This paper will address two shards of the same issue: Was it slavery or a political crisis that spawned the American Civil War? The morality surrounding the issue of slavery is ancient, intense and ignorant of the slaves point of view. The ‘Political Crisis’ expression is a laxative for softening the semantics surrounding the issue of slavery. I will attempt to address my claim(s) through an objective analysis of ethical values and allow the reader to determine which methodology is more sensible.

It is necessary to define my word usage by fusing both concepts:

Slavery has existed in all known recordings of Human Civilization since the Indus Valley. To condense the purpose: Slavery is a by-product of power and power redivides into both ‘discriminate and indiscriminate forces’ that evoke all activity ranging from artistic expression to empire building and the blending of both. At the root of power are the materials necessary to drive the creative force, which becomes the laxative of "greed." Whoever controls the materials has the power. Whoever has the power controls those who partake of the materials.

‘Greed’ is the idiomatic non-laxative of ‘ambition.’ ‘Ambition’ is the egotistical definition of ‘creativity’ and idealism presupposes the necessity of greed in it’s many manifestations. As an exponent of power, slavery maximizes the intention for the least expense. Slavery evokes a standard of distinction, such that the ‘standard’ can not be enforced or maintained without pure conviction that human-shaped persons are predisposed into classical stations. Within these stations exist the strata of Human totality.

Power will attain its objective through the recruitment of force, in exchange for a portion of the total power held. Portions of power can range from minimal influence on a King, to sub-divisions of an Empire. "Any system that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul." It is a natural tendency for most ‘thinking’ beings to achieve a pre-determined and measurable standard of success. During the Dark Ages, a successful person was someone who could eat. A wealthy person was someone who could eat a lot and a King was someone who could eat excessively. As currency became the liquid medium through which any known thing could be purchased, power became synonymous with money.

The semantics surrounding slavery reduces to two questions: One is "why?" The other is "why not?" Do the edifices of Egypt, Greece and Rome justify the annihilation of human ambition to achieve a global statement that could not have been achieved without the cannibalization of human existance? If we are better off for having seen structures in tribute to human mechanization, does the reckless global non-justification apply in principle to private ownership of other humans? Is it acceptable to deprive a mind capable of sensing its torture and depravity to conditions that slave owners themselves could not and would not endure? Would the intention of a slave-owner be so grandiose if he had to get off of his horse and perform the primitive tasks himself? In all probability: There would not even be a United States were it not for the free work force that built it. Does the global non-justification apply in this case as well?

That is precisely the point, and in my opinion, the only point. The argument cancels both "why" and "why not:" There is no mention, in the annals of any history, of a non-slave who was willing to experience the great cause of being a slave for any purpose period. This poses what we refer to today as a "double standard." A Double Standard means "what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander." The concept of murder falls under a similar logic by most perpetrators: Once the victim is dead, who cares – what can a corps do in its defense? How will it be possible to pursue justice if nobody knows about the murder? Now that the nation is built, why are we picking at old scabs?

We are reduced to the single issue left in this debate: The Double Standard.

Human beings have the volitional ability to choose which standards they will embrace and which ones they will shun, albeit, the convenience of historical barbarism has often provided the blue print for convention. The key word, ‘convenience,’ seems to be the singular beneficiary of the greed laxative:

"I do not have to work – therefore I won’t." Hitler once asked ‘if they confront me with their laws and I confront them with my gun – who will win?’

The Southern economy was imperatively dependent upon slave labor; their engine could not function with all of their cylinders removed. The very question of abandoning slavery was wholly indignant; the South was an agricultural regime. Even had the Southern white consensus been to employ white laborers in Southern fields – the payroll would have demolished the lifestyles of the rich and famous, reducing the affluent to common ordinary folks. Not only was the question insulting; not only were Southerners being asked to give up their stations, but Southern Gentlemen were being asked to lie down and die, humiliated. These insinuations have compiled volumes of scripture regarding the cause of the Civil War, and in the war’s aftermath, Carpetbaggers only pitted one sithfully ruinous greed laxative against the secessionists declared version – that poses the question of ‘honor’.

Embarrassingly, the net result of the Civil War had nothing to do with grandiose regurgitations of any saccharine morality; it was a battle for toys, with tactics being strewn about for the viewers discretion. The Confederate Constitution is worthy of serious review by any history enthusiast; it will not be reviewed in any part in this essay, however, a key article within the CS Constitution did abolish slavery beyond its current extent, and other articles divested Federal powers within the member-States.

By comparing the two Constitutions; using the slave issue as a moral premise for igniting the war, the South, by any Northern standard, would have attained the harmonious reality that the North never did. Ironically, the North became the heralded champions of precisely that illusion. To the victor goes the right of historical policy, as well as the prescriptions and remedies for ‘cause’.

So what of the political crisis? There never was one. David Copperfield uses the same tactical illusion to distract his audience while slight-of-hand is in progress. The Civil War was strictly economics, however, exponents of said economics lead to fundamental changes in government required by the governed. In the less-industrialized South, less government was called for. To address more localized control of economic affairs, each Secessionist State declared itself a sovereign Nation, joined with other Nations in a Confederate cooperative. Southern operations could not fundamentally or sensibly tolerate the excess Federal powers granted in the U.S. Constitution which was effective in the North. Northern structure could not adequately or properly operate the Southern economy. Manifest Destiny in the North was intolerable of Southern separatism. The South & The North developed serious irreconcilable differences to which neither side had an acceptable solution. The North clearly wanted to keep the Union together. The South clearly wanted their sovereignty to govern themselves. Oddly, neither side despised the other for the needs of the other side, it was Manifest Destiny in the North, and economic survival in the South that resulted in a winner-take-all engagement. Both were equally possessed by their respective causes, however, the God of War, believed to have been Mars throughout the ages, proved to be Attrition, where Attrition applies to both war materiels, as well as combatants.

The Southern battle plan never intended to win the war without first seizing strategic Northern war production facilities and rendering other facilities inoperative. This did not happen, so the South lost.

In all of this, where did the issue of slavery arise?

I rest my case.

Slavery did not become an issue until after the war. Like the Holocaust did not become an issue until after the war. In the birth of our Nation, it was the greed laxative that fueled the ambitions of both sides and not the civic pretences for which the Civil War is more glamorously and theatrically remembered.

Slavery or Political Crisis? Pick one.