I'm reading the April issue of Chronicles. The major articles focus on Appomattox because April 9th was the 150th anniversary of Lee's surrender there. Editor Thomas Fleming makes this sobering point about the outcome in his commentary, Why They Fought:
The Theory of Democracy, which is in principle the right of a majority to strip a minority of its rights, was used to destroy the republic 150 years ago, and it is in the name of democratic equality that all the fundamental institutions of human life are now under attack. Once this principle is invoked, there are no barriers to the growth of government and its invasion of private life. We once had a constitution to defend us from the tyranny of the majority, but the Constitution of the United States,
