Uploaded July 2023 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
Every summer Civil War re-enactors throughout the United States offer us a potential history lesson. In the North — in places like Westfield, New York — It’s axiomatic that the focus is on the Union cause. And after all, the victors write the history of every war, justify its reasons, lament its losses and praise its heroes. But the drama presented by the re-enactors enables us to ask questions rarely explored: vast swaths of the South were destroyed; much of the wealth of the southern states was subsequently shipped north. No other Western nation resorted to war to end slavery. Close to a million men died in the 5-year war, leaving families and farms in the North and South to suffer for a generation and longer. As Lincoln said early on, the end of slavery was not his objective; after all, along with James Madison, Henry Clay and much of the abolitionist movement, Lincoln wanted to return Blacks back to Africa - to Liberia, especially. Lincoln’s ‘Emancipation Proclamation’ of January 1863 was motivated by increasing the size of the North’s army — well over a hundred thousand new troops to send south. Lincoln's objective was to maintain a strong central government: to prevent secession.
Southerners not hornswoggled by Lincoln hagiography think back to Patrick Henry, who in 1787 warned that centralizing of American government under the proposed Constitution was “madness.” After all, the colonies had just gotten out from under of the centralized and coercive power of Britain. Why, Henry asked, would they impose this kind of control on themselves: the power to tax, to incur huge debt, the power to make war, to impose all sorts of unwanted mandates on the relative freedom of the States? The new Constitution didn’t expressly forbid secession from tyrannical centralized government, but it made it exceedingly difficult. After over a half-century, secession seemed the only way out from under an oppressive centralized government in Washington D.C.
Every summer Civil War re-enactors throughout the United States offer us a potential history lesson. In the North — in places like Westfield, New York — It’s axiomatic that the focus is on the Union cause. And after all, the victors write the history of every war, justify its reasons, lament its losses and praise its heroes. But the drama presented by the re-enactors enables us to ask questions rarely explored: vast swaths of the South were destroyed; much of the wealth of the southern states was subsequently shipped north. No other Western nation resorted to war to end slavery. Close to a million men died in the 5-year war, leaving families and farms in the North and South to suffer for a generation and longer. As Lincoln said early on, the end of slavery was not his objective; after all, along with James Madison, Henry Clay and much of the abolitionist movement, Lincoln wanted to return Blacks back to Africa - to Liberia, especially. Lincoln’s ‘Emancipation Proclamation’ of January 1863 was motivated by increasing the size of the North’s army — well over a hundred thousand new troops to send south. Lincoln's objective was to maintain a strong central government: to prevent secession.
Southerners not hornswoggled by Lincoln hagiography think back to Patrick Henry, who in 1787 warned that centralizing of American government under the proposed Constitution was “madness.” After all, the colonies had just gotten out from under of the centralized and coercive power of Britain. Why, Henry asked, would they impose this kind of control on themselves: the power to tax, to incur huge debt, the power to make war, to impose all sorts of unwanted mandates on the relative freedom of the States? The new Constitution didn’t expressly forbid secession from tyrannical centralized government, but it made it exceedingly difficult. After over a half-century, secession seemed the only way out from under an oppressive centralized government in Washington D.C.
