Learning From History

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The mass shooting at an historically black church in Charleston, S.C., last week is disturbing on so many levels. It is overwhelming from a distance. I can only imagine what it must be like closer to Ground Zero.

There is, above and beyond all else, the disturbing story of the event itself — a young man sat through an hour or so of Bible study with a group of (presumably) strangers, then (apparently) calmly opened fire on them. Nine people were killed.

In case you're wondering why I used the parentheses on a couple of words in the preceding paragraph, it is because there is still so much we do not know. As there usually is at this stage of the investigation into a criminal act. But TV has conditioned many people to believe that all loose ends can be tied up in an hour's time, allowing for commercials — so they leap to conclusions without knowing all the facts that can put an event into context.

Usually, those conclusions are self–serving rubbish.

The intention is not, as some people would have you believe, to justify what happened. The intention is to satisfy the legal requirements to define a criminal act accurately. Those definitions have evolved through many millennia and generations of human experience. When one person kills another, that is a tragedy, but the law must know certain things before a case can be dealt with appropriately.

There are a lot of emotions swirling around this case, and I sympathize with that, but the law should not be administered on emotion. It should be administered on facts. In a criminal case, especially one that involves the death of one or more people at the hands of another, facts establish the legal nature of the crime. Emotion, as we should have learned from recent events, is often mistaken and can cause another tragedy.

Do you recall the 1996 Atlanta Olympics? A bomb went off the night of July 27, 1996, at the Olympics, killing one person and injuring 111 more. A security guard discovered the bomb before it went off and managed to clear a lot of people from the area, probably preventing more injuries and deaths, but he still became the prime suspect in the case. The media was relentlessly aggressive in its pursuit of him, treating him as if it was a foregone conclusion that he was guilty — until he was cleared of all accusations a few months later. He had never been formally charged with anything, but the damage to his reputation had been done. His job was terminated on the basis of unreliable information provided to his employer.

Our experience has told us that a person is justified in killing another if the other person posed a threat to the first person's life. In other words, we have concluded that self–defense is a valid, albeit regrettable, reason to kill. So the law must answer the question, did this young man kill in self–defense? There has never been any indication whatsoever that he killed in self–defense so any legal provisions on that can be ignored.

And, because of our experience, we have decided that if someone causes another person's death through negligence, that, too, should be treated differently by the justice system than murder would be treated. The case in Charleston clearly did not result from negligence.

Our experience has told us that it is not right to hold someone responsible for his or her acts if he or she is insane. That is much more of a gray area, and it requires weeks and months of evaluation before that can be determined. It may also involve interrogating a suspect's doctor to find out if that suspect had any known mental issues and/or had been prescribed any medication to treat such a condition. At this point, it appears that the answer to both questions would be "yes" in this case.

The law also needs to know whether the killing was premeditated. If someone planned to kill another, that is — and should be — handled differently than a killing that occurs out of the blue (i.e., a couple of people get into an argument that turns into a fight with guns or knives or even fists and one of them is killed in the fight — tragic but usually not premeditated).

A premeditated killing can be punished by death. Unpremeditated convictions usually result in jail time.

If it was premeditated, the law needs to know if it was the result of a conspiracy. Did someone else participate, either at the scene or behind the scenes? That requires time, too — sometimes a lot of it. Certainly more than an hour. (Heck, I've heard suggestions all my life that the John F. Kennedy assassination was a conspiracy, but, after more than 50 years, that remains a matter of opinion only.)

In this case, the evidence suggests it was premeditated and, to this point, does not suggest that there was a conspiracy, but the investigators need to be allowed time to talk to all relevant witnesses and review available evidence. I have heard of no second shooters, nor have I heard any suggestion that someone paid this young man to shoot these people. It appears he acted alone, but the law must be satisfied, and laws vary from state to state.

And that isn't all there is to it.

Until recently, I would have thought that most police killings are not premeditated. In most cases, the lack of premeditation would qualify a killing for a lesser charge, but the killing of a police officer is treated as a capital crime (and, therefore, eligible for the death penalty). It is our way of discouraging people from killing law enforcement officers (which, I suppose, includes judges and other court officers) under any circumstances.

