scattered bits of conventional wisdom that ignore the case that I’ve been making over the course of several comments.
I think that you’re mistaken to attribute any kind of even-handedness to Lincoln for talking about the sins of the North and the South in his 2nd inaugural address. The war was neither cheap nor popular, and Lincoln was simply escalating the level of his rhetoric to enflame crowds. Thus, the war became a fight against wickedness, and the costs were great because it was recompense for their own participation. There’s nothing profound or wise here. It’s just a re-tread of the same old tired political formula for gaining power; viz,, standing on a soap box and calls someone else wicked.
The evidence of Lincoln’s bad faith is overwhelming, though ignored by people that want to exalt a two-bit tyrant to the highest levels of national esteem in order to tell a self-congratulatory, winner’s history.
The CSA was just as willing to jettison slavery to win its freedom as the USA was to accept slavery in order to “preserve the Union.” Toward the end of the war, the CSA offered freedom to any slave that was willing to enlist to fight for the CSA.
I’m aware of the conventional wisdom about CF Adams. A dispassionate look at his work in the Civil War shows him to be an underhanded, corrupt opponent of freedom, much like James Earl Carter has proven to be in the years following his presidency (e.g., his defense of Charles Taylor’s sham election in Liberia and his work to preserve and perpetuate the nuclear research in North Korea).
Most of the CSA states did secede before Lincoln’s May 1861 inauguration. Jefferson Davis worked tirelessly after the election to negotiate a solution that would obviate the perceived need of southern states to secede. Indeed, Lincoln’s heavy-handed behavior during these negotiations thwarted Davis’s attempts to resolve the crisis. (Davis was an attractive nominee for CSA President because he was a moderate on secession. He accepted the nomination, though he knew that the South would probably lose. Having been Pierce’s Secretary of War from 1852-1856, Davis knew full well the disadvantage that the South faced with regard to available munitions factories, smelting facilities, and shipyards.)
John, the slavery expansion issue was a key one and a persistent one, because if territories did not allow slavery, that was a de facto prohibition on the movement of slave owner’s into that territory. Given the advantages offered to those willing to move there (cheap land and homestead acts) the non-slave territories became a source of economic wealth and expansion for the North that was closed off to the South. The same asymmetry did not face northerners moving to slave territory. The North didn’t care much about slavery, and the interest in non-slave territories was basically to keep land and resources cheaper by artificially reducing demand through the de facto exclusion of Southerners. At any case, nothing new occurred on this front. The North was just continuing to joust in the game of regional politics with the South.
Slavery was, however, something that Lincoln explicitly promised not to interfere with. Lincoln also promised to enforce the fugitive slave act, which was more than Buchanon was willing to do. It was Lincoln’s pledge to collect duties and tariffs and his unwillingness to move on that issue that upset the balance.
What was new on the tariff front was the increasing shift in the disproportionate burden that the South paid and the publicity that this was getting. McPhereson argues that there was no disproportionate burden, but (as usual), McPhereson is dead wrong. (His winning the Pulitzer for Civil War history was the scholarly equivalent to Arafat winning the Nobel Peace Prize). In any case, whether the disproportionate burden was real, at that time the South had grown (rather suddenly) to perceive that such an imbalance existed.
Comment by DKL — August 28, 2006 @ 10:34 pm
I was going to complain about the boomers’ obsession with placing all modern conflicts within the handy little metaphor of the Vietnam conflict, but I came back to the thread to have found it mired in the mid-nineteenth Century. So instead of picking on my parent’s generation for re-living their college years, I’d like to point out the limitations of using any one historical conflict for analyzing all conflicts. We all know about how generals like to fight the last war…so do politicians.
Just to pick two of the most famous: the First World War was, to oversimplify, a failure of nation states to operate outside the crumbling 19th century framework of the Metternich system of balance of power (and accurately assess the impact of technological progress). They were still fighting the Crimean war. The Second World War was a failure of will by the great powers to contain an antichrist at the helm of a major industrialized power while they still could (’33 or ’35). They were too afraid of fighting the First World War again.
Contrary to what was stated in the previous post, large nations don’t just pick on small nations, the history of the world runs knee deep in the conflicts of the great powers: Persia and Egypt; Persia and Greece, Rome and Parthia, England and France, etc. Indeed, history tells me that the great empires inevitably conflict. Caesar will cross the Rubicon; Louis XIV will fight protestant Europe in the name of his faith (and dynastic succession); Napoleon, unable to invade England, will invade Russia.
