Honoring the Confederate Flag

"Lessons From The Civil War 150 Years Later: U.S. Should Stop Killing People Without Good Reason,"
Doug Bandow

"...Never has a war better illustrated the adage that the victors write the histories. What could possibly justify four years of mass slaughter and destruction? 

Southerners contended that states had a constitutional right to secede. There were fair arguments on both sides. However a dispassionate court might rule, the more important question was: what could warrant killing those on the other side of the debate? 

In particular, why should a democratic republic with a limited government built on a commitment to individual liberty respond to dissatisfied citizens desiring to join a new political community by killing them—as well as invading their lands, overthrowing their institutions, and burning their homes? Even if Southerners were acting foolishly and illegally in advocating secession, as I believe, they surely did not deserve this response.

Eliminating slavery would have offered a powerful moral cause for war. Human bondage was no minor blemish, but a fatal flaw of Southern society. And no government which uses its power to hold people in slavery can be either moral or limited.

However, abolition isn’t why the two sections fought. The seven Deep South states left out of fear for the security of their 'peculiar institution.' But ever-practical Abraham Lincoln called out the troops to maintain the Union, not outlaw human bondage. Racism was rife in the North and abolitionists were a decided minority. A call to arms for liberating slaves would have brought forth a trickle rather than flood of army recruits.... "

"...Despite the unnecessary casualties and destruction of the Civil War, most Americans today still reflexively call Lincoln a great president who 'saved' the country. He did end slavery, a notable achievement, yet war probably wasn’t necessary to do so. In fact, only one other nation abolished human bondage through violence—Haiti decades before. 

Every other slave society ended the awful practice peacefully. America was not even the last slave system to go; Brazil abolished the deeply rooted institution legally in 1888. No Brazilians died to free that country’s slaves...,""Lessons From The Civil War 150 Years Later...," Doug Bandow,Contributor, Forbes Magazine, April 9th, 2015.