In the Shadow of Our Founders: Part Three

South states seceded for largely different reasons, citing specifically Lincoln's intent to coerce the Lower South back into the Union by armed force. But if the Lower South wasn't justified to secede in the first place, then Lincoln's actions to enforce the Constitution cannot be seen as tyrannical, but rather proper. In fact, they can be seen in the same light (though obviously on a much larger scale) as President Washington's calling out the troops to put down the Whiskey Rebellion. President Lincoln was carrying out his sworn duty to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

It simply cannot be argued in good conscience that the southern states had any justifiable reason to secede in 1860-61 from the Constitution, which George Washington had just a few decades earlier, in his famous Farewell Address, declared to be "sacredly obligatory" on all the people and all the states.

Where Does All This Leave Us?

Though the evidence strongly supports Lincoln's view of the perpetual Union to Davis's impressions of stand-alone and complete state sovereignty, how should we incorporate this information into our understanding of the Civil War and the legacy it has left for America?

In recent years, the Confederacy has been increasingly vilified. The Confederate flag has often equated with the Nazi swastika and the honoring of Confederate dead attacked as somehow incendiary to race relations and the unifying fabric of our nation. Such vitriolic hatred of the Confederacy and what it stood for serves no useful purpose and it ignores the realities of American life in 1860.

The events of 1860-61 took place in a different era than today, and were carried out by people with different prejudices, paradigms and information than today. Regardless of constitutional realities, American culture at the time was centered on local states and communities. There was no radio, no television, and no Internet. Newspapers were more partisan and more local. Travel was nowhere near as common and was much more difficult. People tended to live and die where they were born, and their circle of friends rarely expanded beyond their immediate communities. Within this context came the bloodiest war in American history. And soldiers on both sides fought for reasons and with motives that were largely, if not primarily, guided by local culture and prejudice.

It is easy in the twenty-first century, with access to all the information pertinent to that era (including exhaustive documentation that

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