While I am certainly not an expert on this issue, I do have one basic question for Mr. Golblatt regarding the American Civil War: if morality was such an overriding concern of most Northerners, if slavery was such a moral outrage to most Northerners, then why did the U.S. government shortly after the conclusion of the Civil War institute a policy against the plains Indians that can accurately be described as genocide? As bad as slavery is in that it is a stark violation of an individual’s inherent natural/property rights, arguably the genocide committed against the plains Indians was even worse. Is not murder more morally reprehensible than slavery? I believe these facts illustrate that economic issues were probably more important than the moral issue of slavery as a cause of the Civil War. Mr. Goldblatt arguably has presented the trees and forest analogy exactly opposite to how these facts would indicate it needs to be portrayed.