In an otherwise very favorable review of my book, The Colored Hero of Harper’s Ferry, Wayne Wolf concludes that it “displays an obvious bias toward Northern abolitionist thinking.” Well, yes, I suppose that it does, in the sense that John Anthony Copeland was an African-American abolitionist who sacrificed his life in an attempt to free slaves in Virginia.
Wolf, whose review appeared in Civil War News, evidently belongs to the “failed compromise” school of antebellum history, which holds that the Civil War was not brought about by an “irrepressible conflict,” as Lincoln put it, but was instead a tragic blunder that could and should have been avoided. As he writes in the review, “Support for forceful abolition of slavery quashed any hope that moderation or compromise could avert war.”
“Compromise,” however, would have meant the perpetuation of slavery for another decade or longer – meaning that 4 million Americans would have been subjected to a further lifetime of forced labor, torture, and family separation. The Constitution itself had been a compromise with slavery. The next compromise came in 1820, with the admission of Missouri as a slave state, after which the southerners kept pressing to strengthen and expand the institution into territories where it had been prohibited (including plots to annex Cuba, and perhaps even Nicaragua). Then came the “Compromise of 1850,” which required northern complicity in the Fugitive Slave Act. And then came the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which extended slavery across the Missouri River. From 1790 to 1860, the number of enslaved persons in the United States quintupled.
Wolf writes that “The South viewed war as its only option, and abolitionists agreed,” but of course there was another option. The southerners could have freed their slaves – which is something they refused to do even in early 1865, when Lincoln met with Confederate officials at Hampton Roads and offered them compensated emancipation in lieu of the certainty of military defeat.
Despite our differences in outlook, Wolf was very generous in his review, fully summarizing the details of Copeland’s life and praising Colored Hero as “well written and historically sound.” His concluding sentence is also quite accurate, though perhaps not in the way that he intended. Colored Hero, he writes, “is recommended for those contending that slavery was the cause of the Civil War and that this militancy undid decades of compromise.”
[Note to those who think I am too partisan: The heroes in my three Civil War books were mostly Republicans, and many of them were Evangelicals.]
Now Steve .... we know that Lincoln was a Republican.
ARe you really claiming this fact establishes that you are not steadfastly committed to running a smear campaign against any Republicans daring to comment on public policy today?
Please, Steve.
Posted by: anon | December 22, 2015 at 02:03 PM
Wow. I missed the part about "Evangelicals." Are you against them too? (phrases like "I actually praised an Evangelical once ..." are always telling.)
Posted by: anon | December 22, 2015 at 04:47 PM
I have no idea who "anon" is--that would be the anon who personally attacks Prof. Lubet every time Prof. Lubet posts anything--but this personal vendetta being waged by a coward who hides behind anonymity is beyond tiresome.
Posted by: Doug Richmond | December 23, 2015 at 08:37 AM
As for anonymity, I wish the policy of the FL would finally be finalized and posted. Some websites deny anonymous comments, others don't. There are good reasons to support both views. (I think this thread and others have demonstrated some of those reasons.)
One only hopes that the owners of this site will publish a commenting policy soon, thus obviating the repetitive debate about anonymity ("Any anonymous commenter is a coward" v. "There are some good reasons for concern.")
The comment above further states that this "anon" has “personally attacked” Steve on "every time he posts anything." This anon commented on the last, bracketed assertion in the post above.
Remember, this is the same Steve who “went after” a certain young professor relentlessly, albeit not anonymously. He is a professor who relishes close analysis of words and intentions.
Recently, Steve let slip his true views by inadvertently posting an email he had written to another commenter. After reading that email, it appeared to this anon that Steve had in fact come forward with his honest intentions concerning posts attacking political figures of only a certain party, and therefore, there would be no reason to comment further on Steve's political posts. (Despite name calling in that email, this anon found it useful to understand the true intentions underlying Steve's political posts.)
Unfortunately, Steve took that email down.
Posted by: anon | December 23, 2015 at 02:24 PM
"As he writes in the review, “Support for forceful abolition of slavery quashed any hope that moderation or compromise could avert war.”"
Since abolitionism was not a dominant faction in the North ('free soil' was), he's making stuff up. The South could have continued slavery for decades; they decided to secede over slavery then because they felt that the long term didn't favor them.
A friend recently pointed out that with the British, French and Spanish empires opposing slavery (to varying degrees), the South was likely feeling internationally isolated, as well as in domestic trouble.
Posted by: Barry | December 24, 2015 at 11:34 AM