Courtesy of The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
Union General George Thomas and a group of officers at a council of war near Ringgold, Ga., May 5, 1864
I was astonished by the number of responses to my post on Confederate History Month. I shouldn’t have been. The Civil War continues to exert a hold on our imagination and our passions.
A number of commenters contested my basic thesis, i.e., that the Civil War had a lot to do with slavery. What can I say? They’re wrong. Complex historical events like the Civil War are, almost by nature, multi-causal in origin. But the idea that slavery had little or nothing to do with the war is simply risible. Even a cursory reading of the history of the 1850s proves otherwise. The split over slavery destroyed the Whig Party, led to the creation of the Republican Party, and finally divided the Democrats. Slavery was the cause of violence in “Bleeding Kansas” and at Harper’s Ferry. It was the subject of angry, even savage, national debate during the decade leading up to the Civil War. Slavery drove congressional action on organizing territories and admitting states. It blocked construction of a transcontinental railway and passage of what would eventually be the Homestead Act. And Lincoln’s pledge to restrict slavery in the territories was the proximate cause of the first wave of secession following his election.
A number of commenters stressed the role of states’ rights in the origins of the Civil War. The subject of federalism is a complex one. But defenders of states’ rights do their cause no service by acting as apologists for the Confederacy. For many decades, states’ rights were perceived as code words for white supremacy. Lord knows, they were invoked often enough by southern whites who opposed federal efforts to ensure black Americans equality under the law. There are no doubt good reasons — constitutional and pragmatic — for decentralization of authority. But embracing the Confederate cause — and, by extension, the institution of slavery — makes arguments in support of states’ rights rightly suspect.
On states’ rights, I side with General George Thomas, perhaps the most underrated of the great Union commanders and, interestingly, a Virginian by birth. After the battle of Chattanooga, he ordered the construction of a cemetery. When asked if the dead should be buried by state, he replied:
“No, no. Mix them up. Mix them up. I’m tired of states’ rights.”
Joe Barnes is the Baker Institute’s Bonner Means Baker Fellow. From 1979 to 1993, he was a career diplomat with the U.S. Department of State, serving in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.