The miracle of the late 20th Century was the LACK of a major conflict (I’m intentionally ignoring proxy wars) between the world’s two superpowers. William Gates outlined the Reagan doctrine of spending the Soviet Union into choosing between detente and bankruptcy and lived to be the director of the CIA after history had proven his policy to be successful beyond his wildest claims. A conflict between the USA and USSR would have left the world decimated, if not something out of Dr. Strangelove. I for one believe that this fragile peace was maintained by the US wielding a credible and horrific deterrence that even in the face of complete collapse of the Soviet Union was sufficient to deter men perfectly willing to murder their own countrymen. I believe the US can take pride in what is historically a fantastically rare occurence!
The question for our generation, one that should weigh heavily on the minds of those of us with young children, is to what extent, if any, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction changes the equation. I was touched by the post with the story of the monk in Shogun era Japan. Will our enemies stay their hand if we sit passively in the street? Should I trust an enemy willing to send their sons and daughters to be suicide bombers to stay their hand when faced with the life or death of my daughters? Does a nation that has exhibits of cartoons mocking the holocaust deserve to be allowed to violate the nuclear non-proliferation treaty? (hmmm…this one does seem awfully similar to letting Hitler build an army…) Would passivism as a policy have worked against Attila, Genghis, or Hitler? Was 9-11 an act within the traditional western framework of wars as understood since before Henry the V traded captives after defeating the army of Charles VI at the battle of Agincourt and agreed to marry his daughter Catherine, or are we facing a new framework that will try our concept of war between nation states? Regardless, history, including the B of M is consistent on one fact, then the question for our souls isn’t whether we will need to draw the sword, the question is when, and how to best wield it.
Comment by TyB — August 29, 2006 @ 12:35 am
DKL, you casting aspersions at anyone else’s exegesis of anything is just nonsense. Your position on the NT and the WofW, and most other things, is nothing but deliberately ignorant claptrap derived from a selective presentation of facts designed to do nothing more than show the world how clever you are. The notion that the NT is lacking in theology is to pretend the Hebrew part of the Bible simply doesnt exist, and your position on the WofW once again pretends easily established and clearly documented unambiguous historical facts didnt occur. Yay for ignorance!
And that goes for your silly definition of Maryland=!South. Lets see, I guess being a “Border State” makes irrelevant the fact that “the state was more sympathetic to the South than to the North”. Throw Barbara Fritchie out and guess what? You have a Southern State. But, hey, since that doesnt fit your preconceived notions, just ignore the facts and bury people with more of your Historical Tourette’s syndrome.
Comment by Extreme Dorito — August 29, 2006 @ 4:37 am
David, the opportunities in the non-slave territories were available to the North and cut off to the South only to the degree that those from the South thought slavery was essential to their way of life. You have argued that slavery was not a major issue since 1) the ranks of the Confederate army were full of non-slaveholders, and 2) the leaders of the CSA were perfectly willing to give up slaveholding. Prohibition of slavery in a new territory should have impeded Southerners nothing then.
Comment by John Mansfield — August 29, 2006 @ 5:42 am
Have I not called DKL “a ruthless gladiator in this coliseum of ideas”?
Just as I now only refer or even think of the author of #5 as Sir Ronan, Lord of Worcestershire, I’m thinking of henceforth calling DKL Gladiator, or maybe Man o’ War.
Comment by Christian Y. Cardall — August 29, 2006 @ 5:42 am
Christian,
Just as Jehovah has been called a Mighty God of War, perhaps we can give DKL an even loftier title?
Comment by Ronan — August 29, 2006 @ 6:01 am
How did a blog fight over slavery get started on BCC?
Comment by rleonard — August 29, 2006 @ 8:31 am
John Mansfield, I described why expansion into slave states was a point of argument in regional politics, and you’ve described why (in spite of that) it couldn’t have been a cause of the Civil War. Thank you very much.
Christian and Ronan, you guys are going to make me blush.
Comment by DKL — August 29, 2006 @ 8:57 am
TyB, I agree with you about the fights between great powers.
rleonard, this fight isn’t over slavery any more than the Civil War was.
Comment by DKL — August 29, 2006 @ 9:16 am
So, the southern states seceded because they liked arguing matters of regional politics that really no one cared about? An example of the hazards of having the legislature in session?
