Was the American Civil War a Just War?

In your opinion, was it just and why do you think so?
It depends what your personal political beliefs are.If you think ending slavery and preserving the Union are worthy ideals then yes it's a just war. If one thinks slavery and **** are wonderful things not so much.
Leftyhuner
 
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In your opinion, was it just and why do you think so?

krvaldovinos,

A 'just war?'

My first reaction is to say there is no such thing as a 'just war.' To me, personally, when any nation resorts to war, it represents failure. There are so many ways to resolve issues and the crisis nations sometimes confront that I find it hard to justify a willful act of war.

When I was in the U.S. Army, I and the unit I was assigned to wouldn't often deploy to conduct Field Training Exercises (FTX's), in which we would practice war and war fighting tactics, sometimes for days and weeks on end. I would always be in awe of the tremendous effort made to deploy tens of thousands of men, their individual equipment and weapons, the vehicles to move them, the armored tanks and artillery, the medical personnel, the communications gear, the food and fuel to keep everyone and everything going. And during that feeling of awe, I always had the thought of all that effort and resources being spent to practice killing fellow human beings and how awful and wasteful all that effort was.

But I was a soldier and I understood the need of such, as human beings cannot always be angels and I firmly believe there is evil in the world that our nation must be on guard against. I firmly believe every effort should be made short of war before we spend the lives of our young service people.

But if war is thrust upon our nation, I feel we must conduct the most violent, the most destructive, the most terrifying warfare against our enemies as possible. By doing such, we will, in my view, conduct a short war with the least amount of damage to ourselves and our own service people.

War is cruelty, as the man said. There is no refining it.

In my view, the Civil War was thrust upon the nation, a nation that did not want it and was ill-prepared for it.

A 'just war?'

Hardly, but one that had to be fought to rid the nation of a way of life that was intolerable to it's values and to preserve itself.

In my view, it was a necessary war.

Sincerely,
Unionblue
 
[QUOTEMy first reaction is to say there is no such thing as a 'just war.' To me, personally, when any nation resorts to war, it represents failure. There are so many ways to resolve issues and the crisis nations sometimes confront that I find it hard to justify a willful act of war.][/QUOTE]

I'm going to just 'like' this and leave it a that.
 
In my opinion, no war is just. Violence should always be the last resort to conflicts. Humans are stupid creatures, and are ruled by greed. If you look at wars, virtually all of them have a greedy reasoning behind it. Whether it's for more land, resources, money, or legitimacy. I never could understand why us humans have a "military" to train our fellow beings solely to kill others. It's horrible, and it's why I think it's so important to honor our veterans from every war who did their duty to their country. No matter how glorious the movies make it look, the reality is so, very terrible.

"It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it." - R.E. Lee
 
In my opinion, no war is just. Violence should always be the last resort to conflicts. Humans are stupid creatures, and are ruled by greed. If you look at wars, virtually all of them have a greedy reasoning behind it. Whether it's for more land, resources, money, or legitimacy. I never could understand why us humans have a "military" to train our fellow beings solely to kill others. It's horrible, and it's why I think it's so important to honor our veterans from every war who did their duty to their country. No matter how glorious the movies make it look, the reality is so, very terrible.

"It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it." - R.E. Lee
On the other hand if your a slave and your wife and daughter are sexual playthings for Master one might view war as a means of resolving conflict just a tad differently.
Leftyhunter
 
On the other hand if your a slave and your wife and daughter are sexual playthings for Master one might view war as a means of resolving conflict just a tad differently.
Leftyhunter

Nice image with 'playthings.' If that's your Narrative, so be it.

Show us this was typical? We'll need really good sources, it'll be fun.
 
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On the other hand if your a slave and your wife and daughter are sexual playthings for Master one might view war as a means of resolving conflict just a tad differently.
Leftyhunter
On the other hand if you are conscripted against your will and forced to fight and die, then I believe those who gave their lives are justified. As wrong as slavery was, if you think sending over 600,000 American to their graves is okay then I am not arguing with you. Especially if a great portion of those were men with families, who were forced to leave to fight, or die.
 
On the other hand if you are conscripted against your will and forced to fight and die, then I believe those who gave their lives are justified. As wrong as slavery was, if you think sending over 600,000 American to their graves is okay then I am not arguing with you. Especially if a great portion of those were men with families, who were forced to leave to fight, or die.
On the other hand if your from Eastern Tennessee or elsewhere from a Southern state where folks are not slave owners and your conscripted to fight on behalf of slave owners that treat you as dirt then one might have another perspective.
Only 5 percent of the Union Army was composed of draftees.
Was the war worth it? Is any war worth it? Only the indviduals involved and those who have to pay for the war can decide. Fair to say many Americans supported the war on both sides and many did not.
It's a moral and political judgement call.
Leftyhunter
 
Nice image with 'playthings.' If that's you're Narrative, so be it.

Show us this was typical? We'll need really good sources, it'll be fun.

"God forgive us, but ours is a monstrous system and wrong and iniquity. Perhaps the rest of the world is as bad--this *only* [emphasis in original] I see. Like the patriarchs of old our men live all in one house with their wives and their concubines, and the mulattoes one sees in every family exactly resemble the white children--and every lady tells you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody's household, but those in her own she seems to think drop from the clouds, or pretends so to think. Good women we have, but they talk of all nastiness--tho' they never do wrong, they talk day and night of [erasures illegible save for the words 'all unconsciousness'] my disgust sometimes is boiling over--but they are, I believe, in conduct the purest women God ever made. Thank God for my countrywomen--alas for the men! No worse than men everywhere, but the lower their mistresses, the more degraded they must be.

