The Tragedy of War

This article was originally published by Wanjiru Njoya at The Mises Institute. 

In seeking to understand why nations go to war, we often search for rational motivations such as the quest for money, or power, or territory, or that most elusive of goals—justice. But the truth is that often there is no reason behind descent into war other than the hostility and animosity between one nation and another.

In his essay “Separation of Reconciliation? The Nationalities Question in the USSR,” Igor Shafarevich identifies “resentment, malice, and pain” as a predominant cause of conflict between nations—people driven by these emotions set aside all rational thought as they become consumed with thoughts of vengeance and retribution for their grievances. As Shafarevich puts it, “the pitch of emotion is more powerful even than the instinct of self-preservation,” and the warmongers “tend to forget everything the past has taught us.” They understand the tragedy of war, yet time and again, they agitate for war as the solution to their political disputes.

The caution sounded by Shafarevich applies to those who glorify General Sherman’s total war against civilians in the American South. As Sherman saw it, there was no distinction between civilians and combatants since combatants might rely upon the moral and practical “aid and comfort” of their civilian families. In his 2007 book, Slavery, Secession, and Civil War, Charles Adams observes that, “When the war ended, and even 140 years later, the gatekeepers of Civil War history are still making the North’s war on the South—the most tragic event in all our history—into a noble cause for abolition.”

Those who celebrate the burning of the South claim that war crimes against Southern civilians were justified because it was for the “higher cause” of ending slavery. By conferring a “righteous cause” on the war, they are able to celebrate an event that left almost a million men dead and the South in smoking ruins. The glorification of their righteous war has become so important to them that it crowds out any concerns about the horrors of war. Their only philosophy is that their righteous ends justify the tyrannical means which, as they see it, was necessary to achieve the desired goal. In “Just War,” Murray Rothbard explains:

The Northern war against slavery partook of fanatical millennialist fervor, of a cheerful willingness to uproot institutions, to commit mayhem and mass murder, to plunder and loot and destroy, all in the name of high moral principle and the birth of a perfect world. The Yankee fanatics were veritable Patersonian humanitarians with the guillotine: the Anabaptists, the Jacobins, the Bolsheviks of their era. This fanatical spirit of Northern aggression for an allegedly redeeming cause is summed up in the pseudo-Biblical and truly blasphemous verses of that quintessential Yankee Julia Ward Howe, in her so-called “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Any “righteous cause” harnessed in that way to justify violence poses a grave threat to peace and liberty, because such moralistic arguments are often used to justify brazen acts of aggression. As C.S. Lewis famously said, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.” The same warning applies to warmongers. When moral busybodies claim that waging war is necessary to uphold values such as democracy or human rights, their supporters seem to be so beguiled by the apparent morality of their cause that they overlook the lessons of history. This tendency to overlook the tragedy of war is often seen in the discourse on slavery and abolition.

When people think of “abolition” they often envisage morally-principled men like Lysander Spooner. But although Spooner was an abolitionist, he was adamantly against war. The abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison also did not see abolition as a justification for war. In “Just War,” Rothbard takes a similar view. He compares the American Revolutionary War to “the Southern cause, the War for Southern Independence,” and asks: “But if the British wanted to hold on and expand their empire, what were the motivations of the North? Why, in the famous words of the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, at least early in the struggle, didn’t the North ‘let their erring sisters go in peace?’” Far from permitting the South to secede in peace, the Radical Republicans were determined to prevent the South from seceding by any means, including war if necessary. The New York Times reported that in April 1861, not everyone supported the Radical view:

Many believed that the states that had seceded should be brought back into the Union at any cost. On the other hand, some of the city’s businessmen, terrified that the Northern economy would collapse if Southerners stopped paying their debts and started selling a larger portion of their cotton directly to Europe, met on April 14 to plan a rally in City Hall Park to call for a peaceful reconciliation (even if it meant allowing the continuation of slavery).

The hypocrisies of the time were well known, hence observers cast doubt on the claim that the men of the North were so much more racially “enlightened” than those of the South that they were prepared to wage war to secure the emancipation of an oppressed race. Charles Adams notes that the British and European press—who were closely observing the events unfolding in America—were incredulous at the suggestion that the North intended to wage a war of abolition. It was well known that black people in the North did not have the right to vote, so it would seem extremely unlikely that Northerners would risk their own lives to ensure that blacks in the South would have the right to vote. Describing the British commentary on the situation preceding the war, Adams gives the example of the Chambers Journal of Popular Literature, which reported in 1857 that, “The statute-books of Indiana and Illinois, both free states, are disgraced by a series of what are termed ‘Black Laws;’ the effect of which is to deprive the coloured man not only of all political privileges, but even to render his oath invalid.”

When war broke out in 1861, it would seem strange, indeed, for these states to claim that they had waged a war to secure rights for blacks in the South which blacks in the North did not have. In the case of Indiana, the state constitution banned the immigration or settlement of black people. In later years “Nationally, Indiana was said to have the most powerful Ku Klux Klan.” Although today it is fashionable to claim that Indiana really did fight a war because they considered blacks to be “worthy of justice and equality,” their history shows them not to be overwhelmingly devoted to racial equality.

We are now invited to believe that most Indianans wanted equality for blacks, despite their hostility and even violence towards black abolitionists: “Sometimes there was white violence against African Americans. Most notable was the mob that severely beat black abolitionist Frederick Douglass when he spoke in Pendleton in 1843.” Francis T. Hord—a “War Democrat” who supported the Union—clarified in an Indiana senate debate in 1863 that his support for the Union should not be seen as support for abolition. He supported the war but opposed the Republican party’s plans to have black troops in the army:

…it appears that in some localities our soldiers have mutinied on account of the employment of negro soldiers. Let us as a nation be politic and wise. But the Republican party have great confidence in the measure. They esteem the negro as one of the ordained instruments of protection. I advise them against such a delusive and fallacious hope.

Hord further clarified that he was not opposed to the employment of black people in principle, but only deemed it “impolitic” due to the objections of white men who were loyal to the Union.

I do not esteem the policy of the measure to arm the negroes of the South. Not, sir, that I abstractedly object to negroes aiding to restore this Union, for I would hitch the devil to the Chariot of the Union if he could drag it safely from the flames of this discord uninjured, but I believe it, sir, impolitic… this measure will alienate the loyal sentiment in a country where we need it. We gain more for our cause in nerving the strong arm of the white man in the border States by pacific measures towards them, than by driving them from us in arming slaves.

The mythology of a righteous war waged to uphold justice and equality for black people seems to be largely a post-war attempt to lend legitimacy to a deadly war, which, before it broke out, was understood to be a struggle not over abolition but over the balance of power between the states. A Republican senator from Ohio, Samuel Galloway, responded to the infamous dispute between Charles Sumner of Massachusetts and Preston Brooks of South Carolina with an overly enthusiastic and entirely unnecessary escalation of hostilities by declaring,

Up and be doing!—put on the whole armor, and go out to the battle! The great question now before the people of this country is not the emancipation of the negro, but the emancipation of the white man… Gold cups, gold-headed canes, and other testimonials, to the disgrace of humanity, are being presented by the Virginians to the ruffian Brooks.

Who was the real ruffian is for readers to decide, but such escalation of political disputes into all out war should be rejected by all.