In early March of 1861, Illinois was enjoying an early spring. Although warm weather had come early that year, it wasn't the climate that was on Chicago native Nathaniel Chester's mind. Chester worked in the printing room of the Chicago Tribune. He saw first hand that the newspapers were full rhetoric about an impending war. The Crittenden Compromise had failed, and South Carolina had seceded from the U.S. only a few months ago. Several other states quickly followed suit, and federal forts across the south had been seized. Munitions were salvaged, and the new states were banding together with a common army. They had even elected their own President.

Four other states, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina were contemplating secession. Votes for secession in those states had failed, but issue was far from dead. Virginia could be a problem. Virginia was not only full of resources, but it had manufacturing capability. It was also just across the river from the national capital.

Just days before, a new President, Abraham Lincoln, from Chester's very own state had been inaugurated. Already, Lincoln was talking about preserving the Union, and using troops to re-take forts in the South. To many northerners, this was about slavery and preserving the Union. They didn't really understand the southern way of life, and many of Chester's fellow Chicagoans saw slavery as an evil institution.

Nathaniel Chester saw things differently. Slaves were considered valuable property, and were rarely mistreated by their owners. They were provided a good home, with food and clothing. They got to work outdoors in the warm sun, and they were often surrounded by family and friends. Slaves were provided a time and place to worship, and overall, didn't lead too bad of a life. Chester felt that certainly, their life was no worse than that of the homeless beggars that plagued the streets of Chicago.

With the Union on the verge of war, Chester felt that he had to do something. Chester had access to the Tribune's printing presses and supplies. He printed and distributed fliers protesting the military build up, and the holding of Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens in the South. With the surrounding of the forts by Confederate troops, giving them up seemed to be a good way to diffuse the tension and open up negotiations.

Although they were still a vast minority, Chester found that he had the support of hundreds, perhaps thousands of fellow Chicagoans. Lincoln's plans to re-supply the surrounded forts and send military aid to federal troops stranded in the south were clearly an act of aggression. War was so immanent that even General Winfield Scott, a chief advisor to Lincoln, sent him a letter asking him to abandon the federal outposts to avert a bloody war. He could only hope that his anti-war message would sink in. Why should northerners spill their own blood for the freedom of others? Why try to preserve a union of states that did not want to remain?

Despite the protests, marches, and attempts to stop aggression toward the south, Lincoln pressed forward with the re-supply of Forts Sumter and Pickens. The re-supply order forced the Confederate's hand, and with the shots fired at Fort Sumter, the Union and Confederacy were plunged into Civil War.

Was Chester wrong? Was slavery an evil that northerners should dispel with their own blood and guts? Was preserving the Union so important?

I can only surmise that these are the questions that most pacifists face. Today, as anti-war protesters march in support of Saddam Hussein, I think of Nathaniel Chester and his misgivings about the institutions of slavery. Some people are ignorant and close-minded to the horrors of oppression. And, after all, if it doesn't affect them directly, what is the big deal?