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I've met a guy who argued with me that the civil war to free the black slaves is not justifiable because the end result is a war that causes countless damage to the nation and at the same time, resulted in the lost of unnecessary lives. He thinks that Lincoln should wait for the society as a whole in the US to accept such a view before taking actions to ban slavery.

How should I respond to that?

Tell him that the South shot first and that one of the major reasons they started the war was because of slavery. His problem is in thinking that the North needed to justify going to war when they were not the aggressors. You can also tell him that the U.S. was among one of the last civilized countries of the time to ban slavery, and that because of the South's agrarian economy nothing short of force was going to end institutionalized slavery there. End of argument.

ray245 wrote:I've met a guy who argued with me that the civil war to free the black slaves is not justifiable because the end result is a war that causes countless damage to the nation and at the same time, resulted in the lost of unnecessary lives. He thinks that Lincoln should wait for the society as a whole in the US to accept such a view before taking actions to ban slavery.

How should I respond to that?

Ask him if he feels the same way about WW2. Many empires and monarchies eventually became republics, and the overall historical trend is toward social liberalism as a general rule, so maybe we should have just waited for Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany to start playing nice, eh?

Really, how can anyone justify vague predictions of a regime eventually changing its mind about its own values, or using those predictions as a basis for declaring that any attempt to do anything about that regime is unnecessary?

Formless wrote:Tell him that the South shot first and that one of the major reasons they started the war was because of slavery. His problem is in thinking that the North needed to justify going to war when they were not the aggressors.

He did mention that the reason why the South shot first was because Lincoln pushed them to shoot first by trying to force the ban on slavery down their throat.

You can also tell him that the U.S. was among one of the last civilized countries of the time to ban slavery, and that because of the South's agrarian economy nothing short of force was going to end institutionalized slavery there. End of argument.

Good point.

Really, how can anyone justify vague predictions of a regime eventually changing its mind about its own values, or using those predictions as a basis for declaring that any attempt to do anything about that regime is unnecessary?

He started off by saying that the very fact that the Northern States became more and more opposed to the idea of slavery is an indication that the South would eventually changed.

Although I have to say, this type of argument isn't anything new in my experience. In a number of debates about gay rights for example, a fair number of people have argued that the social backlash is a good enough reason to wait.

There is always violent resistance to ending slave-based economies. The Boers in Africa were furious when the ruling British outlawed slavery, for similar reasons.

The fact is that a slave-owner has much of his financial net worth tied up in his slaves. They're assets on his balance sheet, like land or equipment or buildings. If you outlaw slavery, all of that financial asset value goes up in smoke. All of his slaves instantly become worthless, since you can no longer sell them. Slave-owners will never accept that without a fight. It would be like the government suddenly outlawing mutual funds and declaring that everyones' mutual funds can no longer be redeemed for money. The resistance would be huge.

ray245 wrote:

Formless wrote:Tell him that the South shot first and that one of the major reasons they started the war was because of slavery. His problem is in thinking that the North needed to justify going to war when they were not the aggressors.

He did mention that the reason why the South shot first was because Lincoln pushed them to shoot first by trying to force the ban on slavery down their throat.

Which is unmitigated bullshit. Lincoln was not forcing a ban on slavery down anyone's throat, much as he personally would have liked to. The Deep South seceded preemptively months before he took office.