Comment by John Mansfield — August 29, 2006 @ 9:30 am
No, John. There were (and always will be) heated political conflicts in the US (though more regionally based then than now). You seem not to differentiate between the ones that instigated war, and the ones that caused continuing controversies–as though it requires a total absence of political controversy to prevent Civil War.
Comment by DKL — August 29, 2006 @ 9:51 am
Isn’t the preservation of the union a valuable ideal? Wouldn’t this be enough?
Comment by Jay S — August 29, 2006 @ 9:52 am
“What’s so civil about war anyway?”
The Civil war was essentially about states rights/preserving the Union, but without the slavery issue, there would be no Civil War.
Comment by Ian Cook — August 29, 2006 @ 10:01 am
What is your basis for designating tariffs as the primary cause for secession and slavery as routine background politics?
Comment by John Mansfield — August 29, 2006 @ 10:43 am
This reminds me of our High Priest group’s debating a few years ago who was right and who was wrong in the Crusades. I am not sure if any of our group was alive at the time.
Comment by DavidH — August 29, 2006 @ 10:48 am
Ian, I’m agree with you (broadly speaking). I’d emphasize that it’s fallacious to collapse the distinction that you draw. All too often statements like yours that “without the slavery issue, there would be no Civil War” are intended to mean, “well sure, it wasn’t directly about slavery, but it was still about slavery.”
But consider this: The same distinction applies to this argument, which is about the causes of the Civil War and not about slavery itself. But without slavery we wouldn’t be having this argument.
The problem is that too many people are taught, and believe, that the Civil was was about slavery or that it was the war to free the slaves. Even people who acknowledge the distinction that you make, instinctively collapse it when discussing the difference between the North and the South (for example, the statement “The civil rights movement was a completion of the North’s victory in the civil war” reflects a common sentiment). And they use this to justify and romanticize Lincoln’s corrupt regime.
Jay S, when it comes to preserving a union that some members no longer desire to be a party to, the only justification is basically the same one used in the past to justify colonialism; i.e., it’s for their own good. As announced in the founding document of our nation (the Declaration of Independence), a people’s right to self-determination is anterior to any powers held or rights granted by governmental bodies.
Comment by DKL — August 29, 2006 @ 10:50 am
DKL 81
Using the Declaration of Independence to justify the South’s secession is ludicrous: most of the Declaration of Independence deals with the wrongs of Great Britain, listing them in order to justify such a drastic decision: to declare independence. The Declaration of Independence thus exemplifies the truth that secession was not to be done except under extreme circumstances. Jefferson said that secession was NOT a ready option for states who simply disagreed with the national government.
What possible justification did the South have for secession? What’s on its list of wrongs done by the national government?
Both the North and the South failed to carry out plans offered by Lincoln, Joseph Smith, and James Madison to end slavery: sell public lands and use the money to buy the slaves’ freedom. Thus, the entire nation deserved the consequences of a civil war. That’s part of the message of Lincoln’s great inaugural address. In repeated rankings of presidents by historians over the past several decades, Lincoln has repeatedly been ranked the greatest.
Whereas as most of the time you remind me of a cruel teenager who never grew up and who likes to show off his wit and belittle others [thus, your delight in being labeled a "gladiator,"] this time you remind me of an elderly Southern gentleman interviewed on TV: this elderly Southern gentleman made the absurd statement that: the blacks were happier when they were slaves than they are now because, when they were slaves, they were “singing in the fields.” Is that what you’ll be telling us next?
Comment by YL — August 29, 2006 @ 12:16 pm
Again, Lincoln’s “corrupt regime” has been out of power for 150 years. He was assassinated. There is no need to keep killing him.
Comment by Sojourner Truth — August 29, 2006 @ 12:36 pm
or to justify him
Comment by Sojourner Truth — August 29, 2006 @ 12:37 pm
DKL,
I agree that the Civil War was not about slavery per se. In the end, Lincoln was willing to preserve it, and as a last resort, Davis was willing to give it up.
At the same time, if it hadn’t been for slavery however, there would not have been a seccession in the first place. No other issue pertaining to states rights would have prompted the South to attempt to lead the Union. Please, name another issue that would have brought this fight to a head.
So yes, this war wasn’t fought over slavery, but it was fought because of slavery. It is impossible to sever the relationship between the states rights/slavery connection. No matter how hard anyone tries. This is a debate that many historians still have today.
