America's Changeable Civil War Author(s): CHRISTOPHER CLAUSEN Source: The Wilson Quarterly (1976-), Vol. 34, No. 2 (SPRING 2010), pp. 30-35 Published by: Wilson Quarterly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20700689 . Accessed: 07/02/2014 15:29
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This content downloaded from 192.153.34.30 on Fri, 7 Feb 2014 15:29:47 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE WILSON QUARTERLY
America's Changeable
Civil War
A centuryand a half after thefirst state secededfrom theUnion, a livelydebate overwhat caused theCivil War continues.
BY CHRISTOPHER CLAUSEN
As the Civil War Sesquicentennial approaches thereforewhat was actuallywon and lost,is less settledthan cruisingspeed, North and South looka greatdeal more alike you might expect after 150 years. Both sides foughtwith than theydid on the eve of thewar's lastgreat anniversary determination,but theirmotives were shiftingand some just 50 yearsago. That much-heralded celebrationcoincided times ambiguous. To add to the confusion,as soon as con with the riseof the civil rightsmovement with a precision flictended, the losingparty readjusted its position sufficiently thatwas almost too good to be true.A centuryafter Get towin back inpeacetime not only a more positivehistori tysburg,President JohnF. Kennedy had justproposed the cal reputation,but some very tangiblebenefits. bill thatwould become theCivil RightsAct of1964.When When JeffersonDavis ofMississippi resignedfrom the the centennialof Appomattox rolledaround, Congress was U.S. Senate afterhis state leftthe Union?the second to do about to pass the 1965Voting RightsAct, and fewpeople so, afterSouth Carolina seceded on December 20,1860? were paying much attention to ceremonies on old hemade amuch-praised speech explaininghis reasons.The battlefields. essence of itwas simple: "Webut tread in thepaths of our ... The factthat the White House isnow occupied by aman fatherswhen we proclaim our independence not in born during the CivilWar Centennial to a mother from hostilityto others,not to injureany section of the country, Kansas and a father fromKenya representsa historical not even forour own pecuniarybenefit, but from thehigh development hardly imaginable at the time,yet all but the and solemnmotive ofdefending and protectingthe rights most regressivenow accept it as perfectlynatural. The we inherited,and which it isour duty to transmitunshorn major civilrights laws of the 1960s are sowell established to our childrenDefenders of the South since thewar have thatwhatever disagreementsmay arise intheir application, takenmuch the same position.The 11states that briefiy con fewAmericans understand?or can even imagine?what life stitutedthe (^nfedei^y leftthe Union, theyh^ was likewithout them.Sometimes progress takes theform much the same reason the original 13 colonies left the ofhistorical amnesia. BritishEmpire. They foughtto protect what theyconsidered Yet the question ofwhat theCivil War was about, and inalienable rights. Not didmost secessionistsbelieve in the constitu Christopher Clausen, the author ofFadedMosaic (2000) and other only books, writes frequentlyabout theCivil War and historicalmemory. ! tionalityof theiractions, thePuUtzerPrize-vdnninghisto
30 Wilson Quarterly Spring 2010
This content downloaded from 192.153.34.30 on Fri, 7 Feb 2014 15:29:47 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE DIS-UNITED STATES-A BLACK BUSINESS. Noambiguity about the cause of the approaching American Civil War isevident in this 1856 British cartoon, but its view was notuniversally shared.
