Civil War in 1861

This morning I considered doing a post on this, then changed my mind.  Now, I've changed my mind again and I'm going to do the post.

In recent posts, I compared today's events to the run up the Civil War.  That's what I'm not so sure about now, but it is still worrisome.

I think the point is that the Civil War might have been averted.  Since it was not, it may happen again.

So, how did the War happen and how might it have been avoided?  On Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds offers that it would have been better if the South had not seceded at all.  This is what Sam Houston believed.  There was a faction at that time that did not approve of Lincoln, and it was this party that was considered to be an alternative.  But there was more than one, and they split their votes.  Now, if unity was the course that the Democrat party took back then, they may have won the election.  Their split opened the way for Lincoln's victory.  The election of Lincoln was the reason given by the South for their secession.

Douglas was the Democrat's nominee, but the Democrats were divided.  Douglas was the author of the Kansas Nebraska Act, which served to split the party into Northern and Southern factions.  Therefore, Douglas couldn't unify his party and shouldn't have been the nominee.  The South, for its part insisted upon their own nominee.  Their nominee had no hope of winning in the North.  A unionist nominee, like the one that Sam Houston was being considered for as a nominee, may have unified the country enough to avoid a war.  But that party couldn't get enough support.  The vote was thus split four ways.  The failure to unite around a suitable nominee was the last straw towards political failure.  War soon followed.

The war was caused by the dissension over the issue of slavery.  That issue was rather difficult to resolve since it involved economic and legal interests which could not be resolved easily.  Besides all of that was the issue of race.  That issue remains today even though slavery was abolished, hence the war never resolved that.  Once the war was over, the issue of race took its place.  It has been a source of political struggle ever since.

Today, black people vote as a block.  Nearly 100% of all black votes went to Obama.  It is this solidarity that has enabled them to place a black man in the White House even though the black people are but a small minority in the total population.

This small minority has power all out of proportion to their numbers.  They have managed to obtain for themselves a type of special status.  There are affirmative action programs and so forth which are specifically granted to them on the basis of race.  Hence, they have an economic interest and political interest not unlike which existed for the slaveholders in the Old South.  Thus to challenge or to remove this special status, of which affirmative action is but only a part, is likely to provoke a reaction that may well turn to violence.  For example, there are those that believe that if Obama had lost this last election, the blacks would have rioted because of what they claimed to be racism.  Another example is this absurd claim of racism in the recently concluded Zimmerman trial.  The LA Riots in the nineties is yet another example.

The political class is developing a rather dangerous notion of entitlement.  When applied to blacks, it is often said by them that white people "owe" them.  If such a debt exists, how far should it go?  Does it include the right to strike a non-black man if that man says or does something offensive?  For that is what Martin did to Zimmerman.  The ability to do this would confer a special right or privilege not accorded to any race since the days of slavery and Jim Crow.  If slavery and Jim Crow was wrong, how then is this right?

To deny that such a right is being claimed would require you to close your eyes to the truth.  The protests to the verdict in the Zimmerman trial appear to demand that very thing.  Close your eyes.  Shut your mouth.  Never mind the truth.  The black folks are offended and that is all that counts.  If the black folks are offended, everything must change to accommodate their grievance---never mind the facts that there isn't any grievance to accommodate.  No evidence of racism was presented.  No evidence of law breaking by Zimmerman was proven.  There is only the dead black kid, but nobody seems to be interested in why he died, only that he did, and there must be hell to pay for that.

Lincoln once said that a house divided against itself cannot stand.  That house was divided on the issue of slavery.  Our house is divided over the issue of race.  If there was war before, there can be war again.  The answer is to observe the Constitution, not to tear it down.  For the document prohibits not only slavery, but it also prohibits nobility.  For one people to claim special status on the basis of race is a claim to nobility.  If there is anything to unite around, it should be that no group should have a special privilege on the basis of race.  The black problem is that they are claiming that while accusing that of others.  They are wrong.