War for Southern Independence.rnThe Birth of a MythrnAt the dedication of Gettysburg Battlefield, on November 19,rn1863, three years after Lincoln’s election, the Great Myth wasrnborn. There, Abraham Lincoln declared that the war hadrnbeen, all along, about equality.rnFour score and seven years ago our fathers brought forthrnon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty,rnand dedicated to the proposition that all men are createdrnequal.rnNow we are engaged in a great civil war, testingrnwhether that nation, or any nation so conceived and sorndedicated, can long endure.rnBut four score and seven years before Lincoln spoke wasrn1776. The “new nation” may have been “conceived” in 1776,rnbut it was not born until 1788 after the ninth state had ratifiedrnthe Constitution. In that Constitution, freemen, black andrnwhite, were equal. But slavery, the antithesis of equality, wasrnprotected. By Benjamin Franklin’s compromise, slaves were tornbe considered as three-fifths of a person for purposes of representationrnin the House. Painful to concede, it is more truthfulrnto say that slavery, the essence of inequality, was embedded inrnthe Constitution of the new nation.rnMoreover, in reaching back to 1776, Lincoln had invoked, inrndefense of a war to cru.sh a rebellion, the most powerful briefrnever written on behalf of rebellion. The Declaration of Independencernis not about preserving a union. It is a declaration ofrnsecession, of separation; it is about the “Right of the People tornalter or to abolish” one form of government “and to instituternnew Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, andrnorganizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem mostrnlikely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” It is about a people’srnright “to dissolve the political bands which have connectedrnthem with another, and to assume among the Powers of thernEarth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Naturernand of Nature’s God entitle them.”rnLincoln’s words, eloquent as they are, are the sheerestrnaudaeit). As Garry Wills writes approvingly. Lincoln, at Gettysburg,rnperformed one of the most daring acts of open-airrnsleight-of-hand ever witnessed by the unsuspecting.rnEveryone in that vast throng of thousands was having hisrnor her intellectual pocket picked. The crowd departedrnwith a new thing in its ideological luggage, that new constitutionrnLincoln had substituted for the one theyrnbrought there with them. They walked off, from thoserncurving graves on the hillside, under a changed sky, into arndifferent America. Lincoln had revolutionized the Revolution,rngiving people a new past to live with that wouldrnchange their future indefinitely.rnOn reading Lincoln’s address, many. North and South, werernastounded. In suggesting the terrible war had all along beenrnabout equality, what was the President talking about? Quotingrnthe Constitution back to the President, the Chicago Timesrncharged Lincoln with betraying both that sacred document hernhad taken an oath to defend and the men who had died for it:rnIt was to uphold this constitution, and the Lhiion createdrnby it, that our officers and soldiers gave their lives at Gettysburg.rn[ loyy dare he, then, standing on their graves,rnmisstate the cause for which they died, and libel thernstatesmen who founded the government?rnEven as Lincoln spoke, slaery was still legal in Washington,rnD.C., the seat of government, as well in Maryland, Missouri,rnKentucky, West Virginia, Delaware, and the areas of Tennesseernthat had remained loyal.rnThe Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, freedrnonly the slaves in those states that were still in rebellion. Allrnother slaves remained the protected property of their masters.rnPrime Minister Palmerston noted in amusement that Lincolnrnhad undertaken to abolish slavery where he had no power to dornso, while protecting slavery where he had the power to destroyrnit. Indeed, when issuing the proclamation, Lincoln confided tornhis secretary that he had done so only as a “militar necessity”rnafter the defeats of First and Second Manassas, Jackson’s ‘alle’rnCampaign, the Seven Days battle, Chancellorsille, Fredericksburg,rnand the stalemate at Antietam;rnThings had gone on from bad to worse, until I felt thatrnwc had reached the end of our rope on the plan of operationrnwe had been pursuing; that we had about plaved outrnour last card, and must change our tactics, or lose therngame. I now determined upon the adoption of thernemancipation policy.rnFar from universal celebration, the Emancipation Proclamationrnwas regarded by many, even in abolitionist England, as arncynical and awful weapon of war, settled upon by Lincoln inrndesperation. As Sheldon Vanauken points out in The GhtteringrnIllusion: Enghsh Sympathy for the Southern Confederacy (1989):rn[T]he Confederate states were winning the war. Only arnfew days before, Lee had smashed Burnside at Fredericksburg.rnThe Proclamation freed all the slaves within thernConfederate lines.. . . These slaves were grouped on thernisolated plantations, controlled for the most part by thernwomen since their gentlemen were off to the wars. Thernonly possible effect of the Proclamation would be therndreaded serile insurrection (that which John Brov’n wasrnhanged for inciting). Either a slave rising—or nothing.rnSo Englishmen saw it. Lincoln’s insincerity was regardedrnas proven by two things: his earlier denial of any lawfulrnright or wish to free the slaves; and, especially, his notrnfreeing the slaves in “loyal” Kentucky and other UnitedrnStates areas or even in Confederate areas occupied byrnUnited States troops, such as New Orleans. It should bernremembered that [in England] the horrors of the Indianrnmutiny, as well as the slave uprising in St. Domingo, werernin every memory.rnThe effect of the proclamation upon many in the llnion ranksrnwas the same. The}’ had gone to war not to free the slaves butrnto preserve the nation! As James MePherson writes in WhatrnThey Fought For, 1861-1865,rnplenty of soldiers believed that the proclamation hadrnchanged the purpose of the war. They professed to feelrnbetrayed. They were willing to ri,sk their lives for thern14/CHRONICLESrnrnrn