"My mother-in-law told me when I was first married not to send my female servants in the street on errands. They were then tempted, led astray--and then she said placidly, so they told me when I came here, and I was very particular, but you see with what result.

"Mr. Harris said it was so patriarchal. So it is--flocks and herds and slaves--and wife Leah does not suffice. Rachel must be *added* if not *married.* [emphases in original] And all the time they seem to think themselves patterns--models of husbands and fathers."

[Mary Chesnut, Diary entry, 18 Mar 1861]
 
On the other hand if your from Eastern Tennessee or elsewhere from a Southern state where folks are not slave owners and your conscripted to fight on behalf of slave owners that treat you as dirt then one might have another perspective.
Only 5 percent of the Union Army was composed of draftees.
Was the war worth it? Is any war worth it? Only the indviduals involved and those who have to pay for the war can decide. Fair to say many Americans supported the war on both sides and many did not.
It's a moral and political judgement call.
Leftyhunter
You are the one trying to justify the war. To go to war over slavery, especially to defend it, is quite sad. You are actually helping prove my point. At the start of the war, the goal was to preserve the Union, and the goal of the CS government was to preserve the institution of slavery. You certainly are in no position to say who can and can not decide if a war is worth it. I never fought in a war, but do I think starting a war to prevent a political agenda such as communism is justified, sending young high school graduates to war? No, and I have every right as a citizen to make my own opinion if war is justified. As I said no matter the cause, violence should always be the last means. The U.S. in 1861 wasn't ready for war, that I can assure.
 
The thing is, while slavery was a monstrous wrong and I believe a war to end it would have been a just war, that was not this war. While the Confederacy assuredly seceded to preserve slavery, the Union just as assuredly did not go to war to liberate the slaves. They went to war to prevent the South from seceding. Only later, under complicated circumstances, did emancipation become a goal.

It's my feeling that the states did have the right to secede. In some cases their state constitutions made it clear that they joined with the expectation of that right. I believe that conquering and holding territories which had expressed a desire to leave - for whatever reason - was a grave wrong from which this country has never recovered.

I also believe that freeing the slaves was a glorious act and the only way forward into the light of day. But once again, the union never set out to do that.

Consensus: wrong on both sides. The only people who were in the right were the slaves themselves, who had no government representing them, since the Dred Scott decision had declared them not to be citizens of either side.
 
I completely agree, I just think it would have been a lot more reasonable if the USA and CSA made a compromise or agreement that wouldn't have caused war. Either way, if it couldn't be accomplished, then war would be a valid reason for freeing the slaves. Thing is, that wasn't the initial outset of the war. If it were the case, then I could see a perfectly justifiable cause for the war.
 
Yes, it was. For two reasons. First of all, democracies cannot function if it is permissible for one section of a nation to leave because it dislikes the result of a free and free election. If the South had been allowed to leave, this sets a very dangerous precedent, one that necessarily would have led to chaos and likely war in the future as the two nations (and possibly more, if secession continues) compete and quarrel with and against the other. Second, the war was a result of tensions over slavery. One side was dominated by the slave interests, and fought to protect it. The other was not, and as the war went on made its mind up to destroy the institution once and for all. Both of these reasons alone, in my opinion, make the war just. Putting the two together make it ironclad.
 
I most certainly think that there is such a thing as "just war" just as I think that even within a just war, evil is present, i.e., any war, by any side, can be waged unjustly. In some wars, one side is just and the other is not. In many, both sides are unjust. I think one of the reasons I am so fascinated by the Civil War is that it was fought by so many valiant and honourable men on both sides, who really had ample justification in my opinion, (And that was what the OP specifically asked for.) to go to war.
 
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The thing is, while slavery was a monstrous wrong and I believe a war to end it would have been a just war, that was not this war. While the Confederacy assuredly seceded to preserve slavery, the Union just as assuredly did not go to war to liberate the slaves. They went to war to prevent the South from seceding. Only later, under complicated circumstances, did emancipation become a goal.

It's my feeling that the states did have the right to secede. In some cases their state constitutions made it clear that they joined with the expectation of that right. I believe that conquering and holding territories which had expressed a desire to leave - for whatever reason - was a grave wrong from which this country has never recovered.

I also believe that freeing the slaves was a glorious act and the only way forward into the light of day. But once again, the union never set out to do that.

Consensus: wrong on both sides. The only people who were in the right were the slaves themselves, who had no government representing them, since the Dred Scott decision had declared them not to be citizens of either side.

I only disagree with your "consensus" conclusion, otherwise, I am in full agreement with your statements. Secondly, your post here is one of the most cogent and correct assessments of a complicated issue, that I have ever read. I wish I could have written it.
smiley_salute_zps80a4d4e2.jpg
 
In your opinion, was it just and why do you think so?

Wars are not necessarily just, but they are often justified by the antagonists.

I don't know if the American Revolution was "just." But the British American colonists believed that they were the victims of tyranny, and they believed they had a right to revolt and create an independent nation. Of course the British did not accept the Americans' justification, and thus they had a war on their hands.

In the 1970s, there was a song with the lyric "war is not the answer/only love can conquer hate." That phrase is only half true. It's true that only love can conquer hate. But war is the answer, if someone who is oppressed has no tool except violence to free themselves from oppression.

Both sides in the Civil War had grievances which they felt could not be negotiated to a peaceful end. We might think that their actions were irrational, but it all made sense to them.

- Alan
 
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