Page 124 - Dragon Flood

but to bring a unanimity to her policies and to the projection of her power in the world. The
Civil War was largely a struggle between states’ rights and a powerful federal government
that exercised dominion over the states. Lincoln was ultimately successful in his aim of
creating a powerful federal government that would dictate its will to the states. In the
process he greatly expanded the powers of the president. Such actions would have elicited
the anger of men like Thomas Jefferson who believed in a limited federal government.

From the perspective of one who is a disciple of Christ, struggles over federal power versus
states’ rights seem inconsequential. The kingdom of God is not helped, nor hindered, by the
nationalistic ambitions of men. The church was born when the Roman Empire held sway
over much of the world. The church has experienced periods of peace where it was
unmolested, and ages of great persecution. Christianity has flourished under kingdoms,
dictatorships, democracies, and communism. The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy the
following words:

II Timothy 2:4
No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may
please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.

Partisan politics, and national ambitions certainly belong to “the affairs of everyday life.”
It was not the Spirit of Christ that inspired men like Abraham Lincoln to engage in a war
that would ultimately result in the violent deaths of more than 600,000 men, and the
maiming of a great many more. Men of baser motives, who are focused on earthly
kingdoms, have often found profit in warfare. Whatever Lincoln’s motives were, he would
have been unable to execute his war apart from the support and complicity of bankers,
munitions manufacturers, railroad tycoons, and an array of other merchants and
industrialists.

In the writing Robber Barons, Revolution, and Social Control, Andrew Gavin Marshall
shares the following:

The Civil War (1861-1865) served several purposes. First of all, the immediate economic
considerations: the Civil War sought to create a single economic system for America,
driven by the Eastern capitalists in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, uniting with
the West against the slave-labour South. The aim was not freedom for black slaves, but
rather to end a system which had become antiquated and unprofitable. With the
Industrial Revolution driving people into cities and mechanizing production, the notion
of slavery lost its appeal: it was simply too expensive and time consuming to raise, feed,
house, clothe and maintain slaves; it was thought more logical and profitable (in an era
obsessed with efficiency) to simply pay people for the time they engage in labour. The
Industrial Revolution brought with it the clock, and thus time itself became a commodity.
As slavery was indicative of human beings being treated as commodities to be bought and
sold, owned and used, the Industrial Revolution did not liberate people from servitude
and slavery, it simply updated the notions and made more efficient the system of slavery:
instead of purchasing people, they would lease them for the time they can be ‘productive.’
[Source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/robber-barons-revolution-and-social-control/]