August 20, 2015
AMEN, BROTHER:
Did Religious Fanaticism Cause the Civil War? : review of A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War, by Thomas Fleming (Stephen Klugewicz, 8/20/15, Imaginative Conservative)
The title of this engaging analysis of the cause of the American Civil War comes from James Buchanan's reaction to John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, which the president claimed stemmed from "an incurable disease in the public mind." Historian Thomas Fleming agrees with Buchanan that it was hysteria over the issue of slavery, generated by wild-eyed, intolerant, and impractical Yankee abolitionists, that sparked the tragic conflict between North and South.
All American wars are a function of our fanatic devotion to the notion that all men are Created equal. We are intolerant of those who believe some are less equal than others or that man was not Created.
Posted by Orrin Judd at August 20, 2015 5:28 PM
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