Also, Lincoln wasn’t the “great emancipator” that people think he is. His move to free slaves was only partial, those in the “border states” were allowed to keep their slaves.
At the same time, I highly doubt that he was the Villain that you paint him out to be.
Comment by Ian Cook — August 29, 2006 @ 1:26 pm
YL, the fact that the Declaration contains more verbiage about trumped up accusations against Britain than about human rights doesn’t change what it says about human rights. Moreover, I offer that as a reason why preserving the Union is not per se an end in-and-of-itself. The legal justification is referred to in the Mississippi secession document that John linked to, and that is elaborated upon by Jefferson Davis in his memoirs.
Comment by DKL — August 29, 2006 @ 2:26 pm
Ian, your statement, “So yes, this war wasn’t fought over slavery, but it was fought because of slavery” is wrong. Specifically, it confuses a necessary condition with a causative condition. It’s like saying that this argument isn’t being argued over slavery, but it is being argued because of slavery. That simply doesn’t follow from the fact I state earlier: “this argument is not about slavery, but without slavery we wouldn’t be having this argument.” Yet, it’s impossible to sever the link between slavery and this argument. You’re guilty of collapsing the distinction that you introduced in exactly the fallacious way that I identify in my previous comment.
Comment by DKL — August 29, 2006 @ 2:27 pm
The odd thing about this argument is how one-sided the viewpoint is that people are taking toward the civil war. Listening to my argumentative opponents, one could be forgiven if they concluded that everything that the South did in the war was to preserve slavery, and everything that the North did was honorable and good. The most I can get is a token admission that the emancipation proclamation wasn’t a civil-rights-centric document. Nothing I’ve said has tried to excuse the South’s racial sins (because they’re inexcusable), and any attempt I’ve made to advance a more well-rounded viewpoint that examines both the Nothern and Southern motivations and actions during the war with equal scrutiny is immediately rebuffed as preposterous.
Well, I’ve got some news for you: History isn’t that simple. In addition to practicing the palpable evil of slavery and subjugating blacks for centuries, the South did a great many heroic and honorable things, and Jefferson Davis was at least an American who understood the difference between being loyal to the Constitution and being loyal to the Federal government (sure he owned slaves, but so did George Washington and US Grant).
The North was also rife with racism and racial subjugation against blacks and Jews, though slavery was less common there. And the North did a lot of low an disgusting things during the war. Lincoln was a tyrant, precisely because he identified loyalty to the Constitution with loyalty to the Federal Government. That’s why he behaved as if anything that preserved the Federal Government’s supremacy was right and good. He was a villain, and it’s as silly to take his political speeches at face value is at is to take Bush’s political speeches at face value.
If learning this makes you uncomfortable about America’s role as a good and righteous nation in this world (or at least more uncomfortable than you should already be after the history of persecution that 19th century saints endured at the hands of state and federal governments), then I think that’s a good thing.
Comment by DKL — August 29, 2006 @ 2:28 pm
DKL,
See comment #49. I gave you the admission you wanted, the threadjack should have ended there.
Comment by Doc — August 29, 2006 @ 3:07 pm
#55 Halcyon, the wonder of blogging. I call it a fistfight without gloves between gentlemen. No offense to feminists.
Comment by annegb — August 29, 2006 @ 7:38 pm
Also, I’m completely right and everybody who disagrees with me is wrong.
Comment by annegb — August 29, 2006 @ 7:40 pm
DKL 88 said that all other comments on the Civil War had praised the North and condemned the South.
How do you say that? Is this just another blatant case of dishonesty? In 2 of my comments, 64 & 82, I specifically criticized the North and praised Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Address for blaming both the North and the South.
Comment by YL — August 30, 2006 @ 11:37 am
YL, if there’s fault anywhere, then it’s your stupidity and not my dishonesty. Praising Lincoln’s 2nd inaugural address for attributing some fault to the North is like praising the president of Iran for lauding religious freedom. He’s saying that the South is the primary source of evil, and the North has to pay for it’s participation in the South’s evil. This is self-serving tripe, so you’re reference to it doesn’t count as a critique of the North. Lincoln isn’t faulting himself for being a despot or the North for prosecuting an opportunistic war to keep the source of the vast majority of the Union’s tax revenue (via tariffs) within the umbrella of his control.
