Monday, October 6, 2014

Was the Civil War necessary?

I believe the civil war was somewhat necessary. I feel that the war determined freedom and abolishing slavery. Despite the fact that the war caused many problems in the end, it was a lesson for everyone. It helped create a sense of understanding among people due to the after effects of the war. Wars in general, are never a good thing because it creates a harmful environment, but on the other hand wars are necessary to fight in what one believes in to be true. Wars are not crucial to the society, but are usually acted upon due to disagreement upon several subjects. Slavery was one of the major reasons for the civil war occurred. When it comes to the idea of slavery, then I believe the war was absolutely necessary because the lack of slavery in our society has lead to many new innovations and helped our society grow as a whole. People may think that the war was completely unnecessary because of the huge loss of people, but the war taught people a very important lesson. It is hard to explain such a topic when the civil lead to many benefits and losses. Abraham Lincoln described in the Gettysburg speech that the civil war was a test to see whether our nation would last, and according to the conclusion of the war, the nation was able to pass this test. 

3 comments:

  1. It's amazing to think about how many lives were saved from the the scarring life of being a slave. However it is sad to think that war was the only answer to Slavery. This reminding of something I remember hearing in the documentary, Stewart and Walker already knew that their was going to be a war, now it was just a matter of time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree with your viewpoint. Whenever there is a war, it is always negative no matter which side you are fighting on. It is the purpose of the war that matters the most in the end. In the civil war, that purpose was slavery, Slavery was a very pressing and important issue which made the war justifiable.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks, all, for sharing your thoughts here! I wonder whether the battles we talked about changed your perspective on the Civil War; meaning, does the incredible human cost enter into the calculus of war? Do we, as historians, weigh the absolute good of abolition against particular evil of, say, Cold Harbor?

    ReplyDelete