[Peace-discuss] Antiwar, then and now

[C. G. Estabrook]

[While we reflect that the present antiwar movement must oppose the general US 
war in the Middle East (i.e., in AfPak and Palestine as well as in Iraq and 
Iran), it's worth remembering that earlier US wars were hardly admirable.  A 
series of recent books have once again raised questions about "the good war," 
World War II.  A serious antiwar movement 150 years ago would have been a good 
idea, too: Lincoln wasn't a hero, and Wilson was a villain. As Powell points out 
below, "The history of emancipation in the Western Hemisphere made clear that 
war wasn't ... the best way to free the slaves."  --CGE]

	June 24, 2008
	How the South Won the Civil War
	And what this means for Iraq and Iran
	by Jim Powell

We have been told endlessly that the U.S. Civil War was a good war, fought to 
free the slaves. About 110,100 Union soldiers were killed in action, and another 
224,580 died from war-related diseases. An estimated 275,175 Union soldiers were 
wounded. In 1879, it was believed that the Union had spent $6.1 billion on the 
war – and that was real money back then. Yet to a significant degree, as far as 
the former black slaves were concerned, the South was triumphant. We have here 
one of the most astonishing reminders about how wars backfire, which we ought to 
keep in mind when discussing other wars, particularly preemptive wars like the 
one in Iraq or the one being contemplated in Iran.

Not long after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Abraham 
Lincoln's hand-picked successor, Andrew Johnson, helped ex-Confederates 
reestablish white supremacy in the Southern states. These ex-Confederates 
understood that the war wasn't really over in 1865. They enacted Black Codes to 
restrict the freedom of blacks and restore slavery in everything but name. To be 
sure, Radical Republicans in Congress asserted themselves and passed the Civil 
War Amendments, officially abolishing slavery, assuring equal rights for former 
slaves, and guaranteeing the right to vote. But these amendments soon became 
dead letters. Embittered ex-Confederates formed the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of 
the White Camellia, and other terrorist organizations that conducted brutal 
"Negro hunts." The influence of Radical Republicans declined after a few years 
as their leaders died or became preoccupied with other issues. Then the party of 
Lincoln made a deal to resolve the contested presidential election of 1876: they 
would have federal troops withdrawn from the last three Southern states that 
were occupied after the Civil War, enabling Democrats to gain complete political 
control of the South, and in exchange Democrats would permit the Republican 
candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, to become the 19th U.S. president. The civil 
rights of blacks were subverted for almost another century.

Incredibly, in the name of reconciliation, Union veterans and Confederate 
veterans gathered at Memorial Day ceremonies to mourn the dead – without 
discussing any of the war issues. Those were laid to rest. In 1913, Woodrow 
Wilson – the first Southerner elected president since the Civil War – gave a 
speech at Gettysburg, Pa., marking the 50th anniversary of Lincoln's famous 
address there. Despite all the wartime sacrifices, Wilson declared that the 
Civil War was "a quarrel forgotten."

Moreover, Wilson betrayed his campaign assurances to the black community and 
segregated federal government offices that hadn't previously been segregated. He 
defended segregation in a series of letters to New York Post editor Oswald 
Garrison Villard, the grandson of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Wilson 
claimed that segregation would eliminate "the discontent and uneasiness which 
had prevailed in many of the departments." Wilson added that segregation would 
make blacks "less likely to be discriminated against."

The South was victorious ideologically. Its view of the Civil War was the 
prevailing view in the North for a century. Columbia University Professor 
William A. Dunning, a founder of the American Historical Association and its 
president in 1913, was perhaps the most influential promoter of the Southern 
view. He portrayed Radical Republicans as villains. He helped popularize the 
term "Carpetbagger," meaning Northerners who went South to seek public office 
after the Civil War. Dunning defended segregation by claiming that blacks were 
incapable of self-government. A star of the so-called "Dunning School" of 
post-Civil War historical writing was Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, who finished his 
teaching career at Yale. He defended slaveholders against charges that they were 
brutal, and he claimed they did much to civilize the slaves. Dunning School 
historians dominated American textbooks well into the 1950s and even the 1960s.

So, the Civil War was supposed to be quick and easy, and obviously it wasn't. 
The Union's military victories gave the losers an uncontrollable lust for 
revenge, and they renewed their oppression of blacks at the earliest 
opportunity. Nobody could be counted on to protect the blacks. The Civil War was 
no shortcut to civil rights. After the war, Northerners didn't want to remember 
why they had fought, or at least the part about freeing the slaves.

We ought to know by now that the killing and destruction of wars tend to 
intensify hatreds, and they're bound to play out, often in hideous ways that can 
be impossible even for a militarily superior power to control. If we had as much 
trouble as we did trying to achieve social reform through war in our own 
backyard, how can we expect to do wonderful things by sending our soldiers and 
money to faraway places we know comparatively little about?

The history of emancipation in the Western Hemisphere made clear that war wasn't 
the only way or the best way to free the slaves. Although slavery had been 
around for thousands of years, abolitionists launched epic movements generating 
political support that doomed slavery in only about a century and a quarter. 
Slave rebellions reminded everybody that slaveholding was a risky business. 
There were private and governmental efforts to buy the freedom of slaves, 
reducing the number of slaves, reducing the amount of slaveholding territory, 
and reducing the political clout of slaveholders. Underground railroads further 
undermined slavery, and the runaways brought with them fresh horror stories for 
antislavery campaigns. A peaceful, persistent campaign involving a combination 
of strategies was the key to abolishing slavery. This was also the key to the 
campaign Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony launched to secure equal 
rights for women, the campaign that Mohandas Gandhi launched for Indian 
independence, and the campaign that Martin Luther King launched for civil rights 
in America.


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