What’s the matter with you that you can’t simply ask for a clarification? You think it comes across as honest or intelligent bluster on about “another case of blatant dishonesty”?
Comment by DKL — August 30, 2006 @ 12:03 pm
From comment #18: “In fact, in an effort to prove that the war was not being fought over slavery President Jefferson Davis offered to free the slaves in exchange for recognition by Great Britain, but by the time word reached Great Britain about this, the CSA had already lost Antietam and this caused foreign powers to be more circumspect about recognizing them for strategic reasons.”
It appears this offer was made in the closing months of the war, two and a half years after Antietam. Is their any source for such an offer in 1862?
Comment by John Mansfield — August 30, 2006 @ 1:07 pm
I don’t have time to respond to all of DKL’s misstatements, misinterpretations of the historical record, etc. etc.
Just one thing: Lincoln in his Second Inaugural did not say that the South was the primary source of evil. He did acknowledge that the Almighty has his purposes, but did not profess to know what they were, and did not say that the apparent approaching end of the war was an accomplishment of God’s purposes.
He did suggest that some may think it odd to ask God’s help in wringing their bread from the sweat of another man’s labor, but said then that we ought not to judge lest we be judged.
He did say that one might suppose that American slavery was one of those offences that, in the providence of God, “must needs come”, but he did not say that he knew it to be such an offense.
The modern day analog would have George Bush standing at the rubble of the World Trade Center and acknowleging that God’s purposes may have been advanced by the destruction there.
One other thing: to suggest that the American Civil War was not about slavery because most of the soldiers in butternut and grey were not and were not likely ever to become slaveholders is nonsense. It ignores the last 50 years of scholarship on the motivations of common soldiers (see S.L.A. Marshall’s works on GI’s in the 2nd World War, or John Keegan’s The Face of Battle. Keegan’s thesis, briefly:
“But it will not be because of . . . leadership that the group members will begin to fight and continue to fight. It will be, on the one hand, for personal survival, which indiviuals will recognize to be bound up with group survival, and, on the other, for fear of incurring by cowardly conduct the group’s contempt.” The Face of Battle, Penguin Edition, at 51.
So, too with the Rebels. The “damnyankees are coming” would have been enough to call them to arms, and the motives Keegan describes would have kept them in line across the broad plain on July 3, 1863, or in the bloody angle at Chancellorville or that blood-soaked cornfield at Antietam, or in one hundred blood-filled sunken lanes that showed up, it seems, on every Civil War battlefield.
If slavery didn’t keep them there, you can be certain that the tariff didn’t either.
Comment by Mark B. — August 30, 2006 @ 1:40 pm
DKL 93
We may differ on Lincoln’s intent in his 2nd Inaugural Address, but I didn’t need a “clarification” when you said in your comment 88:
“my argumentative opponents…concluded that everything that the South did in the war was to preserve slavery, and everything that the North did was honorable and good.”
But my comments 64 and 82 explicitly criticized the North. You or anyone else can interpret Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Address differently, but I was quite clear in my own criticism of the North - which your comment 93 denied I did.
Yes, what you consider cleverness [diverting the topic from my explicit criticism of the North, to your interpretation of Lincoln's speech] is again another example of your “blatant dishonesty.”
Comment by YL — August 30, 2006 @ 2:15 pm
Mark B: Here is a link to the inaugural address. It’s quite short and a quick read for anyone that wants to read it–it’s also a load of pretty-sounding nonsense, especially the part about how he sought to avert a war. Your basis for claiming that he doesn’t say that the South is the primary source of evil is that he couches his condemnation in what appears to be a hypothetical, but is (upon careful reading) a rhetorical question. This is a question that he forthrightly answers when he marches into his conclusion with the statement “with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right…”
I’m glad you quote Keagan’s book The Face of Battle, because it’s a quite a good one, and that’s a very nice quote you chose. Sadly, it hasn’t anything to do with the thesis we’re discussing. What he’s explaining is how men are actually made to kill each other once the battle begins on the battle field (and he has quite a lot of interesting things to say about the psychology of battlefield actions as well as the evolution of our understanding of this psychology). What Keagan is expressly not explaining is why the men sign up go to a field of battle in the first place (or at least do not flee from conscription). If I recall correctly, Keagan is rather clear on the fact that such political factors are not the topic of that book.
