Does any present or future prosperity of the South justify the war of 1861-1865?

 

April is Confederate History and Heritage Month in the Old Dominion, as well as in many states across the South. As part of the celebration, and in an effort to educate the citizens of the Commonwealth, we will present a Q&A each day, from a Confederate Catechism, by Lyon Gardiner Tyler, 1853-1935; the son of President, John Tyler, who also was a member of the Confederate congress. He was a professor of literature at the College of William and Mary, and served as President of the College of William and Mary from 1888 until 1919.

Day 11:

14. Does any present or future prosperity of the South justify the War of 1861-1865?

No; no present or future prosperity can make past wrong right, for the end can never justify the means. The war was a colossal crime, and the most astounding case of self-stultification on the part of any government recorded in history. The war itself was conducted on the most barbarous principles and involved the wholesale destruction of property and human lives. That there must be no humanity in war was, according to Charles Francis Adams, "the accepted policy of Lincoln's government during the last stages of the war." (Adams, Studies Military and Diplomatic, p. 266.)