A Tangential Post on the War Between the States
Dappled Things' Fr. Tucker today links to a very interesting article from Washington's Moonie newspaper, 5 ex-presidents had roles to play, about Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan.

This tidbit boosted my opinion of fellow Buffalonian Millard Fillmore:

After Lincoln's assassination, a mob attacked his house because he neglected to drape it in black for mourning.

Franklin Pierce's opinion was closest to my own:

Although Pierce was a Unionist and opposed secession, he viewed the South as a victim and felt that anti-slavery forces were to blame for bringing about the war.

A careful, critical read of the article shows that far from being the epic struggle of right vs. wrong, good vs. evil that our history books depict, the so-called Civil War was, like all other wars, quite complex. Nuanced positions were possible, like that of Orestes Brownson (1803–1876), the pro-Union, anti-abolitionist, anti-slaveholding journalist and author of the second best book about the United States, The American Republic: Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny.

Slavery, of course, was an abomination, but let's place blame where blame is due, as noted by Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859), author of the best book about the United States, Democracy in America, from which comes the following, from a fascinating chapter entitled THE PRESENT AND PROBABLE FUTURE CONDITION OF THE THREE RACES THAT INHABIT THE TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES:

When I see the order of nature overthrown, and when I hear the cry of humanity in its vain struggle against the laws, my indignation does not light upon the men of our own time who are the instruments of these outrages; but I reserve my execration for those who, after a thousand years of freedom, brought back slavery into the world once more.

Let us not forget that it was Catholicism, during the so-called Dark Ages, that ushered in that "thousand years of freedom."

This last point is elaborated upon in ABORTION AND THE GAY AGENDA: SECULARISM'S BIG GUNS, an article linked to by Seattle Catholic, which begins:

For approximately one thousand years after the fall of Rome, European civilization comprised a religion (Roman Catholicism), a morality (based on the revealed word of God and the natural law implanted in man by his Creator), and a political hegemony (in which the Church was both a secular ruler and a moral and spiritual influence on other rulers.) This “Catholic Civilization” was not seriously threatened by numerous dissenters who, from time to time, sought to weaken the Church and obtain a greater freedom either for themselves or for one of the new Nation-States.

The Protestant Revolution (to give it its accurate name) seriously weakened the authority and the influence of the Church. In the political sphere, it strengthened existing political powers and gave rise to new ones, many of which broke their ties with the Church in order to preserve their independence. The rulers of these kingdoms often solidified their political power by appropriating Church property and doling it out to their supporters. They also appropriated religious authority (Cuius regio, eius religio). In the moral sphere, even though the Protestant powers retained and continued to enforce the Judeo-Christian ethical system, the weakening of the Church and the Catholic Faith, and the strengthening of the secular state, laid the groundwork for the secularization of morality.