Your thesis that the South fought because the damned yankees were coming (excuse my profanity, but I feel it’s necessary to quote you with a shitload of exactness) simply is not plausible. There just wasn’t that big of a separation between the North an the South. There is this myth that animosity between the regions was fueled by the fact that there was little or no communication or exchange. Two of the most prominent leaders of the South (viz., Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee) were educated in the North (at West Point). Plus (as I’ve pointed out before) the difference between states like Maryland and Virginia was quite small, with most Marylanders and Virginians visiting or having intercourse (using the BoM term) with the other state on a regular basis. Saying to a Virginian, “The Marylanders are coming!” would more likely elicit a yawn (or a chuckle) than any amount of panic.
As I’ve said of others, you’re approaching history with a simplistic view of the politics of the time. Nobody would think to treat a recent inaugural address as though it were not loaded with self-serving political spin (as though the phrase “self-serving politics” were not already terribly redundant). Why do you want to treat Lincoln’s inaugural address as though he is bearing his sole and not discussing political policy in a method calculated to appeal to and shape popular opinion?
In any case, this is a losing argument you’ve taken up because the facts simply aren’t on your side.
Comment by DKL — August 30, 2006 @ 3:45 pm
DKL,
I sense a lot of anger from you over the Civil War. Did something happen to one of your ancestors that we should know about?
First off, I seem to recall taking two separate callege courses that spent a lot of time on the Civil War (One was actually a Civil War class), both instructors admitted that the Civil War was not fought over slavery, but without slavery, there would have been no war.
You have accused others of looking at this situation in black and white. I think you are looking at this situation in black and white. Answer this question. If it hadn’t been for slavery, would the Civil War have been fought at all?
Comment by Ian Cook — August 30, 2006 @ 4:19 pm
Ian, no anger at all. Not even any frustration.
The question that you ask is not meaningful the way that you think it is. Answer this question: If it hadn’t been for slavery, would we be having this argument?
Comment by DKL — August 30, 2006 @ 4:28 pm
Ian Cook: Did something happen to one of your ancestors that we should know about?
Well, there was that one ancestor who lost his leg in the Civil War. A tragic tale. He swam in circles the rest of his days.
Oh, well. Enough catharsis. On with the argument.
Comment by DKL — August 30, 2006 @ 4:40 pm
Well, DKL got the attention he wanted again, and he did it by belittling others, slandering a great man, falsely claiming that the rest of us have found no fault with the North, and white washing the decades, DECADES, of the South’s efforts to continue slavery and even to expand it to other territories.
Is nothing beneath you in your attempts to get attention?
If you hadn’t said that you had children, I would be convinced that you are one of those high IQ teenagers who enjoys showing off how high his IQ is even at the cruel expense of others’ feelings and reputations. Most of those nasty IQ teenagers outgrew it and look back with shame; you’re the exception. So you’ve shown you’re exceptional, after all.
Comment by YL — August 30, 2006 @ 5:56 pm
I will not stand silently in the face of this calumny against my alma mater’s greatest former professor:
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/mainpages/virtualtour/img5.html
I protest!
Comment by gst — August 30, 2006 @ 6:46 pm
Well, gst, you’ve undone me. I certainly don’t know enough about Lincoln to critique his professorial talents. For all I know, he did a bang-up job.
Comment by DKL — August 30, 2006 @ 8:05 pm
#48.
Great Britain and Argentina are two democracies that fought against each other in 1982.
Lebanon and Israel fought each other in 2006, both are democracies (though Lebanon is a very weak democracy).
And yes, Democracies do actually start wars. The United States started an aggressive war against Iraq in 2003.
The United States rightfully started a war against Afghanistan after they would not turn over Al-Qaida.
The United States has overthrown democratically elected governments in at least Chile (1970s) and Iran (1950s), though I don’t doubt there are numerous others.
France and Britain have also fought numerous wars against other nations, formerly their colonies throughout their histories.
So basically, just because one turns democratic does not equal a reduction in fighting.
Finally, I wholeheartedly agree with President Kimball’s view of America’s gods of iron and steel. We are a warmongering people. We have it engrained in us from when we are young. The military-industrial complex has succeeded in controlling and brainwashing Americans into thinking that real heroes are warriors and fighters. They make a whole heck of a lot of money when America fights.
Is it possible for Americans, more specifically conservative Christians, to see anything else than war and fighters as real heroes?
