Don't ignore Civil War lessons

The murder of innocent black people in Charleston was a heinous crime, and the fact that it happened in their church is a moral outrage. It would be well, however, to step back from knee-jerk reactions and review what the Civil War was fought over.

Fredrick Merk, the late professor of History at Harvard, penned "History of the Westward Movement" and his wife released the book in 1978. Chapters 24 and 25 outline the economic, social, political, and slavery issues just prior to the Civil War. Slavery was one issue but was not the catalyst for unrest.

The New England area had far more representatives in Congress than the south, and southerners believed that their needs were not being addressed. Additionally, shipments of European merchandise were directed to ports in New York where agents added their fees before reloading and forwarding shipments to Charleston and other southern ports.

Most southern cotton was marketed by New York brokers, who set the prices and paid growers what was left over after expenses. Much of the south had been populated by people of Scotch-Irish descent who had no interest in slavery but just wanted to be left alone to live as they pleased. Merk wrote that most of these people were employed by the larger plantation owners as ditch diggers and for other heavy labor activities because the owners didn't want their slaves to be injured. These people resented being exploited and had no love for the slaves, plantation owners, or revenuers' descending on them from the north.

During the 1820s the slave population in South Carolina nearly equaled the white population. Many slave owners were facing bankruptcy. They were supporting far more laborers than they could afford. They tried partial emancipation by returning some slaves to Africa; however, many of those expatriates could not support themselves. Additionally, South Carolina offered to free slaves to northern areas in Indiana and Illinois, but those states would not accept them. Many authors express their belief that the practice of slavery would have collapsed by the weight of economic issues without going to war.

During the Civil War, 620,000 soldiers died, and 260,000 were southerners. Possibly the Confederate flag should be lowered at Charleston; but, in doing so, wounds of the past may be reopened. As a result, Skinhead recruitment may flourish in the south and extend far beyond what young Mr. Roof contrived in his evil mind.

There is no way that statues of the officers of the Confederacy should be removed from public places. Some of my ancestors served in both the Union and the Confederacy, and none were slave owners or sympathetic to slavery. Like many others, I would certainly be offended by removal of statues of men who fought for southern economic rights.

Leonard Brant is a Post Falls resident.