--- "Horn, John" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I agree completely. I just finished reading "The > Battle Cry of > Freedom" a few months ago. It was clear from there > that the war > was, in fact, about states rights. (Which is one of > many things > historical revisionists like to say.) However, the > rights involved > just happened to be the right to keep slaves! It's > crazy to say it > wasn't about slavery. > > - jmh > > Very Good Book BTW Maru
I agree it's a very good book - probably the best single-volume history of the war, actually. But I actually disagree with that conclusion. I don't think "state's rights" had anything to do with the war, actually. I have an unfair advantage over McPherson, in that my opinion was formed partly by Frehling's _Prelude to Civil War_, which I think had not been written when _Battle Cry_ was. But Frehling tells the story of the South Carolina Nullification Crisis, and he points out that positions in South Carolina on nullification had nothing to do with the economic impact of the tariff. Instead, it basically worked out that the more you supported slavery, the more in favor you were of nullification. He believes (as do I) that nullification, like every other "state's rights" struggle up to the Civil War (I would go further and say - up until the 1970s) was a proxy for slavery (or after the Civil War, for the rights of African Americans). Southern attempts to limit the power of the federal government were almost solely attempts to limit its power _to deal with slavery_. My other argument would be - what was the single most egregious expansion of the power of the Federal Government - at the expense of state sovereignty - during the pre-war period? I would argue that it was the barbarous Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, passed as a sop to Southern radicals. While enforcing the return of fugitive slaves was clearly a federal responsibility, the specific terms of the act were nonetheless an immense expansion of the power of the Federal Government (apart from being an atrocity). Yet the South was entirely in favor of it. Again, because it protected slavery. The simplest explanation is (to me) that the overriding concern of Southern politicians was the protection of slavery, and everything else was secondary to that. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
