The (Not So Good) Old Days

The American Civil War has been in the news lately, fittingly enough, since April 12 was the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the bloodiest war in our history. One of my college professors was something of a Civil War buff and went to battlefield sites to search for artifacts but I never paid much attention to it other than occasionally stumbling across an article that aroused my interest by detailing some of the insanity and butchery of some of the battles. I seem to recall it also holds the record for the bloodiest day in the history of American wars where more men were killed in a single battle on a single day than any other.

I didn't know there was much disagreement over what the war was about. I'd always heard it was about slavery. Apparently, shortly after it ended there were claims that it wasn't about slavery, it was about states rights, or Northern aggression, etc.. After all, it's hard to proudly justify and defend the right to keep human beings as property and use them as farm equipment. I've heard it called "a stain on the nation's conscience". And it should be. But not as a source of shame for whites alone. Whites didn't invent slavery and blacks have enslaved others as well and would undoubtedly have enslaved whites if circumstances had been reversed. It should be a source of shame for all humanity. It is a nearly universal human failing to wish to impose one's will on others through force if necessary and several races and cultures have enslaved their fellow humans.

I'm sort of intrigued by possible parallels between then and now in the sense that surely we are almost as bitterly divided now as then. Of course, now the issue is not slavery but political views. Tax cuts vs entitlements. Anti-abortion vs right-to-choose. Liberals vs conservatives. Supreme Court decisions often split 5-4 right along the political fault lines. What can save us from ourselves? Will there be an Abraham Lincoln to come along and appeal to "the better angels of our nature"? (Not likely. Although Lincoln was a Republican, in today's Republican Party he would not pass the purity tests. His anti-slavery position and lack of unswerving support for states rights would likely be seen as blasphemy.) Perhaps a spanking and off to bed with no supper! would be more fitting? Perhaps we could come up with a national strategy to trigger some sort of enforcement of grown-up behavior and the application of reason when people resort to name calling and demonizing?