r?an JamesM. McPherson has argued; theydid indeed | Republicans' revolution. represent"traditional rights and views" about the relation- [ Whether or not theyowned slaves,Southerners almost ship between the states and central government,views | universallyprofessed thedoctrine known then and now as aboutwhich theNorth had largelychanged | states'rights, grounded in the federal systemas originally theadoption of theConstitution. That isnot to say thatslav understood, at leastby the followersof Thomas Jefferson. erywas not the fundamental issue, inMcPherson's view; it When the South lost, states'rights lostwith it, and the was indeed slavery,he asserts,that made theNorth-South ; unquestionable supremacyof the centralgovernment has divisiondeep and iirc nc?able. The ele Spring 2010 Wilson Quarterly 31 This content downloaded from 192.153.34.30 on Fri, 7 Feb 2014 15:29:47 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Civil War autonomy and racial oppression. Insofaras theycoincided "Our position is thoroughlyidentified with the institution in this instance, itwas an accident ofhistory, as some per of slavery?the greatestmaterial interestof theworld." ceptive contemporaries recognized. Bound up with the Because slaveryis one featureof theAmerican past that defenseof an odious institutionto which theSouth had com long ago lost all itsdefenders, explaining thewar solely in mitted itselfin word and deed were some positivevalues theseterms almost requires portraying it as a conflictof good triefederal system, limited government, the defense of one s against evil.Many academic historianswho ferventlysup homeland against long odds?that many Americans in portdiplomatic compromise and peace processes in today's both theNorth and the Southwould continue to profess. world largelyendorse theLincoln administration'srefusal LordActon, theEnglish apostle ofliberty,strongly supported of thosemeans in the 1860s and itsdetermination to pre the Confederacy while loathing slavery. "History,"he vail unconditionally,no matter what the scale ofdeath and explained, "does notwork with bottled essences,but with devastation.This shiftin the interpretationsof historians active combinations."Acton defendedhis positionby argu became dominant afterthe civil rightsmovement and can ingthatafederal stmcturelike the American one,whose bal be seen even in thetitles of major works, as theMississippi ance of central and local powers he felt theNorth was novelist Shelby Foote's evenhanded The Civil War: A Narrative (1958-1974) was soon challenged by McPherson's more mili REDUCING THE CIVIL WAR to a dis tantBattle Cry ofFreedom (1988). The Lincoln admin over almost pute slavery requires portraying istrationsgradual transition fromreluctant prosecutor of it as a conflict of evil. good against a war undertakenmerely to save theUnion to theEman cipation Proclamation and, destroying,would be the best means for a futureunited by1865, theTTiirteenth Amendment, isone of thefamiliar Europe to avoid the clangersof nationalism. He was aman legendsof American history. in someways clearlyahead ofhis time. Less familiar is thepostbellum change of emphasis by For the seven statesthat seceded first,however, distin Southernwriters intheir depiction of themotives behind the guishingbetween slaveryand states' rightswas a waste of Confederate cause, fromthe defense of slaveryto themore breath.These were theCotton States, and fourof them? abstractand sympatheticprotection of limitedgovernment, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas?issued states'rights, and thefreedom of alocal majority todecide its mini-declarations of independence explainingwhat pos own politicaldestiny. Identifying their new nation inextri sessed themto end a union thathad begun in revolution85 cablywith slaverymade foreignsupport more difficultto yearsearlier. Fortunately for the Confederacy, whose success attract,especially once theNorth decided itwas explicitly depended in largepart on achieving recognitionand assis fightingfor emancipation. By the same token,once defeat tance from antislaveryEurope, these declarations,with came, Southernerswho wished to save somethingfrom the their tedious legalisms and tendentious histories of the ruinsneeded toredefine their reasons for resisting so valiantly. slavery controversy inAmerican politics, went largely This necessityapplied not only to thehistorical record,but unread. South Carolina complained thatNortherners had also to their immediatepolitical needs in grapplingwith systematicallyshirked their constitutional obligation to Reconstruction. returnescaped slaves andwere now inciting"servile insur Edward A. Pollard, a Richmond newspaper editor, rection."Texas made similarclaims inpseudo-Jeffersonian began writing a history of thewar almost as soon as it language, adding forgood measure that the federal gov began and published several installmentswhile itwas still ernmenthad failed to protectwhite Texans from raidsby going on. In explaining secession to Southern readers in hostile Indians andMexican "banditti."In a rare lapidary 1862, he recounted at lengththe controversyover slavery sentence,Jefferson Davis's Mississippi candidlyproclaimed: from itsbeginnings throughthe Missouri Compromise of 32 Wilson Quarterly