I’d like to add to Michael McLachlan’s excellent op-ed (Herald Feb. 28), responding to Rosalee Reed’s letter to the editor (Herald, Jan. 29). It’s easy for us to overlook how fragile our newborn United States was after winning independence. The biggest challenge to formulating a constitution that could hold the states together was the presence of slavery in the South and the culture that grew around it. South Carolina and Georgia wouldn’t join the Union if slavery were banned, claiming it was necessary for their economy and sanctioned by the Bible. So the Constitution was silent about it, anti-slavery advocates hoping slavery would die a natural death in the future. But the issue never went away by itself, as North and South grew increasingly antagonistic about it, leading to secession and the Civil War.
The whole problem of holding the country together fell to Abraham Lincoln, and he did say that if by freeing all the slaves he could save the Union he would do it, or if he could save it by freeing some of the slaves he would do that, or if he could save it by not freeing any slaves he would do that, too. Reed quoted this to claim that the war wasn’t fought over slavery. But Lincoln said this so he could form a Union army that included many factions: the border states that hadn’t seceded yet but were mostly anti-black; the anti-black people of the northern states who would fight to save the Union but not to free slaves; and the northern abolitionists who were pressuring him, too.
The war was fought over slavery. It was a finish to the problem that the founders of the United States never solved. Lincoln was overriding his personal belief that slavery was wrong when he made the statement Reed quoted. He also said that God made people with a mouth and two hands to feed it, and didn’t intend the mouth to be fed by someone else’s hands. Today, the Confederate flag is still inextricably connected to slavery.
Peter Schmidt
Durango
