To the editor,
We are often told the Civil War was fought over slavery. If we could go back in time and ask the men who fought, I think we would find that the southern soldiers were fighting for states rights and the northern soldiers were fighting for the union.
If it was all about slavery, why did several slave states stay in the union?
There is also the question of who really lost the war. Our present over-centralized but incompetent government can largely be traced back to the Civil War. I think it's kind of self righteous to criticize our ancestors for owning slaves when slavery has been common throughout history.
There's a tendency to give ourselves credit for the things that we no longer do, but ignore the evil we preserve. A good example is World War II. We remember that we defeated Hitler while forgetting that we gave eastern Europe to Stalin, who was a worse monster than Hitler.
ADVERTISEMENT
Robert J. Otto
Crystal, N.D.