As I say, the law evolves over time, and there are provisions in the law that make it legally possible to prosecute an unpremeditated killing as if it were premeditated — if someone is killed when another crime is taking place (i.e., a convenience store robbery), the person responsible for the killing is eligible for the death penalty even though the death of another person was not intended.

If you have ever served on a jury, you know that legal verdicts are seldom, if ever, as simple as "guilty" or "not guilty." The verdict forms consist of many pages of questions, most of which are designed to answer specific questions like the ones I have just outlined.

Why must so many questions be answered? Well, it has a lot to do with the experiences that the Founding Fathers had. They came from environments where it was customary for the state to take a person into custody and hold that person indefinitely without informing him or her of the reason. The Founding Fathers believed all people were entitled to due process — and that suspects deserved protection against being repeatedly arrested and charged for the same offenses until a jury finally convicted them. (They called that "double jeopardy.")

Many times, convictions are appealed, and appellate courts have been known to overturn convictions for entirely unanticipated reasons. That is why it is so critically important for prosecutors to have their ducks in a row when they go to court. The burden of proof is on them, not on the defense. If a verdict is overturned, it will be because of a mistake someone on the prosecution's team made.

I'm not a lawyer, but I have served on juries before, and I covered trials in my reporting days. Not having studied law, I don't know the history of law and justice, and I readily admit that I could be wrong on this, but my impression is that law and logic (which is a class everyone in Arts and Sciences was required to take when I was in college) must have evolved simultaneously. Jury verdict forms remind me so much of the logic questions I had to plot — If all A are B, and all B are C, then all A are C.

(For people who never had to take Logic, I suppose the most appropriate comparison would be your standard flow chart — "If the answer is yes, proceed. If the answer is no, stop.")

It seems to me that is what much of the application of the law comes down to — logic, the law of averages, probability. Comparing cases without context can become matters of comparing apples to oranges when it is really more instructive to compare apples to apples. The fact is, though, that each person and each case is different from all the others. People are individual and imperfect; they don't share the same brain or possess the same experiences.

So, it seems to me, as long as the application of law is made by imperfect people, there will be imperfections in the system. But that doesn't mean we stop trying to make the system better. We try to learn from the situations we face, especially the ones that challenge what we have always believed, just as we learn from history in all walks of life. Discoveries are important in the evolving story of humankind. One discovery begets another, and together they form the building blocks for yet another discovery. We could not have sent rockets to the moon if we had not, at some point along the way, discovered how to make and control fire.

History is also about learning from mistakes, errors in judgment, what we have tried to do about them in the past that was successful and what didn't work (so we don't keep spinning our wheels). Sometimes history is shameful, but no useful purpose is served by revising it. The only useful purpose is to remember, like the child who learns from experience not to put his hand on a hot stove. That child probably won't try to go through life without a stove, but he will learn when not to touch one. Do you recall what George Santayana wrote? "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Wise words.

My father was a religion professor at a small liberal arts college in Arkansas. One summer, when I was 13, my family spent a couple of months in Austria. We took side trips to places, and some of the places my father wanted to visit were important scenes from Germany's Nazi past — concentration camps, Hitler's retreat (Eagle's Nest) in the German Alps near the centuries–old, tiny town of Berchtesgaden. He wanted to take pictures of those places, pictures he could use in his college classes. He heard about them when they were in the news when he was a teenager; this was his opportunity to see them.

But he was disappointed. The German government, in its misguided attempt to erase Nazism from its national consciousness, allowed the concentration camps to fall into disrepair, and Eagle's Nest became a restaurant and beer garden (the irony of that is that, although Hitler occasionally drank in private, he never drank in public and actually gave up alcohol altogether in his last years). In fact, the first law enacted by the Allied Control Council after World War II ended abolished all Nazi symbols. Possession of Nazi flags has been forbidden in many countries since; the importation or display of them is particularly frowned upon in Germany.

What has been achieved by that in recent years? Well, neo–Nazism has been on the rise, and skepticism about the Holocaust abounds. Those who cannot remember the past ...

