The Coming Whirlwind: Slavery, the Civil War and Abortion

To me, it is clear that we are headed for a terrible collision in this country. I do not mean a civil war in the shooting war sense. But I have studied the American Civil War for decades and the parallels with the last years before 1861 are uncanny.

Then, the “presenting problem” was slavery. It was the “indigestible lump” which precluded a nonmilitary settlement. The South, driven by the dedicated white supremicists and those who profited from slavery (the two groups were not entirely overlapping; the free Black population of New Orleans were overwhelmingly pro-Confederate to the end of the war, because their relatively high standard of living depended on Negro slavery), was adamant that slavery not be challenged. This ended up requiring that it be actively supported by the North as increasing commerce and communication made the issue harder to ignore (especially since it got easier for slaves to escape and easier for the Underground Railroad to help them). People on both sides who had in earlier decades ignored the issue or “agreed to disagree” found that this evasion was no longer possible. The pro-slavery people found their position increasingly threatened, and the North found themselves increasingly pressured to support slavery. Even those who were lukewarm or indifferent to slavery generally hated the increasing incidence of fugitive slaves in the North being forcibly abducted and returned to slavery, and they deeply resented the political bullying the South used more and more to force the Federal government to support their position. (Sounding familiar yet?)

One characteristic of the Southern position was their absolute refusal to countenance any suggestion that black people were not inferior to whites. During the war, one leader even admitted that he opposed arming slaves to fight for the Confederacy in return for their freedom on the grounds that if they could fight like white men, it would disprove their whole theory of slavery! (NOW does it sound familiar?)

Bruce Catton, great historian of the Civil War, pointed out that in fact the issue was race, and slavery was just the most obvious and pernicious symptom.

The issue facing us today is the Culture of Life vs. the Culture of Death. The humanity of unborn children is largely denied by those in the Culture of Death; sometimes it is referred to as a vague possibility, but always with some kind of rationalization in favor of continuing “therapeutic” abortion. Just recently, Hillary Clinton conceded the “potential” for life begins at conception, and she’s not sure when life begins, and since it would be so hard to enforce, etc. The abortion issue is the biggest and most immediately horrendous symptom of a much more pervasive problem. Euthanesia is back; eugenics is making a stealthy but very strong comeback; public tolerance and even support for anti-family activities such as extreme promiscuity, “alternative” non-marriage living arrangements, and sexual activity other than normal monogamous heterosexuality, are, in C.S. Lewis’ term, greater than they have been since Pagan times.

Just as with slavery, the abortion issue is bringing this increasingly into the open, and it’s causing increasing polarization. There are shameful defections from what should be the pro-life community, and courageous stands taken from the Left, where more and more individuals take a stand against their lifelong community as it moves further into the abyss.

In the Civil War, seven of the eleven states in the Confederacy had regiments raised who went and joined the Union! And there was a political organization in the South of pro-Union civilian men, 25,000 strong. With typical Southern courage, they were public; they did not hide their identities.

Through the 1850s, as tensions and violent incidents spiraled out of control, very few people, North or South, really foresaw the terrible abyss the country was going to pass through. To me, it really looks like we are heading for another explosion. We have no armed sections that can take sides and fight a civil war in open military terms. But just since Roe vs. Wade, we have murdered a number of our own countrymen similar to the total number of Africans taken or born into slavery before 1850 in America.

The pro abortion people have no more choice than the pro slavery people did; they must continue to push forward to make the “right” to abortion as secure as possible. They must fight dissent more and more; they must write more and more laws, put more and more pro-abortion education programs into place. To do otherwise would be to begin to admit doubt about the position they have taken so firmly for so long. And any doubt at all would call the whole edifice into question. They must even make common cause with the rest of the “progressive” forces of the Culture of Death; with advocates of euthanasia, supporters of non-marriage relationships, birth control, the lot.

Their opponents are just not going to go for this. There are very active pro-life people, and a larger group who are increasingly waking up to the intrusions in their lives, and whose patience is wearing thinner and thinner.

My crystal ball gets cloudy when I try to be any more specific. But what I do see is things getting worse before they get better. And it's going to be far worse than most people expect or want.

The slavery supporters in the South never dreamed they would bring about such a holocaust. The pro abortion people had no idea that Roe v. Wade would kick off such a groundswell of awakening social and political conscience in America. The entire Left was shocked at its power in 2004. They have labelled it "The Religious Right" to help them regard it as mindlessly backward and hateful. And they still have no idea what they're dealing with. People's underage daughters can be talked into abortions without their parents even being told of it. There is a very long list of hamhanded, bullying moves that remind me of the South in the 1850s trying to shore up slavery.

It didn't work for them either.

Sincerely,

LogEyed_Roman