An Emergency Psychology

Here's another lesson of history we should consider in our present crisis.

How did a small number of Southern slave owners convince a larger population of non-slave owners to go along with the act of secession that started the American Civil War?

One historian concluded that "the secessionists succeeded less because of the intrinsic popularity of their program than because of the extreme skill with which they utilized an emergency psychology."

In other words, beware ambitious men who speak of emergencies as "an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before."