Sobran gets me thinking and typing.

Note: The link above will take you to Joe's current on-line column. The archive is here. Not all of his past columns are available in the archive.


Joe Sobran is reposting some old columns. This one is from 1998.


But there was no inevitable connection between slavery and secession. In fact, the first secessionists were Northern abolitionists who wanted no part of a Union that tolerated slavery. They just didn’t acquire enough influence to persuade their fellow Northerners to declare their independence.

Suppose they had. Suppose New England had pulled out of the Union in indignation over slavery. Suppose the remaining states had declared war in order to save the Union, and after a bitter five-year struggle, costing nearly a million lives, New England had been conquered.

Then what? History might record that the victorious Union took a fierce revenge by occupying, looting, and setting up puppet governments in New England for several years; furthermore, that it also amended the Constitution not only to protect slavery in the South, but to extend the right to own slaves to every state and all U.S. territories.


An interesting "what if?"


A more chilling thought is that the Union victory over New England might not only have saved slavery, but conferred moral legitimacy on it. Abolitionism might be associated with those nasty rebels who tried to destroy the Union, and slavery with the cause of patriotism! To the victor belong the spoils — including, to a great extent, the moral sense of the population.


That seems reasonable.


Both sides in the actual Civil War were engaged in subjugation. The South was protecting chattel slavery; the North was denying the right of secession on which this country was founded.

At the time the Constitution was adopted, several states, including Virginia and New York, ratified it on the express condition that they might withdraw from the Union at any time they deemed it in their interest to do so. This was in keeping with the Declaration of Independence, which says that people have both the “right” and the “duty” to “alter or abolish” a government destructive of their rights.

Nobody at the time challenged these states’ claim to a right of secession. Not only did the Declaration support them; as a practical matter, nothing could stop them. The federal government was too weak.

The Civil War established that the federal government had grown strong enough to prevent and punish any independence movement. From then on, no state could secede for any reason, no matter how tyrannous the federal government might become.


Obviously.


The military ratio has widened enormously: today the states still have rifles, but the federal government has a nuclear arsenal. Nobody talks about secession (at least not very loud).

This is what makes it possible for the federal government to dictate to the states. If the Union were still voluntary, the Supreme Court wouldn’t dare, for example, to strike down the abortion laws of all 50 states, because many of those states would have seceded immediately after such an outrageous usurpation of their power.

Ah, but we no longer speak of federal “usurpation” — and why not? Because the powerful can change even our moral sense, unless we are extremely vigilant. So most of the country has accepted as legitimate the court’s claim to authority over state abortion laws.


Too true.


So, as a practical matter, there is no longer any such thing as a federal “usurpation” of power. Nobody can enforce the Constitution against the federal government, so why bother trying? Which makes the Constitution pretty useless for the purpose of limiting that government.

When you look back on a famous victory in any war of the past, don’t be too sure the right side won.


That is the logical conclusion.


The exercise of power almost always has evil consequences. The Church itself was corrupted by temporal power and has suffered many schisms and heresies because of the will to power in man. (This is not Nietzchean. It is an apt phrase.) Of course, these rebellions are always cloaked in the rhetoric of some kind of freedom: freedom of conscience, national freedom, sexual freedom, etc.

No one should be surprised, then, when those pursuing and exercising power cost their fellow men their lives and their souls in untold numbers.

So, was the American Civil War immoral? Was it a just war? Most involved undoubtedly believed they were doing their duty as Christians. We know the numbers of dead and wounded. But how many souls were lost? Even a cursory reading of history tells you war changes the rules by which even the most civilized of peoples live. Souls are corrupted one at a time, but war tears men from their homes, families, communities, and puts them face to face with imminent death. Frankly, stories of atrocities do not surprise me.


Is the only true Catholic option disengagement from the world and unconditional pacifism? Our socialist brethren will say no to the former and yes to the latter, thinking that the avoidance of violent death is the supreme earthly good and "militarism" is what corrupts men's souls.

Let's consider the Quakers. There are many inspiring stories of these principled pacifists serving in medical and other non-combatant roles in defense of this country. Today, however, the Quakers are just another deracinated and squishy-left sect barely clinging to the name Christian. The last "principled" public stand I remember any Quakers taking was their effort to drive pregnant Pennsylvania teenagers to other states for abortions. You see, the charitable pacifists saw the Commonwealth's parental notification law as...well, it couldn't be satanic. No, I doubt they believe in the foolish one.

They must have thought the law evil (or at least wrong) to justify violating it. Remember, these are the descendants of those Quakers who disobeyed earlier laws in the name of civil rights for blacks. So murdering children is morally equivalent to voting rights for all regardless of skin color?

How can a group founded on and dedicated to charity to neighbor and unconditional pacifism descend to the level they have reached?

As a Catholic, the answer is plain to me. People who separate themselves from God, His Church, His Word, and His Sacraments are bound to get lost. And worse. Losing your own soul is bad enough. Dragging others along with you reserves you a place in a particularly nasty circle of Hell.

It is difficult enough for those of us who are Catholic to resist the siren song of temptation, whether in great things or small. I thank God I do not have the added burden of being outside His Church. I cannot imagine how much greater a sinner I would be.

I know. You think I have digressed too far from Mr. Sobran's column. But the main question he inspired me to ask was this: How to live in the fallen world? The implications of this admittedly unoriginal question are profound. We must save our immortal souls and help to save as many others as possible, while burdened with the responsibilities of family, work, and citizenship, along with many, many others.

A more tantalizing way of asking the question (get ready for the big finish folks) would be: What would Abraham Lincoln have done differently if he
had been Catholic?