1st Amendment and Constitution

What did these men in blue and gray believe they were fighting for? A sentence in that letter of the New York captain gives us a clue : Every soldier knows he is fighting not only for his own liberty but even more , for the liberty of the human race for all time to come . Another clue is provided by a wounded private who described a debating society organized by convalescent soldiers during the last winter of the war . Among other questions , they debated , and resolved that the struggle will do more to establish and maintain a republican form of government than the Revolutionary war .

These themes of liberty and republicanism formed the ideological core of the cause for which Civil War soldiers fought , Confederate as well as the Union . Americans in both North and South believed themselves custodians of the legacy of 1776 . Its also mentioned that Confederates fought for independence , for their property and way of life , for their survival as a nation . " We fight for the blessings bought by the blood and treasure of our Fathers" wrote and enlisted man . "I will fight till I die if necessary for the liberties which you have so long enjoyed." A Michigan soldier told his younger brother that he fought against traitors who sought to tear down and break into fragments the glorious temple that our forefathers reared with blood and tears .

Mchperson - 2003