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Does Motive Matter?
LadyVal
 February 24 2025 at 02:48 pm
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A friend of mine is translating a book on Lincoln written by Karl Marx. Her first translation contains a refutation by Marx of the European press’s contention that the assault by the North on the South is not about slavery at all, but about economic and political power. Of course, one cannot divorce the issues of slavery from either consideration but Marx is either wrong or less than honest when he states that the war was all about slavery, a matter that he sees in the context of the Workers’ Struggle. This is, of course, natural and I won’t dispute Marx who, as noted, sees things from a particular viewpoint. But I have seen a great deal of opinion that seems in this, and other issues based solely upon motive. For instance, in a debate in my local Roundtable about the constitutionality of secession, one of those who believed it not to be so declared that he searched honestly for a “smoking gun” that would have justified the secession of South Carolina and the Cotton States—and he could not find one. Now, I disagree! The ill treatment of the States and People of the South not to mention the ongoing theft of their wealth by the rest of the nation seems “smoking gun” enough for me, but then, I realized that the entire argument was irrelevant! There was nothing in the Constitution about secession at all which is why it cannot be considered un-constitutional! Furthermore, what there is of the matter is presented in the ratification documents of three States—Virginia, New York and Rhode Island. In the case of the latter two, all that is mentioned regarding the acceptable motive for secession is the “happiness” of the residents of that State! That is hardly a criteria that raises the bar on the matter! Had my opponent used that criteria, he would have found more than a sufficient number of “smoking guns!” But the biggest problem is that the gentleman believed that a “sufficient motive” was required to validate secession and that is nonsense. Furthermore, that motive had to be morally and intellectually acceptable for it to be legal. Again, this is nonsense! Frankly, the reason the Lincoln government and the rest of the States of the Union waged war had to do not with the motives for secession, but rather because secession itself was not permitted in the new American Empire! The reasons those eleven states had or might have had was of no consequence because secession was not going to be permitted! Why? Because an “indissoluble union” was required for the United States to take its place in the Age of Empire as an important player on the world stage. And for that reason, the old-fashioned republican relics of the Founders as were still to be found mostly in the South had to be swept away and replaced by the philosophy of the New England Puritan doctrine of that City on a Hill. And with that change in the nation's philosophy any crime could be committed with the excuse that it validated this understanding of reality even in the face of positive proof to the contrary. Thus "choice" rather than "truth" became the criteria validating behavior that resulted in the most sanguineous war in America's history! And therefore it would seem, after all, that "motive" does matter!
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