> There's a monument to the Confederacy in Austin with fascinating
> text on the plaque.
> http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/North_America/United_States_of_America/Texas/Austin-875823/General_Tips-Austin-Capitol-BR-1.html
>
> DIED FOR STATES RIGHTS
> GUARANTEED UNDER THE CONSTITUTION
> THE PEOPLE OF THE SOUTH, ANIMATED BY THE SPIRIT OF 1776, TO PRESERVE
> THEIR RIGHTS, WITHDREW FROM THE FEDERAL COMPACT IN 1861. THE NORTH
> RESORTED TO COERCION.
> THE SOUTH, AGAINST OVERWHELMING NUMBERS AND RESOURCES,
> FOUGHT UNTIL EXHAUSTED.
It is a bit unorthodox, but there are several rather leftish historians who discuss the Civil War in similar terms. For instance, William Appleman Williams cites it as yet another example of US imperial aggression (though it was internal) in "Empire as a Way of Life" and Barrington Moore sees it as the true revolution in American history--calling it the "last capitalist revolution." You don't have to be sympathetic to the Confederacy to see the actions of the Union as a resort to coercion. I don't know enough about the history myself to say how I'd characterize the actions of the North, but calling it coercion isn't necessarily a completely retrograde impulse (though being from TX myself, I have no doubt this example is--and having lived for some time in Virginia, have no doubt the gov. there is working from the same playbook. The Civil War era cannons in front of the Fairfax County Courthouse still point north.)
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