Letters: July 18, 2019

Slavery

Wayne Olson, of Moscow, wants to rewrite history. He wants us to believe that the Civil War was all about states' rights, and not about the enslavement of Africans. (Letter, Lewiston Tribune, July 9, 2019).

Granted:

There were competing understandings of liberty and rights; Northern industry was subsidized by tariffs on Southern harvests -- a kingly style of favoritism.

New western states could not be slave states, so Congress would increasingly vote against the slave states' interests, an existential threat to slavery.

Nevertheless, the Causa Bella? Slavery.

Alexander Stephens, vice p...