"Samantha L." wrote:
>
> Thank you for this post. Having never looked into alternative views of the
> Civil War myself, I did always wonder why - if slavery had been the defining
> issue - that other means weren't taken to emancipate the slaves besides the
> bloody, horrid war.
A few years after the war, the abolitionist/legal theorist
Lysander Spooner wrote his "No Treason" series, which
exposed the real motives for the war. (Spooner was from
Boston, so his observations can't simply be dismissed as
'Southern propaganda'). His concluding chapter states:
"Notwithstanding all this, that we had learned, and known,
and professed, for nearly a century, these lenders of blood
money had, for a long series of years previous to the war,
been the willing accomplices of the slave-holders in
perverting the government from the purposes of liberty and
justice, to the greatest of crimes. They had been such
accomplices for a purely pecuniary consideration, to wit, a
control of the markets in the South; in other words, the
privilege of holding the slave-holders themselves in
industrial and commercial subjection to the manufacturers
and merchants of the North (who afterwards furnished the
money for the war). And these Northern merchants and
manufacturers, these lenders of blood-money, were willing to
continue to be the accomplices of the slave-holders in the
future, for the same pecuniary considerations. But the
slave-holders, either doubting the fidelity of their
Northern allies, or feeling themselves strong enough to keep
their slaves in subjection without Northern assistance,
would no longer pay the price which these Northern men
demanded. And it was to enforce this price in the future --
that is, to monopolize the Southern markets, to maintain
their industrial and commercial control over the
South---that these Northern manufacturers and merchants lent
some of the profits of their former monopolies for the war,
in order to secure to themselves the same, or greater,
monopolies in the future. These---and not any love of
liberty or justice---were the motives on which the money for
the war was lent by the North. In short, the North said to
the slave-holders: If you will not pay us our price (give us
control of your markets) for our assistance against your
slaves, we will secure the same price (keep control of your
markets) by helping your slaves against you, and using them
as our tools for maintaining dominion over you; for the
control of your markets we will have, whether the tools we
use for that purpose be black or white, and be the cost, in
blood and money, what it may.
"On this principle, and from this motive, and not from any
love of liberty, or justice, the money was lent in enormous
amounts, and at enormous rates of interest. And it was only
by means of these loans that the objects of the war were
accomplished.
"And now these lenders of blood-money demand their pay; and
the government, so called, becomes their tool, their
servile, slavish, villanous tool, to extort it from the
labor of the enslaved people both of the North and South. It
is to be extorted by every form of direct, and indirect, and
unequal taxation. Not only the nominal debt and
interest---enormous as the latter was---are to be paid in
full; but these holders of the debt are to be paid still
further---and perhaps doubly, triply, or quadruply paid---by
such tariffs on imports as will enable our home
manufacturers to realize enormous prices for their
commodities; also by such monopolies in banking as will
enable them to keep control of, and thus enslave and
plunder, the industry and trade of the great body of the
Northern people themselves. In short, the industrial and
commercial slavery of the great body of the people, North
and South, black and white, is the price which these lenders
of blood money demand, and insist upon, and are determined
to secure, in return for the money lent for the war.
"This programme having been fully arranged and
systematized, they put their sword into the hands of the
chief murderer of the war, [undoubtedly a reference to
General Grant, who had just become president] and charge him
to carry their scheme into effect. And now he, speaking as
their organ, says, "let us have peace."
"The meaning of this is: Submit quietly to all the robbery
and slavery wefs have arranged for you, and you can have
"peace." But in case you resist, the same lenders of
blood-money, who furnished the means to subdue the South,
will furnish the means again to subdue you. These are the
terms on which alone this government, or, with few
exceptions, any other, ever gives "peace" to its people.
"The whole affair, on the part of those who furnished the
money, has been, and now is, a deliberate scheme of robbery
and murder; not merely to monopolize the markets of the
South, but also to monopolize the currency, and thus control
the industry and trade, and thus plunder and enslave the
laborers, of both North and South. And Congress and the
president are today the merest tools for these purposes.
They are obliged to be, for they know that their own power,
as rulers, so-called, is at an end, the moment their credit
with the blood-money loan-mongers fails. They are like a
bankrupt in the hands of an extortioner. They dare not say
nay to any demand made upon them. And to hide at once, if
possible, both their servility and crimes, they attempt to
divert public attention, by crying out that they have
"Abolished Slavery!" That they have "Saved the Country!"
