“Today we stand on an awful arena, where character which was the growth of centuries was tested and determined by the issues of a single day. We are compassed about by a cloud of witnesses; not alone the shadowy ranks of those who wrestled here, but the greater parties of the action–they for whom these things were done. Forms of thought rise before us, as in an amphitheatre, circle beyond circle, rank above rank; The State, The Union, The People. And these are One. Let us–from the arena, contemplate them–the spiritual spectators.
“There is an aspect in which the question at issue might seem to be of forms, and not of substance. It was, on its face, a question of government. There was a boastful pretence that each State held in its hands the death-warrant of the Nation; that any State had a right, without show of justification outside of its own caprice, to violate the covenants of the constitution, to break away from the Union, and set up its own little sovereignty as sufficient for all human purposes and ends; thus leaving it to the mere will or whim of any member of our political system to destroy the body and dissolve the soul of the Great People. This was the political question submitted to the arbitrament of arms. But the victory was of great politics over small. It was the right reason, the moral consciousness and solemn resolve of the people rectifying its wavering exterior lines according to the life-lines of its organic being.
“There is a phrase abroad which obscures the legal and moral questions involved in the issue,–indeed, which falsifies history: “The War between the States”. There are here no States outside of the Union. Resolving themselves out of it does not release them. Even were they successful in intrenching themselves in this attitude, they would only relapse into territories of the United States. Indeed several of the States so resolving were never in their own right either States or Colonies; but their territories were purchased by the common treasury of the Union. Underneath this phrase and title,–“The War between the States”–lies the false assumption that our Union is but a compact of States. Were it so, neither party to it could renounce it at his own mere will or caprice. Even on this theory the States remaining true to the terms of their treaty, and loyal to its intent, would have the right to resist force by force, to take up the gage of battle thrown down by the rebellious States, and compel them to return to their duty and their allegiance. The Law of Nations would have accorded the loyal States this right and remedy.
“But this was not our theory, nor our justification. The flag we bore into the field was not that of particular States, no matter how many nor how loyal, arrayed against other States. It was the flag of the Union, the flag of the people, vindicating the right and charged with the duty of preventing any factions, no matter how many nor under what pretence, from breaking up this common Country.
“It was the country of the South as well as of the North. The men who sought to dismember it, belonged to it. Its was a larger life, aloof from the dominance of self-surroundings; but in it their truest interests were interwoven. They suffered themselves to be drawn down from the spiritual ideal by influences of the physical world. There is in man that peril of the double nature. “But I see another law”, says St. Paul. “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind.”
–Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1828-1914)
Speaks for itself.
So why did I have to add the comment? 🙄 I think the Chamberlain quote sufficiently tweaks Southern apologists!
Chamberlain’s was a theory that imposed itself on the nation by force of arms, and therefore must be right? In his hindsight the purpose of his war takes on a wonderful universalizing, even jihadist, purpose–one for which few began the conflict. He speaks for all those progressives who rewrite or reinterpret the original covenants of a community to empower their own perspective. His premise guarantees they end up owning the space, despite the original terms and conditions upon which those who opposed them joined the federation. His cause may have some justice, but here he is very selective as to honesty. His progeny are abundant, are they not?
Some justice? The preservation of the Union and the abolition of slavery seem, in retrospect, to have been worth the cost.. even from my perspective as a Texan (albeit in one of the two counties that voted against secession in 1861).
Mr. Fuller, the main point is this:
Consider yourself tweaked. ;-P
That the Union could not be dissolved was an open question at the time. Many in the South thought that they were fighting a tyranny on the order of George III. Indeed, even today, we are seeing the system of checks and balances, so carefull built into the constitution, being systematicaly dismantled. In many ways we see and ever more powerful central government with more and more power to direct the lives of individual citizens. In too many ways the arguments of the anti-federalists have come to pass and the arguments of the Federalists ring hollow.
The War between the States settled the argument over sesession, not by reasoned argument, but by force of arms. Had the South won Chamberlain could not have made the argument he makes. Except for the issue of slavery, many of the issues raised in the War are still with us: state vs federal power, applicability of the bill of rights, powers of the branches of government, etc.
The sorry fact is as Br. Michael says; the “rightness” of the North’s contention that states had no right to secede was only established by brute force. There was no reasoned, judicial argument and resolution. I remain convinced that there was no constitutional impediment to the states of the Confederacy electing to depart the Union. The fact that they were subjugated and forced back into the Union at gunpoint proves nothing, nor do General Chamberlain’s rather silly assertions.
The fact that States are now impressed into the Union by force of arms is a betrayal of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, a document that predates the federal government by thirteen years. We may have freed slaves, but it has come at the cost of enslaving free men. And here’s another grim thought: with the Southern States as independent, the US would not have been able to ally with Britain and France against Germany in World War I. Faced with the continuing fratricide, the European powers would have eventually run out of the means to fight and would have no choice but to sue for peace. Tsarist Russia could very well have prevailed against its revolutionaries and the German economy would have rebounded, leaving no social discontent to fuel the rise of a Hitler. The Ottoman Empire would have remained intact meaning, eventually, we would not now be struggling with an artificial country drawn up by the British with compass and ruler called Iraq.
And proponents of the Union had better get used to this coming reality: the Southwestern US is going to re-join Mexico.