Spring 2010 This content downloaded from 192.153.34.30 on Fri, 7 Feb 2014 15:29:47 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Civil War avertedwar forso long,Pollard praised themilitancy of South Carolina and ended his account of thewar's background with a portentous description of the stateof affairson theday ofLin coln's inauguration: "Abolition ismand Fanaticism had not yet lappedblood Butreflecting men saw thatthe peace was de itful and temporizing;that the tem per of theNorth was impatient and dark; and that, ifall history was not a lie,the first incident of bloodshedwould be theprelude to a war of monstrous propor tions." When Pollard published a complete version of his history fora national audience in 1866 under the titleThe Lost Cause, his account of thewar's back groundunderwent considerable alteration.Although "a political North and a political South" were already recognizedwhen the Constitutionwas adopted, slaverywas not reallythe issue. "The slaveryquestion isnot tobe Nearly30 yearsafter he was hungfor trying to fomenta slave rebellion, abolitionist John Brown still taken as an independent con stirred to thissentimentalized ofhis 1859 tothe feelingsstrong enough inspire depiction trip gallows. troversyin American politics. It was not a moral dispute. Itwas 1820, theCompromise of 1850, and BleedingKansas down | themere incidentof a sectional animosity'?that is,a pre towhat he saw as theNorth's treacheryin embracing Hin textfor the North's jealousy of theSouths greaterpower in tonRowan Helper's antislaverytract The Impending Crisis the earlyRepublic. of theSouth (1857) and JohnBrown's effortto starta slave While protestingthat Southern slavery"was reallythe rebellionwith his raid atHarpers Ferry in 1859.Treachery mildest inthe world," Pollard declared tactfullythat Ve shall was, Pollardmaintained, thebasis ofnearly all Northern pol- | not enterupon thediscussion ofthemoral question of slav itics,and was demonstrated even by thoseNortherners ery."As an institution,it was gone forever;defending it who seemed to shareSouthern convictionsabout the scope now would simply prejudice Northern readers further of federalpower: 'While actingwith theSouth on emptyor against the South. Instead,he repeated, "theslavery ques accidental issues,"he complained, "the 'StateRights' men of tionwas not amoral one inthe North, unless,perhaps, with was theNorth were, forall practical purposes, thefaithful allies a fewthousand persons ofdisordered conscience. It sig of the open and avowed consolidationistson thequestion nificantonly of a contestfor political power, and afforded thatmost seriouslydivided thecountry?that of negro slav nothingmore thana convenientground ofdispute between ery."Sneering at the successive compromises that had two parties,who representednot twomoral theories,but Spring 2010 Wilson Quarterly 33 This content downloaded from 192.153.34.30 on Fri, 7 Feb 2014 15:29:47 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Civil War In1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the 15thAmendment, guaranteeing AfricanAmericans the rightto vote-a promise thatwas soon bargained away. hostile sections and opposite civilizations."Needless to say, (aman who had reluctantlyfollowed his reluctantstate out Southerndvilization inPollard s eyeswas more elevatedand of theUnion), itsmotives and sufferingswere crucialto reha honorable thanthat of the "coarseand materialistic" North. bilitatingthe failedConfederacy itself. Pollard's immenselypopular book quicklybecame the Another newspaper editor,Henry Grady ofAtlanta, standardSouthern history of the war, a status itretained for proved evenmore successfulat restoringthe Souths honor decades inpart because itmade slaverya side issue ina war by retouching the historical record. "TheNew South," a thatwas reallyfought by the South for states' legitimate much-reprinted1886 speechGrady deliveredto an audience rightsand by theNorth forsheer power. This position, still ofNew Englanders, stands as a completedmonument to a popular among Southern commemorative or?anizations civilizationthat had foughtgallantly for eminentlymoral and Confederate reenactors,made possible the abiding reasons, lostthrough no faultof itsown, andwas now start romantic image of the Lost Cause. Itwas not made up inganew betterthan ever?a regionof honorable gentlemen entirelyout ofwhole cloth.As a Virginian, Pollard had and pure ladies whom any nation would be proud to pointed out even in 1862 that the statesof theupper South embrace as fellowcitizens. After paying graphic tributeto (Virginia,North Carolina,Arkansas, and Tennessee) chose thepoor "hero ingray with a heart ofgold" returningfrom not to secede over Lincoln's election and leftthe Union Appomattox to a devastated homeland, he turned to the onlywhen theNorth began a war of coercion against their demise of slavery:"The South foundher jewel in the toad's departed sisters.Since Virginia was themost important head ofdefeat The shacklesthat had held her innarrow lim Southern state, site ofmore battles than any other, and itationsfell forever when the shacklesof theNegro slavewere home of thepreeminent Confederate hero,Robert E. Lee broken.Under the old regime, theNegroes were slaves to 34 Wilson Quarterly