That they have "Preserved our Glorious Union!" and that, in
now paying the "National Debt," as they call it (as if the
people themselves, all of them who are to be taxed for its
payment, had really and voluntarily joined in contracting
it), they are simply "Maintaining the National Honor!"
By "maintaining the national honor," they mean simply that
they themselves, open robbers and murderers, assume to be
the nation, and will keep faith with those who lend them the
money necessary to enable them to crush the great body of
the people under their feet; and will faithfully
appropriate, from the proceeds of their future robberies and
murders, enough to pay all their loans, principal and
interest.
"The pretense that the "abolition of slavery" was either a
motive or justification for the war, is a fraud of the same
character with that of "maintaining the national honor."
Who, but such usurpers, robbers, and murderers as they, ever
established slavery? Or what government, except one resting
upon the sword, like the one we now have, was ever capable
of maintaining slavery? And why did these men abolish
slavery? Not from any love of liberty in general---not as an
act of justice to the black man himself, but only "as a war
measure," and because they wanted his assistance, and that
of his friends, in carrying on the war they had undertaken
for maintaining and intensifying that political, commercial,
and industrial slavery, to which they have subjected the
great body of the people, both black and white. And yet
these imposters now cry out that they have abolished the
chattel slavery of the black man---although that was not the
motive of the war---as if they thought they could thereby
conceal, atone for, or justify that other slavery which they
were fighting to perpetuate, and to render more rigorous and
inexorable than it ever was before. There was no difference
of principle---but only of degree---between the slavery they
boast they have abolished, and the slavery they were
fighting to preserve; for all restraints upon men's natural
liberty, not necessary for the simple maintenance of
justice, are of the nature of slavery, and differ from each
other only in degree.
"If their object had really been to abolish slavery, or
maintain liberty or justice generally, they had only to say:
All, whether white or black, who want the protection of this
government, shall have it; and all who do not want it, will
be left in peace, so long as they leave us in peace. Had
they said this, slavery would necessarily have been
abolished at once; the war would have been saved; and a
thousand times nobler union than we have ever had would have
been the result. It would have been a voluntary union of
free men; such a union as will one day exist among all men,
the world over, if the several nations, so called, shall
ever get rid of the usurpers, robbers, and murderers, called
governments, that now plunder, enslave, and destroy them.
"Still another of the frauds of these men is, that they are
now establishing, and that the war was designed to
establish, "a government of consent." The only idea they
have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent,
is this---that it is one to which everybody must consent, or
be shot. This idea was the dominant one on which the war was
carried on; and it is the dominant one, now that we have got
what is called "peace."
"Their pretenses that they have "Saved the Country," and
"Preserved our Glorious Union," are frauds like all the rest
of their pretenses. By them they mean simply that they have
subjugated, and maintained their power over, an unwilling
people. This they call "Saving the Country"; as if an
enslaved and subjugated people---or as if any people kept in
subjection by the sword (as it is intended that all of us
shall be hereafter)---could be said to have any country.
This, too, they call "Preserving our Glorious Union"; as if
there could be said to be any Union, glorious or inglorious,
that was not voluntary. Or as if there could be said to be
any union between masters and slaves; between those who
conquer, and those who are subjugated.
"All these cries of having "abolished slavery," of having
"saved the country," of having "preserved the union," of
establishing "a government of consent," and of "maintaining
the national honor," are all gross, shameless, transparent
cheats---so transparent that they ought to deceive no one --
when uttered as justifications for the war, or for the
government that has suceeded the war, or for now compelling
the people to pay the cost of the war, or for compelling
anybody to support a government that he does not want.
"The lesson taught by all these facts is this: As long as
mankind continue to pay "national debts," so-called---that
is, so long as they are such dupes and cowards as to pay for
being cheated, plundered, enslaved, and murdered -- so long
there will be enough to lend the money for those purposes;
and with that money a plenty of tools, called soldiers, can
be hired to keep them in subjection. But when they refuse
any longer to pay for being thus cheated, plundered,
enslaved, and murdered, they will cease to have cheats, and
usurpers, and robbers, and murderers and blood-money
loan-mongers for masters."
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