Comment by Dan — August 30, 2006 @ 8:07 pm
Dan, nice list of wars. Tally the death totals of those wars and compare them to the ones perpetrated by non-democracies. There is, in fact, a reduction in fighting among Democracies.
There is, in reality, nothing pre-emptive or aggressive (as in war-of-aggression) about invading Iraq. For more than a decade Iraq had been violating the terms of the cease-fire that ended Desert Storm. All attempts to enforce the terms of the cease-fire had failed, and no further attempt was likely to succeed. Given this, any course of action reduced to one of two alternatives: capitulation or resumption of hostilities. Neither alternative was pre-emptive.
The facts of the matter are as follows:
On April 3, 1991 Iraq formally agreed to the cease-fire that suspended initial military activities in the Gulf War. The cease-fire document is known as Security Council Resolution 687 (available on the internet at gopher://gopher.undp.org/00/undocs/scd/scouncil/s91/4%09+Text/plain).
Clause 8 of Resolution 687 states, “Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction… under international supervision, of: (a) All chemical and biological weapons…and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities; (b) All ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres…”
Clause 12 states, “Iraq shall unconditionally agree not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons or nuclear-weapons-usable material…”
And clause 32 states that Iraq “will not commit or support any act of international terrorism.”
The United Nations’ Security Council hasd passed no fewer than six resolutions condemning Iraq for not complying with the cease-fire (resolutions 1205, 1194, 1137, 1134, 1115, and 1060). And Powell’s presentation at the UN made it clear that Iraq continues to violate the cease-fire. (The
The real problem is that the UN was involved at all. In the original Gulf War, the USA—and not the UN—formed a coalition and fought a war to liberate Kuwait from Iraq. After securing decisive victory, the USA allowed the UN to handle the details of a formal cease-fire.
Once Iraq was chronically in violation of that cease-fire, the UN fancied that they—and not the USA—had the authority to determine what should be done to enforce it. All this would have been averted if we had simply handled the cease-fire ourselves.
We have the elder George Bush to thank for the UN’s involvement. His “New World Order” fetish and his desire to grant the UN an appearance of moral authority embroiled us in the snarls that his son is attempting to untangle.
Careful reflection reveals that the UN and its “Security Council” (could you imagine a more propagandistic name?) are outmoded relics of the pre-Cold War thinking. For example, the UN Charter still defines Germany and Japan as enemies. Conjured from the ashes of post World War II Europe by Truman’s and Roosevelt’s naïve dreams of global cooperation, the UN does little more than encourage countries like France, Germany, and Syria to entertain illusions that they have an equal interest in the USA’s affairs.
As a natural consequence of this feigned equality, the UN has become an instrument for nations to lash out at Americans for failing to behave like they do. Germans want Americans to avert pan-European wars. France wants Americans to capitulate and collaborate. Syria wants Americans to hate the Jews. And almost nobody wanted Americans to deal with Saddam Hussein.
In any case, on any reasonable analysis, there was nothing pre-emptive about invading Iraq.
Comment by DKL — August 30, 2006 @ 8:22 pm
DKL,
And yet the Iraq war is the latest example of putting our Faith is the false gods of military might. That Spencer W. Kimball sure had a point. I really am glad he said what he did, all that death, all that destruction. What can I say, War is Hell, war, what is it good for, absolutely nothing, say it again.
Really, your shifting sands strategy is quite tiresome.
Comment by Doc — August 30, 2006 @ 8:39 pm
YL, your claim that I slander a great man begs the question. Specifically, the question I’m posing (and answering in the negative) is whether Lincoln was a great man.
Your usage of caps strikes me as kind of weird. Are you, like, yelling at your computer as you type this?
YL: So you’ve shown you’re exceptional, after all.
Yes! My work here is finished.
Comment by DKL — August 30, 2006 @ 8:50 pm
DKL,
hmmm, I never knew that breaking UN resolutions was just cause for regime change. Moreover, according to Colin Powell, who was the Secretary of State, Iraq was safely contained. This is what he said in February 2001 about Iraq:
I guess Powell hadn’t yet gotten the Republican propaganda message that Iraq was evil and reconstituting their WMDs…..
Or maybe Powell doesn’t know what he is talking about. If that is the case, then how can he be trusted two years later in February 2003 speaking in front of the UN saying almost exactly the opposite of what he said two years previous?
That said, as Doc