Spring 2010 This content downloaded from 192.153.34.30 on Fri, 7 Feb 2014 15:29:47 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Civil War theSouth, the South was a slaveto the system."Without slav dent and congressional leadership agreed in turn towith ery,the South was farbetter otf than ithad been before the draw the lastoccupation troops fromthe South and letthe war. "TheNew South,"Grady announced, "presentsa per vanquished run theirruined states according to theirown fectdemocracy' inwhich formermasters and formerslaves prejudices. Broadly speaking, stategovernments were free alikewould experience"the light of a granderday." It was an topass any laws thatdid not overtlychallenge the author age offlorid oratory. ityof the federal government or outrage the elastic con When he spokeofthe war itself,Grady, whose fatherhad science of a national majority. So long as theymade no died forthe Confederacy, was less conciliatory.'The South attempt to secede or reinstituteslavery, white Southerners has nothingforwhich toapologize. She believes thatthe late were free tobuild monuments to theConfederate soldier in strugglebetween theStates was war and not rebellion,rev everycounty seat, romanticize the Lost Cause to theirhearts' olution and not conspiracy,and thather convictionswere content,and deny the rightsof citizenshipto anyonewith as honest as yours. I shouldbe unjust to thedauntless spirit a visible fractionof African DNA. of the South and tomy own convictions if I did notmake This agreement,sometimes referredto as theCompro thisplain in thispresence. The South has nothing to take mise of1877,finally ended theCivil War, thoughat a heavy back." For Grady and his enthusiasticaudiences, the out cost That itsold out therecently freed slaves isbeyond ques come of thewar spoke for itself,and his assurance that the tion.So, unfortunately,is the factthat adeal of thissort was New South fullyaccepted reunionand emancipation leftno unavoidable. If you force the inhabitants of 11 states to fundamental issuesunresolved. As ShelbyFoote described remainpart ofyour countryafter defeating them ina con thebeginnings ofpostwar harmony, "thevictors acknowl flictthat took 600,000 lives,but shrinkfrom rulingthem edged thatthe Confederates had foughtbravely for a cause indefinitelyby martial law,you have to compromise sooner theybelieved was just and the losersagreed itwas probably or later inways thatmay distress futuregenerations. As best forall concerned that theUnion had been preserved." Woodward expressed it in a 1958 speech at Gettysburg College, theNorth had fought thewar and imposedRecon stnictionfor three reasons: to save theUnion, to abolish slav A fter 1865, then, Southern apologists hardly ever ery,and, more equivocally,to bring about racialequality. The claimed thatthe countryor the regionwould have firsttwo aimswere achieved and soon accepted, however JL -JLbeen betteroff had slaverysurvived. States' rights, grudgingly,by theSouth. The third,seemingly assured by of course,was anothermatter. A decade beforeGrady put constitutional amendments and supporting legislation, the final rhetoricalseal on it, the subtle alteration in the was bargained away formost of another century. Southernposition had encouragedNortherners to revertto "Itwould be an ironic,not to say tragic,coincidence," whatmight be called "defaultfederalism," amore traditional Woodward wrote on theeve of theCentennial, "ifthe cele understanding of the constitutionalsystem modified only bration of the anniversarytook place in themidst of a crisis by the conclusion that slaveryand secessionhad been set reminiscentof theone celebrated"Now thatthat second cri tledfor all time.Fifteen years after Fort Sumter, ordinary cit sis too isa matter of history,its timing a hundred yearsafter izens in theNorth and theirpolitical leaderswere looking secession seemsnearly inevitable.By thattime Southerners for an exitstrategy ?rom a devastated,occupied, but stilldefi andNortherners had foughton the same side in twoworld ant South inthe throesof thebitterly hated Reconstruction. wars, and thesolidity of theUnion was beyondquestion. The The outcome of the 1876 presidentialelection was disputed rusty,clanking apparatus of institutionalizedinequality had amidmassive fraud,and a mmission ultimatelyhad to set finallybecome sucha widely recognizedcontradiction to offi tle it.The eventual resultwas a bargain that historians cial American values, highlightedboth by our ColdWar today,following C. VannWoodward's classicReunion and adversary'spropaganda and our own televisionnews broad Reaction (1951),uniformly denounce as theshameful begin casts,that thedays of thepost-Civil War compromisewere ning of an era of segregation and white supremacy that clearlynumbered. Without ever fullyagreeing on therights lasteduntil themiddle of the 20th ntury. andwrongs of thewar itself,the nation at lastattended to its The South agreed, ineffect, to allow theRepublican can most ignominiouslegacy?the hard bargain throughwhich didate,Rutherford B. Hayes, to take office.The new presi reunificationhad been accomplished, m Spring 2010 Wilson Quarterly 35 This content downloaded from 192.153.34.30 on Fri, 7 Feb 2014 15:29:47 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions