Don’t alert the folks who think the North was justified for the civil war and that it was about slavery. I’ve always maintained it was about control.
I see your point.
It was about control. The south,headed by the slavocracy, controlled the union - until they didn't. Then they freaked out and tried to upend our republic.
Ah ...we get to ‘refight’ the causes of the Civil War.
Here is a challenge for those defending the south....
Google to find the various Secession Resolutions that were passed by southern states when they decided to secede. Those resolutions are their ‘justification’ for leaving the union.
(Or - find the book “The President’s War; Six Presidents and the Civil War that Divided them”. In the appendices - you can find some of the secession resolutions.)
Those southern states typically spoke out STRONGLY on their belief that slavery was legal and should be maintained, and that the Union would take away their right to keep and control slaves. The southern states conveniently believed in ‘federalism’ when it was convenient...they wanted the federal government to support efforts to track down and return slaves from free states. Today - southern ‘sympathizers’ claim that they were against federalism...which they were - WHEN IT WAS CONVENIENT.
So - bottom line - initially - the northern states did NOT fight to ‘free the slaves’ (that came later) - but initially - it was to preserve the union. OTOH - the south definitely seceded and was willing to fight to PRESERVE slavery.
As to ‘justified’ ....play a mental game, if you will....and be honest. Assume you were a slave in the south in 1859. Would you be willing to continue suffering in slavery for another 10, 20, 30 or more years - hoping that eventually slavery would be ended...peacefully? How many years would you be wanting to see this evil institution continue, slaves suffering under the lash, slave families broken up at the whim of their ‘master’? If you would be willing to see a Civil War to ensure your freedom - sooner than later....then you should understand that the Civil War - as bad as it was - was less evil than the institution of slavery.
Have you really READ Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Address? If not - carefully read this passage - and see if it honestly addresses the issue:
LINCOLN: “One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.
[HERE IS THE IMPORTANT PART] Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
All evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.