Cockburn on slavery

[Brett Knowlton]

Carl wrote:
>The second point is, was it necessary to fight the Civil War at all?  I
>have long had a suspicion that the Civil War caused damage -- in terms
>of casualties and regional resentments that endure to this day -- that
>outweighs the benefit of ending slavery quickly (which, in itself,
>seemed an afterthought -- Lincoln appeared much more concerned with his
>fetish of preserving the union, to me a meaningless abstraction).  Even
>without the war, how long could slavery have endured without the South
>becoming a pariah state in the 19th century as South Africa did in the
>20th?  My position is a pacifist one -- I think wars bring more ills
>than solutions. 

And someone else wrote (don't remember who):
>I read a book last year called "Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men" 
>by Jeffrey Hummel.  He comes at things from a right-libertarian 
>viewpoint, but his grasp of the literature is amazing.  It's his 
>contention that the North should have followed the recommendations of 
>abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and let the south go; that 
>without the "enforcement subsidy" of the fugative slave laws, slavery 
>was uneconomic and would die on its own.  

This is really cool.  I think the south should probably have been allowed
to seccede.  But, whenever I've tried to express my views, or even question
the standard interpretation that you get taught in school, I get shouted
down by "the Civil War freed the slaves and kept the Union intact and
wasn't that great" crowd, who has included everyone but me up until now
(I'm from Chicago, which probably has something to do with that).

Anyway, I agree with Carl and the general view that the Civil War was
unnecessary and probably counterproductive.  I'm not sure it could have
been avoided though.  Could Lincoln realistically have let the South go,
given the political situation in the North?

Brett