The Civil War’s immediate impact was felt mostly in America. It ended slavery, preserved the union, and in time reaffirmed the natural rights of man first proclaimed distinctly by the English physician-philosopher, John Locke (1632-1704). Locke is perhaps the foremost proponent of individual rights in the history of Anglo-American jurisprudence. He wrote that all human […]
Medical Politics During the Civil War Read More »
In the celebrated PBS series by Ken Burns, The Civil War (1990), Southern historian Shelby Foote provides excellent anecdotes that embroider the documentary. In one of these vignettes, Foote mentions a dialogue between a Confederate and a Union soldier, in which the latter asks, “Why do you fight?” The Confederate soldier responds, “Because you are
Fighting Lost Causes in the American Civil War Read More »
John Quincy Adams (2012) by Harlow Giles Unger is a well written and well-researched book that brings to light the sixth president of the United States, and the only son of a Founding Father to become president — John Quincy Adams. The Adams family was not only to give birth to several American statesmen, but
With the recent commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, a number of journalists in their editorials (and even a historian, David Von Drehle, in a Time magazine article) attempted to assure us that they are setting the historic record straight — namely, that the paramount reason for the War Between the
Slavery and the Civil War Read More »
