How a Libertarian Should View the Civil War----excellent article by a well-credentialed Libertarian scholar.
https://reasonpapers.com/pdf/28/rp_28_6.pdfBelow is an excerpt near the end of the article:
Contrary, then, to the oft-repeated claim that the Civil War was not
about slavery, the question of slavery answers the essential question which
determines whether secession in 1861 was an act of revolution, on the one
hand, or a criminal conspiracy, on the other hand. The secession of 1861 was
not a legitimate revolution, because its “cornerstone” rested on “the great truth
that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to
the superior race—is his natural and normal condition.”58 As Lincoln had said
before the war,
"[w]e all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all
mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each
man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor;
while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as
they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor.
Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by
the same name—liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by
the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible
names—liberty and tyranny. The shepherd drives the wolf from the
sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator,
while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of
liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep
and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty."59
The Confederacy, built upon the wolf’s definition of liberty, was an
illegitimate government by the libertarian standards of the Declaration of
Independence. When the Confederacy initiated force by firing on Fort
Sumter, therefore, it became the responsibility of the President to “take Care
that the Laws [including the supreme law of the land] be faithfully
executed,”60 by putting down the rebellion by force if necessary.
