Attached is a copy of my Letter to Editor in response to the following piece in the October 20 The Nation:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031020&s=moser
Editor:
>Bob Moser's piece ("Endangered Species of the American South," October
>20) supports what I have been thinking for some time - that fighting the
>Civil War was the Lincoln presidency's biggest mistake.
had the south not fought a largely defensive war, the war would have been over quickly. the way to washington, dc, was wide open to the southern military at the beginning of the war. the nation's best military minds were southern. the north would have lost in a matter of a month had the south not hung back.
had lincoln not been obsessed with the notion of "one nation, indivisible," history would have been very different, too. it's been said that lincoln created this notion himself. but i find it hard not to believe that the framers of the constitution desired the same goal. what people enter into voluntarily they should be able to exit voluntary. but no provisions for this are given in the constitution.
>Had the South
>seceded, the Union would be like today's Canada, a mildly progressive
>state with a terrible neighbor to the south. Instead the conquered
>South spilled its poisonous social relations all over the seemingly
>victorious Union and eventually captured its soul.
actually, wojtek, this isn't quite what happened. reconstruction was ended largely due to a coalition of northern financial interests with what's loosely called southern planters, restoring the prewar status quo with jim crow, and dividing white from black in the south just when they were learning to get along together. there was very little soul to capture in the north. consider, if you will, how many union soldiers -- the irish immigrant conscripts, for example -- were very bitter at having to fight in a war that had anything to do with freeing slaves. take a look at white race riots in new york city during the war where blacks were killed.
since i'm not a subscriber to the nation, and don't plan to be one, i wasn't able to read moser's article. i hope nothing i've written is out of place with his essay, and that i haven't taken your letter out of context.
R
>The lesson for today is that the progressives should realize that
>progressive empire is an oxymoron and stop wasting their limited
>resources on capturing the imperial presidency. A better strategy is
>striving for a secession of progressive states from the imperialist
>entity. A secessionist movement can not only make the implementation of
>progressive ideals attainable, albeit on a geographically smaller scale,
>but also attract support of many political undercurrents, from the
>libertarians to the states rights crowd.
>Wojtek Sokolowski
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