Recently, President Trump’s chief of staff General Kelly created
a storm of controversy when he said, “ . . . the lack of an
ability to compromise led to the Civil War.” on the Laura Ingram Show.
This provoked quite a bit of
controversy. The most trenchant criticism came from those who feel you don’t
compromise about slavery. I would like to go over the facts of the matter to
see how defensible this position is.
The nation was born in compromise and of course the most
egregious compromise in the constitution was legitimizing slavery thus giving
birth to the nation’s original sin. At the time it was probably correctly
perceived as necessary if our nation was not to die a stillbirth at its
inception.
The compromises of 1820 and 1850 along with other pieces of
legislation such as the Fugitive Slave Act were compromise at the expense of
slaves to preserve the union.
Between the election of Lincoln and the firing on Fort
Sumter that started the war there were several compromises floated to save the
union at the expense of slave. These
efforts included the following.
The Corwin Amendment also known as other 13th
amendment simply stated:
No
amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to
Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic
institutions thereof, including that of person held to labor or service by the
laws of said State. This passed both houses of
congress by super-majorities and three state legislatures. It had the support of president-elect
Lincoln.
The Crittenden Compromise would
allow slavery in states created below a line roughly between Tennessee and
Kentucky drawn to the Pacific.
Lincoln and the Republican Party would
allow slavery in the states where it existed but would ban the further
expansion of slavery.
Lincoln wouldn’t accept the Crittenden
Compromise because this would perpetuate the balance of power between north and
south in perpetuity. The south would not accept the Republican position because
they would abdicate this balance of power and even with a guarantee that the
government would not interfere other factors (repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act
for example) would render the institution of slavery economically unviable.[1]
So in summary “One-eighth of the whole population were
colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the
southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest.
All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war.”[2]
The north was okay with allowing slavery to continue in the
south, “the Government claimed no right
to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.”[3]
Because the two parties could no longer compromise on
the state in which this “peculiar institution” would be perpetuated, “one of them would make war rather than let
the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it (the
union) perish, and the war came.”[4]
The reason why at the time of this controversy I was so
interested in it and prompted me to write this blog entry is because in seventh
grade social studies I learned our country was born in compromise. I learned
that the union was saved by compromise in 1820 and again in 1850. But when we
could no longer find the a path to compromise the United States experienced by
far the bloodiest and most costly war in our history which resulted in a highly
imperfect end to slavery and at least at a cultural level a continuation of
that war today. In short for nearly 60 years I have held the same position as
General Kelly – and still do.
To me both at the time and still today is the notion that
compromise is foundational to democracy. This country’s constitution is an
exercise in compromise from the bicameral legislature to the co-equal branches
of government. Nearly every law ever written in a democracy is the result of
compromise.
If we are to look at compromise as one end of a spectrum
then the other end is coercion/capitulation. Coercion is forcing one’s will on
another and therefore quite undemocratic.
But in writing this and the reason it has taken so long to complete this
entry is the fact that I have difficulty getting my head around the idea that
coercion is necessary for democratic governments as well.
In 1861 we wouldn’t let the south
leave the union. After 4 bloody years we
prevailed in that fight and coerced the south to remain in the union and as a
by-product of that conflict, slavery ended (highly imperfectly) in the south.
“Neither party
expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it had attained,” [5]
but since both side profited and the north would so readily compromise rather
than confront this pernicious institution “
. . . if God wills that it continue
until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of
unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the
lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand
years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true
and righteous altogether."[6]
Had the north and south failed to
compromise or agreed to go their separate ways any time between 1789 and 1861
the trajectory of American history would have been unrecognizable to what we
have today. We have to live with the results of the compromises of 1789, 1820,
1850, and the failure to compromise in 1861.
Certainly, at this time in
history we don’t compromise on slavery or equal rights. That said, we need to be vigilant to seek
common ground, to create dialogue, to look for opportunities to compromise because
all that is foundational to democracy.
[1]
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/nov/02/kelly-civil-war-and-compromise-almost-was/
This entire argument is from this Politifacts article.
[2]
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (In my opinion this speech is every bit as
good as the Gettysburg Address.)
[3]
Ibid
[4]
Ibid
[5]
Ibid
[6]
Ibid