I am not a professional historian, but I have been studying history all my life, and one of the things I have learned from it is this: No possible good comes from denying the past. And that is why I reject the popular move to ban the Confederate flag. The Civil War was certainly a dark chapter in America's history, but there were important lessons to be learned from it. Banning the Confederate flag would prevent those lessons from being learned and, perhaps, like modern Germany, at some point give rise to a new Confederate movement among the American young.

Would I have a Confederate flag in my home? Absolutely not — nor would I have a Nazi flag in my home. But pretending they didn't exist or that they didn't witness some horrific things is to deny history. And I have learned that history always has the last word.

Recently, the Supreme Court upheld the decision of Texas, the state where I live, not to allow people to have Confederate flags on their license plates on the grounds that license plates are government property. I support that ruling.

But possession of the flag is not banned. It is still legal to have one; choosing to display it is a matter of free speech on an individual basis. Some people find that offensive, just as some people find the burning of the American flag to be offensive, but free speech is protected under the First Amendment. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry spoke in an interview yesterday about how the Confederate flag divides people. He is right about that, but we owe it to ourselves and future generations not to ban the symbols of hate but to learn from them.

History is not served when it is whitewashed.

Lincoln's Last Speech

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"It is unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent and on those who serve our cause as soldiers."

Abraham Lincoln
April 11, 1865

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On this day 150 years ago, Abraham Lincoln gave what would prove to be his final speech.

That wasn't the only thing he did that day, of course. Carl Sandburg observed, in his biography of Lincoln, that the president dispensed a proclamation closing Southern ports. If any vessel from outside the United States attempted to enter a Southern port with a cargo for which duties would be owed, such cargo would be "forfeited to the United States."

The president issued another proclamation barring foreign war ships from all U.S. ports if those war ships came from countries that would not give similar privileges to U.S. ships.

It was all part of the necessary, if somewhat routine, business to which Lincoln had to attend in the new postwar environment. Most students of history probably do not know the details, and, really, the only detail anyone needs to know is the big picture: The war was over.

Truth be told, Lincoln didn't devote that much time to such postwar business on this day in 1865.

"The president spent his best working hours this day on his speech for the evening," Sandburg wrote. "He was seizing the initiative to set in motion his own reconstruction program. Not until next December would Congress meet, not unless he called a special session. He intended to speak to the country so plainly that before Congress met, he could hope the majority of the people would be with him."

Those who are accustomed to the speed with which information travels in the 21st century need to understand how slowly news traveled in the mid–19th century. It didn't move at the speed of lightning, more like the speed of a snail. On this day, Lincoln probably envisioned having to go on some kind of barnstorming speaking tour through the American Midwest to ramp up support for his plan. At the same time, he had to educate his listeners about the issues — for, unless they read newspapers, and many could not read, they probably were not acquainted with much of the news that took place outside their towns and villages — and persuade them that his approach was the best.

It might have taken most of the rest of the year to accomplish, but, as Chinese philosopher Lao–tzu said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Lincoln clearly intended to take that first step 150 years ago tonight.

Actually, a crowd clamored for him to speak to them the night before, on Monday, April 10, and many waited in the rain outside the White House, hoping to hear him speak, but Lincoln sent word that he was behind in his work because of a recent trip, and he asked those who were gathered there to disperse. He would speak the following evening at the formal observance of the South's surrender.

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Lincoln did sit for a photographer that day, a session that was occasionally interrupted by Lincoln's 12–year–old son, Tad, who "frolicked around the room," Bishop wrote, "bouncing on and off his father's lap, distracting Mr. Lincoln to the point that, for the first time, he smiled faintly in a picture."

At one point, Tad dashed outside with a captured Rebel flag and ran up and down a porch "trying to make the banner snap in the breeze," Bishop wrote. Lincoln stepped out to retrieve his son, waved to the crowd and insisted he would speak the next night. The Navy Yard band was on hand, and Lincoln asked them to play for the folks who had gathered. Lincoln was asked what they should play; after a moment's reflection, he suggested "Dixie." He had long admired the song, and "it could now be considered the lawful property of the United States," Bishop wrote.

