As Louverture explained, “We are fighting that liberty—the most precious of earthly possessions—may not perish.” When it comes to ethics, you have to explain the “why.” Why can’t you pillage? Because pillaging would corrupt the real goal, which isn’t winning, but liberty. In other words, if you win in the wrong way, what do you actually win? If you fight in a manner that strips liberty from bystanders, how will you ever build a free society? And if you don’t build a free society, what are you fighting for? Louverture treated an army of illiterate former slaves as if they were philosophers, and
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