(no subject)

[lifeonqueen]

I watched the first half of Gettysburg last night while camping at Casa di Mama and had a thought that many of the leaders of the Army of the Confederacy were men of conscience fighting to defend the right to do the unconscionable.

While slavery was not in itself the cause of the Civil War, it was the issue around which the inevitable friction between state and federal supremacists within the Republic centred. Not every Confederate was a slave owner nor did every Unionist favour abolition. But I wonder if, in addition to an overwhelming economic and industrial advantage, the states loyal to the Union had an insurmountable advantage in that, when all other rally cries failed, they could point to the certain Christian justice of their cause -

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

eta - I've studied the causes of the US Civil War a fair bit, I'd just never thought of the decision to fight for the Confederacy, particularly on the part of Lee and Longstreet who seemed to "know better", so to speak, in that light before.