The American Civil War Considered as a Crisis in Law and Order

Abstract

DESPITE THOUSANDS OF VOLUMES written about the Civil War we still know almost nothing about one of the central questions that that struggle poses: why did men rush to fight for their endangered country? Indeed why did they believe that secession endangered it? WVe know with some precision why the South seceded. The answer is obvious at first glance and remains clear upon deeper investigation-the South seceded because it saw in the election of Lincoln a threat to the survival of slavery, the foundation for the Soutlhern way of life. Tradition, psychology, and economics all spoke clearly the same message-without slavery we cannot survive. And so secession came. But a description of the decision for secession is not a description of why the war came. Although the South prepared for war there would be none unless the North contested the Southern action. Lincoln's assertion that both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish,' is imprecise and thus misleading. The decision to make war for the Union was made not in Richmond or Montgomery but in Washington, and Boston and New York, and Indianapolis, and Columbus, and Springfield. This decision was made by Lincoln and by thousands of men who throughout the secession winter and especially after Sumter rushed to the colors. To understand why the war came we must look not at secession but at the Northern response to it. In that response, as we shall see, the concept of law and order loomed large. The concept is a complex one, contemporary political rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding. The order of a society depends on more than the rigid enforcement of all of its laws. It depends on mnaintaining an enduring consensus about a people's fundamental goals and beliefs, and hence on the success of the institutions created to secure this consensus. Fundamental