AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

Every civilization eventually defines itself by whom it allows to live or die.

America’s political landscape feels like a battlefield. The Democratic Party, once the party of Roosevelt and working men, now appears fractured and adrift — a coalition bound more by resentment than by shared purpose. Young men and women, especially young men, are abandoning it in growing numbers. The party of the poor has become the party of the bureaucrat. And yet the moral zeal once associated with it remains. It has simply migrated. Throughout American history, great conflicts have not been primarily economic but moral. The Civil War was fought not for tariffs or trade routes but for the nation’s soul. The South defended slavery as a moral necessity — the belief that its peculiar institution ensured freedom for others. They wrapped dehumanization in the language of honor. Their moral inversion allowed them to imagine bondage as benevolence. Without slavery, they argued, the white man could not be free. The aristocracy relied on menial labor to attend to higher pursuits, and after all, blacks were happier in their lower station.

Revisionist historians, often shaped by Marxist frameworks, have tried to reduce the conflict to economics, but human beings rarely kill one another for money alone. They fight when conscience demands it. And in the 1860s, conscience demanded the abolition of slavery. Tens of thousands of white soldiers died not to enrich themselves but to end the subjugation of others — a fact that today’s ideologues, obsessed with intersectional resentment, often prefer to forget. Whereas the South spoke of “honor” at being called out for their peculiar institution, the North was motivated by religion and a moral crusade. The execution of the courageous John Brown, who led the doomed raid on Harper’s Ferry had stirred a courage in the North to remove the stain of slavery on our Nation. After his execution, church bells rang, parishioners wept, Emerson and Thoreau called for rebellion and courage, and the North felt itself called to a divine mission.

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Today’s America is again divided by a moral question — not of race but of life itself. Abortion is our generation’s slavery, a system sustained by the denial of full humanity to its victims. The unborn child has become the subhuman of our age, stripped of personhood so that others might preserve their notion of “freedom.” The parallel is uncomfortable but exact. As the South told itself that the Black man was content in bondage, modern progressives persuade themselves that a fetus is merely a “cluster of cells.” Both are elaborate fictions designed to quiet a guilty conscience. The irony is breathtaking, where women are called to play down or even celebrate ending the life of their child, rather than preserving the life inside them. And similar to the Southerners who claimed slavery served the interests of the white man engaging in “higher pursuits”, so the higher pursuit of career, uninterrupted lifestyle, or “liberation” are posited as the reasons for this unthinkable choice.

Those who oppose abortion are treated much as abolitionists once were — as fanatics, zealots, or threats to a cherished way of life. Waffling politicians, like those in the day of slavery, try to split hairs with statements such as “I am personally opposed, but believe in the freedom to choose.” The language has changed, but the dynamic of moral inversion has not. It is easier to vilify the messenger than to face the message. When people insist that abortion is liberation, they echo the same moral confusion that once called slavery “a positive good.” The common thread is the human capacity for self-deception when convenience demands it.

History suggests that societies eventually tire of their lies. I believe that centuries from now, abortion will be regarded as one of humanity’s darkest delusions — perhaps darker even than slavery, for it masqueraded as compassion. Unlike the ritual sacrifices of the ancients, ours are not offered to appease a god, but to satisfy comfort and vanity. Men are no less guilty than women. Many hide behind “choice” to evade responsibility for their actions, using women’s autonomy as a shield for their own cowardice. The overturning of Roe v. Wade did not settle this conflict; it only exposed its depth. The Left’s fury over the decision revealed something more than politics — it revealed shame. The vehemence with which abortion is defended stems not from principle but from the terror of moral exposure. Shame, when denied, curdles into rage. That rage has consumed families, friendships, even the Democratic Party itself. What remains of its moral confidence now seeks expression through endless new crusades — climate absolutism, gender dogma, open borders — each a frantic attempt to reclaim the moral high ground lost when the central lie began to crumble. The more the rest of us turn away, the more desperate they become.

We are in the midst of a new civil war, though not yet of armies. This war is cultural, spiritual, and fought in every family, classroom, and courtroom. Its battle line is simple: those who believe human life is sacred, and those who believe it is negotiable. The same forces that once claimed dominion over the slave now claim dominion over the unborn. Both call their tyranny freedom. Unlike the South of old, today’s revolutionaries possess no code of honor, no sense of limit. The Confederacy, misguided though it was, at least sought separation. The South could not stand to remain in communion with people who dared to insult their honor and integrity. Yet their sense of honor demanded nothing more, just separation and a new beginning.

The modern Left has no corresponding sense of integrity. It demands submission. It cannot coexist with dissent; it must destroy it. It will not build a new or separate nation but wants only to tear the existing one apart until every trace of guilt is buried beneath the rubble. It will redefine morality itself to make its crimes appear as virtues. But history moves according to a higher rhythm than ideology. The moral arc of nations, as Lincoln knew, bends toward truth only after terrible resistance. And while I expect no easy reconciliation, I also believe that America, for all her sins, remains capable of repentance. As with slavery, it will take courage, sacrifice, and suffering to purge the lie. But it will happen. Human beings, as Churchill said, usually do the right thing — after exhausting every other option. When that day comes, the unborn will be recognized as our brothers and sisters. Abortion will be spoken of as we now speak of bondage — with sorrow and disbelief. And those who fought for life will be

remembered not as zealots, but as the keepers of the nation’s conscience.

America will find its soul again — not by reinventing itself, but by remembering what it once knew: that freedom begins with the protection of life.

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Spyridon Andrews is a Greek American lawyer, writer, and musician who divides his time between Los Angeles and Lucca, Italy.

A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, Elmhurst University, and the Illinois Institute of Technology, he has also studied in Greece and at Northwestern. He is the author of Manuel and Me: Looking for the Soul of America in the Heart of Italy. His forthcoming works include The Broken Hellene, a reflection on modern Greek identity, and a tribute to his late brother, George Andrews, a pioneering NBA agent and philanthropist.

He is the proud father of two wonderful adult children, Jake and Lucy, and has been happily married to his wife Rachel for over 40 years.