In full disclosure I stipulate I was born in North Carolina and am proud to be a Southerner. I have visited nearly all of the continental United States and have found kindred spirits among my fellow citizens but nowhere have I found a sweeter culture than deep in the true South. And having lived during both the Jim Crow and Civil Rights / desegregation eras I understand how evil and demeaning our history of slavery and bigotry has been. From both a Christian faith and constitutional perspective I believe that all persons are created the same in the eyes of God and men. Slavery was an affront to our American Ideal.
That said, I detect a dichotomy in our nation’s treatment of two major divisions in our history that have been categorized as “moral issues.” Those two issues are slavery and abortion. What follows is my own opinion; I offer no specific references to authors or authority to support my claims beyond what can be gleaned from secondary sources easily found on the Internet. Hence, I remain open to opposing viewpoints and enlightenment.
There is no doubt that slavery was a moral issue among most Americans; how that issue was resolved is worthy of consideration. From the very beginning slavery was not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence although Jefferson wanted it to be addressed. It is also well documented that the Founders could not find a way to exclude the institution of slavery within the bounds of the emerging constitutional Republic born in 1787. A war had been hard-fought to gain independence from England and the danger of splintering the fragile coalition of 13 states was too great to force the point. Doing so might allow England or another European nation to use slavery as a wedge to divide them. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1, was expressly included in the original Constitution to allow lawful commerce in slavery to “sunset” 20 years after the Constitution was adopted (subsequently 1808). This was included to placate the southern states where such commerce was still allowed.
The Constitution’s ”Three-fifths” compromise was not, as many claim, a reduction of Negro slaves to less-than human status but as a means for the northern states to prevent southern states from dominating the proposed House of Representatives by virtue of their sizeable slave population. (1)
I will further stipulate that I am not a professional student of the historical events that ultimately led to the War of Northern Aggression, a national schism which has generally been reduced to a conflict over slavery. But prior to the precipitating attack on Fort Sumpter there had been decades of Southern grievances against the federal government that had been ignored.
Among these were tariffs levied against manufactured goods imported from England, principally iron goods. Nearly all of the funds raised to support the federal government came from these tariffs. Since the South had very little manufacturing capacity and the northeastern states were replete with the same, the southern states saw these tariffs as a means of enriching the northeastern states at the expense of the South. The economy of the south was based upon agricultural products, principal of them being cotton which was in high demand in Europe. England’s purchases of cotton represented a huge fraction of southern revenues and the northern states stood to gain both political and financial power from new tariffs. The 1828 “Tariff of Abominations” was particularly objectionable, levying an ad valorem of 40% on imported goods. In the decades between 1820 and 1860 these protective tariffs remained a volatile issue with the four southern states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. (2)
In addition to objecting to the imposition of import tariffs, Congressional representatives of the southern states repeatedly argued that intrastate commerce (including slavery) could not be regulated by the federal government because of constitutionally protected States Rights.
When South Carolina seceded from the Union in 1860, the exercise of constitutional government was seriously challenged for the first time. In the preamble of the Declaration of Independence are found these words:
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
It could be argued that the southern states found within these words license to withdraw from a Union which they felt sought to abridge their safety and happiness through economic pressure and erosion of rights. The election of Abraham Lincoln in that same year was the watershed event that ultimately transformed what had been a legal quagmire into a national cause célèbre with moral implications. In 1863, while concerned that the southern states might prolong the war long enough for the Union’s cause to lose public support, he issued the famous Emancipation Proclamation which turned the tide of the war.
So we conclude from the foregoing that on the basis of a single moral issue the federal government was willing to raise arms against fellow citizens while arguably skirting some of the principles of constitutional government. What prevented Lincoln from ignoring the secession of South Carolina and continuing to seek a congressional resolution to the problem much like the Founders had done? Perhaps one person’s moral convictions override those of another, however odious that other’s position might be? England had eliminated slavery by an act of Parliament after decades of pressure by hundreds of English citizens and nobles including the famous William Wilberforce. No war was fought and no property of former slaveholders was seized by the government. In fact, slave owners were financially compensated for loss of their “property.” (3) What prevented Lincoln from pursuing a similar course of action?
Now compare the actions of Lincoln and the federal government to resolve the moral issue of slavery with the government’s actions taken on behalf of states and citizens who held that abortion was solely a legal question. Roe v. Wade set forth the proposition that abortion was an individual legal right that could not be adjudicated under the principles of States Rights or abridged by the moral conviction of citizens of the states. Indeed, the Supreme Court asserted that the life of a baby could be terminated solely upon the arbitrary decision of a single pregnant woman; government nor society had any voice in protecting the life of a “non-person” (see Three-fifths Compromise above). This decision was the law of the land for 50 years despite the moral objections of millions of American citizens. Should these citizens have seceded from the Union based upon their moral indignation that their “Safety and Happiness” were threatened by the US government? Should they have taken up arms to preserve the right of their respective states to regulate the practice of abortion? (Note that I speak of a general uprising and not the random acts of violence exhibited by people such as Eric Rudolph.) The obvious answer is No, I don’t believe that the abortion issue should have been resolved by violence any more than I believe that a war was the only way to resolve the slavery issue.
Worse yet, the fallout from the Civil War continues to have repercussions to the present. Much of the centralization of government power in Washington, D.C. is the result of the punitive actions of Republican leadership in Congress during Reconstruction. The limits of Madison v. Marbury have been expanded, particularly in regard to the “Commerce Clause” to allow the federal government to usurp States Rights on every conceivable front. Abraham Lincoln and others justified a war to “preserve the Union.” Today that catch phrase has been modified: “We must save our democracy.” From what? From free citizens with moral convictions that don’t coincide with the “elites?” Only the course of time will reveal how this latest challenge to our constitutional Republic is resolved.
1. https://www.britannica.com/topic/three-fifths-compromise
2. https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/tariffs-founding-era-to-american-civil-war/
3. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Abolition-Of-Slavery/
Thank you for this summation of American history. Born and raised on the West coast, Civil War history as taught in public schools in the 70s was very simplistic and certainly didn't have the nuance of comparison to the abortion issue.