Backtalk W
ANDREW NAPOLITANO / GUEST COLUMNIST Be Honest About History
hen republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley answered a question last month in which she stated that the American Civil War was fought over “government,” “rights”
and “freedoms,” she was correct. Yet, like most politicians, when she realized that the
popular answer should have been “slavery,” she modifi ed her answer. She should have stood her ground. Hear me out. This column is hardly indiff erent to slav-
ery. Slavery is the most morally reprehensible institution in history. Far from being indiff erent to the history of slavery, I embrace the two pillars of modern libertarian thought, both of which are antithetical to slavery: natural rights and the nonaggression principle. The former teaches that our rights
come from our humanity, no matter where our mothers were when we were born, no matter what our skin color is, no matter our intellect or income, no matter what the government says. The latter teaches that all initiated aggression, whether by force or threat or deception, whether by individuals or groups or govern- ment, is morally illicit. Slavery profoundly violates both of these principles. It
ians, as it was a military order issued to troops by Lincoln in his capacity as commander in chief so as to enable the Union Army to conscript slaves into the Army against their will — from one form of slavery to another. Moreover, the Proclamation expressly prohibited the
Slavery, a morally reprehensible institution, was and is America’s Holocaust.
was and is America’s Holocaust. Yet, when it comes to the interrelationship between slav-
ery and the American Civil War, most Americans have their history backward. Because it is nearly always written by the winners, history nearly always makes the winners look good. The American Civil War is no exception. Starting with its very inaccurate name, the war fought
on American soil between Americans from 1861 to 1865 was not a civil war. A civil war is a violent contest for control of a central government. The War Between the States was not fought for control
of the federal government. It was fought, like all wars, over power and wealth. No less an authority on the reasons for the war than
Abraham Lincoln acknowledged many times during his presidency that the war was fought to preserve the union, not to eradicate slavery. In government schools, we all learned that Lincoln freed
the slaves. He didn’t. They were freed by the 13th Amend- ment, which was ratifi ed in December 1865, eight months after the war ended and Lincoln’s death. What about the Emancipation Proclamation? In govern-
ment schools, we all learned that by that document, the slaves were set free. They weren’t. The Proclamation did not have the force of law on civil-
98 NEWSMAX | FEBRUARY 2024
Army from interfering with slavery — and thus preserving it — in the fi ve border states; fully one-third of the Confed- eracy. In government schools, we learned that Lincoln was anti-slavery. He wasn’t. In the earliest days of his presiden- cy, he championed the Corwin Amendment — the Republi- can Congress’ original 13th Amendment — which Congress passed and sent on to the states. Had its ratifi cation not been inter-
rupted by the war, it would have enshrined slavery in the Constitu- tion. The same Congress that moved to abolish slavery as soon as the war ended had moved to protect it before the war started; this is history bent and rewritten by the victors. In war, power means control of
someone else’s land and wealth means seizing someone else’s assets. The initial verbal and military salvos in the war were over whether the states — covetous of tariff revenues seized by the feds — could voluntarily leave the union and resume collecting tariff s; hardly a novel concept at the time, but in a government school, you probably never heard this.
N
ow, back to Haley. A wise answer would have stated that historians rarely agree on the causes of war, and
wars look very diff erent 150 years after they have ended than they do when facing the barrel of a gun. But histori- cally, she was correct — all wars implicate freedom. History is made by its participants, but it is written by historians generations afterward. Not all of them are intel- lectually honest, and many want to shape the perception of the past in order to infl uence events in the future. No less a tyrannical war lover than Napoleon recognized
this when he quipped that history is not a record of the events before us; history is what people think took place before us.
Thinking people recognize that the causes of war are
often many and ill-defi ned. But reasonable people should be able to disagree reasonably. And intellectually hon- est people should stand by their principles, though the heavens fall.
Andrew Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court judge, is a columnist who lectures nationally on the U.S. Constitution.
NAPOLITANO/GAGE SKIDMORE/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
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