Hey CK,
Any opinions on Ron Paul’s idea that we didn’t need to fight the Civil War?
I think the CWI could have been avoided in many ways. If you’d not been so bloody minded in overthrowing your lawful Lord and King George III, slavery would have been done in the 1820s.
>Any opinions on Ron Paul’s idea that we didn’t need to fight the Civil War?
Technically we didn’t. We could have recognized that the 10th Amendment applied to a state’s [un]willingness to be part of the [Constitutional] compact called “The United States” and allowed them to secede peaceably.
If the Civil War hadn’t been fought, then we likely wouldn’t be in the position we are regarding federally mandated [health] insurance because the States could withdraw saying “Nope, that’s overstepping your [constitutional] bounds Federal Government.”
The Civil War wasn’t about slavery, it was about maintaining the Union. The North , with superior firepower,
would not allow The South to break away and invaded the South.
Sure, I’m all for secession, including slave rebellions! If Lincoln had let the South secede prior to Fort Sumter, the CSA would have been limited to a small, weak Gulf Coast Confederacy. Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas had all decided but Lincoln’s declaration of war pushed them out of the Union. Under such a scenario, a weak Gulf Coast Confederacy (SC is the exception) would have been highly vulnerable to runaways and slave rebellions. IMHO, it would not have lasted long and slavery would have collapsed before the end of the 19th century.