I had an opportunity this past week to watch the outstanding Ken Burns’ documentary mini-series “The Civil War”.
When I was young, I read quite a few of my father’s books, among which were the works of Bruce Catton, the pre-eminent historiographer of the Civil War. I’ve always been fascinated by this profound moment of our nation’s history, which involved so much tragedy and suffering, evolved
The Ken Burns’ epic does a good job explaining why the war happened, why it took so long for the North to defeat the outnumbered and out-supplied South, and how the abolition of slavery became, as the war dragged on, the driving force in re-uniting all of the Nation’s states. The latter gave some nobility to a gruesome conflict, initially sparked when eleven states decided to obey some Federal laws and not others.
We like to think of America as a world leader in most things. However, we were a laggard nation when it came to the abolition of slavery. It took a Civil War, with 600,000 dead, for the U.S. to end slavery in 1865. Great Britain had outlawed the practice in 1833, Mexico in 1830, France in 1804, and Russia did it in 1723, one hundred and fifty three years before our Declaration of Independence solemnly stated that “All men are created equal”.
“The times, they are a-changin'”, sang Bob Dylan, in the 1960’s. Of course, the times are always a-changin’, and those who are not keeping abreast of changing societal mores, technological innovation, and what’s going on in the world at-large are doomed to be brushed into the dustbin of history.
The antebellum Southern agricultural economy was propped up by inexpensive labor made possible by human bondage. One wonders if, had the Civil War been won by the Confederates, America would still be employing slavery to achieve its economic ends. If, when and why would it have ended…one can only ponder.
The profound tragedy of the Civil War, to me, is that the traitorous South, which chose to be part of the “United States” only when it suited them, continued on, after defeat, to have its own way with regard to the treatment of the former slaves. Southern politicians and society refused to accept Negroes as human beings, used every means available to demean and humiliate said Black American citizens, and devised numerous schemes to disenfranchise their former slaves.
At the same time, historical revisionists in the South worked hard to re-frame the War and its origins as some type of noble undertaking intended to retain Southern charm, chivalry, and honor. This “Lost Cause” narrative gave the impression that slavery was quite benign, that slaveholders treated their “property” with respect, and that, besides, it was states’ rights, not slavery, that the War was fought over. The cinema classic “Gone With The Wind” pretty much sums up the Lost Cause narrative, with not a single Confederate bad guy or mean plantation owner in the mix.
The Klu Klux Klan, Jim Crow laws, lynchings, racial segregation, and sermons of hate delivered from pulpits inflamed the Southern White populace long after the war’s end, simultaneous with the Lost Cause campaign .
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, almost one hundred years after the Civil War, finally instilled in Federal law protections to African Americans which should have been unnecessary except for the foot-dragging by, primarily, the ex-Confederate states.
Remarkably, in 2019, one hundred and fifty years after the Civil War and fifty three years after passage of the Civil Rights Act, slimy politicians in the South (and, some northern states like Wisconsin) persevere, publicly and proudly, in their insidious efforts to disenfranchise would-be Black American voters.
And, the Republican Party, the one founded by Abraham Lincoln, seems to be quite comfortable with this.
One wonders who really won the Civil War. Maybe we should have let the South go its own way?
I believe that, had President Lincoln lived to serve his second term in office, he would have worked tirelessly to “bind up the Nation’s wounds”, and he would have devoted all of his energies to repairing and re-developing the Southern economy which had been physically destroyed in the War and had been outmoded, anyway, due to the abolition of slavery. Lincoln’s vision for Reconstruction, made clear in his Second Inaugural Address, was “with malice toward none, with
I have to believe that a kindler and gentler reconciliation of the North and South would have been engineered under Lincoln than what actually occurred subsequent to his assassination.
In the absence of that kind of leadership, spiteful politicians in Washington D.C. and in the South involved themselves in great mischief which continues to torment us to this day. In some ways, it is almost as if those 600,000 dead and millions injured and maimed made their sacrifices in vain.
Yes, we saved the Union, but the result was a Nation which, to this day, has a dual personality: Good and Evil.
When we Americans work together, constructing the continental railroads, building the Panama Canal, helping to prevail in two World Wars, establishing the United Nations to resolve global issues..we are Good, if not Great. It’s not hard to be proud to be an American when our intentions are noble and just.
But, our country has a flip-side; i.e. the Evil that comes from being full of one’s self, pushing its beliefs and agendas on other people’s of the world. Democracy isn’t for everyone, because not all of the world’s societies are culturally attuned to that standard. And, not all people believe in the same version of God. It is their right to believe what they want to, right?
Within our own country, Evil manifests itself in persistent racist attitudes, mean-spirited political behaviors, and in a law and order culture which heaps abuse and injury upon minorities. What began with Jim Crow laws after the Civil War has now morphed into various means of overt and covert discrimination against Black Americans and, more recently, non-White immigrants.
“Make America Great Again” is a thinly-veiled campaign to bleach our Nation white, by curtailing immigration and making life difficult for non-Whites. One only has to look at the public behavior of the Trump Administration to see what is going on.
Donald Trump weekly, if not daily, rails against perceived non-White “threats” to our country by Mexicans, Chinese, Muslims, and potential immigrants from “shithole countries”. According to him, prohibiting immigration by any or all of these groups justifies a “National Emergency”.
Of course, the ignored reality is that immigration made America what it is.
Not many citizens are descended from Native Americans or from the Pilgrims, for that matter. Trump himself is descended from German immigrants, and there was a time in this country that immigrants from that country weren’t welcome by all. The same goes for the Irish, the Italians, Orientals, etc.
Albert Einstein immigrated from Germany, Sergey Brin (Google), from Russia, Joseph Pulitzer (Journalist) from Hungary, Liz Claiborne (Fashion) from Belgium, Steve Chen (U-Tube) from Taiwan, Ariana Huffington (Journalist) from Greece, Bob Hope (Entertainer) from England, Andrew Carnegie (Industrialist) from Scotland, Natalie Portman (Actress) from Israel, Carlos Santana (Musician) from Mexico, and Melania Trump (First Lady) from Slovenia. Surprisingly, eight of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were not born in America.
Let’s face it: all Americans are immigrants, even the Native Americans, whose forefathers trudged across the Bering land bridge from Asia 20,000 years ago. Their descendents, the Mestizos (Spanish and Native American mix), which we now call “Mexicans”, were settled in the American southwest long before White folks arrived. They can hardly be considered immigrants, particularly to our continent.
Can’t we just get over the fact that people don’t all look alike? As the Sunday school verse goes, “Jesus loves the little children, Red, Brown, Yellow, Black and White…they are precious in his sight…” The bottom line is that they are all human beings.
White supremacist groups like to pronounce that we are a “Christian” nation. So, what’s going on here? President Trump, the darling of the Christian Right, spends half his waking hours heaping scorn and abuse, some officially, upon his Nation’s Red, Brown, Yellow, and Black citizens, residents, and visitors. And, then, doesn’t accept blame when hate groups visit assault, damage, injury, and death on these very people.
Abraham Lincoln would be ashamed of the President, the political party that he established, and the way that his Civil War legacy has been besmirched.
And, he would be heartbroken that American citizens would have allowed this to occur.