Lincoln is remembered for many things, of course, including some of the most important and most memorable speeches in American history, but the speech he delivered 150 years ago has always seemed to me to be the one that sealed his fate.

It was also a remarkable example of what made Lincoln such a unique and truly visionary leader. Those who had gathered "listened for exultation, and there was none," Bishop wrote. "They strained for eloquence, and there was none. They waited patiently for vengeance, and there was none."

Lincoln took the occasion to speak of the challenge of reconstruction (he observed that it was "fraught with great difficulty") and the problems of the postwar environment. And he advocated voting rights for black Americans.

The man who would assassinate Lincoln a few days later, actor John Wilkes Booth, was in the crowd listening to Lincoln's speech. When he spoke of giving blacks the right to vote, Booth turned to his companion, Lewis Paine, and said, "That means nigger citizenship! Now, by God, I'll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make."

"The two men edged out of the crowd," Bishop wrote.

Booth was a Confederate sympathizer, and he may well have assassinated Lincoln, anyway, even if the president had not delivered the speech he made 150 years ago today. Booth and some co–conspirators had plotted earlier to kidnap Lincoln in an attempt to help the South's cause, but the plan fell through.

It is possible that the idea of killing Lincoln first seriously came to Booth 150 years ago tonight. I'm not sure if anyone really knows when it became more than idle musing on Booth's part.

Historian Jim Bishop wrote that it was probable that the idea first came to Booth following Lincoln's re–election in 1864. "Lincoln," Bishop wrote, "had been Booth's emotional whipping boy for four years." That may be so, but Booth may never have seriously entertained the idea of killing Lincoln until a few days before actually assassinating the president.

Lincoln's assassination was clearly the outcome of a premeditated conspiracy, but the conspiracy may have been as spontaneous as that. In modern times, the assassination of American leader undoubtedly would require more advance planning if only because presidential security in the mid–19th century was so unsophisticated compared to today.

If Lincoln's words were not what the crowd came to hear, they got it, kind of, from the next speaker — Iowa Sen. James Harlan who had been designated to be the next secretary of the Interior and whose daughter would, in a few years, marry Lincoln's oldest son, Robert.

"Mr. Harlan had excellent intentions," Bishop wrote, "but he did not know that a good speaker never asks an explosive mob a question.

"'What,' he said with arms outstretched, with silvery syllables echoing in the trees, 'shall be done with these brethren of ours?'

"As one, the crowd roared, 'Hang 'em!'

"The senator smiled in the face of thunder and said that, after all, the president might exercise the power to pardon.

"'Never!' the crowd screamed.

"The senator tried to educate and inform by suggesting that the great mass of Southern people were not guilty. He got silence. The senator was not up to further effort. He finished haltingly by proclaiming that he, for one, was willing to trust the future to the president of the United States."

Harlan, naturally, believed that president would be Lincoln, as did nearly everyone in the crowd that night.

The End of an American Tragedy

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Today is the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War — the day that Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant — and I am reminded of my favorite story about that war.

Wilmer McLean's name is not one that most people recognize in conversations about the American Civil War, but he holds a unique place in its story. His farmhouse in Manassas, in northern Virginia, had been the headquarters for Confederate military leadership during the First Battle of Bull Run, the first real battle of the Civil War back in July of 1861, and it had drawn plenty of fire from Union forces.

McLean, a grocer, moved his family south in the spring of 1863. Most of his business dealings were in the southern part of Virginia; I'm sure that played a role in his decision. The presence of the Union army made it hard for him to continue to conduct business in the northern part of the state, but I have no doubt that McLean also wanted to make life easier for his family by putting some distance between them and the fighting.

All of which makes the fact that Lee surrendered to Grant in McLean's home at Appomattox Court House 150 years ago today more than a bit ironic.

Initially, he wasn't too keen on the idea of the surrender taking place in his home, but he agreed and, apparently, retained his sense of humor, observing, "The war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor."

There aren't many uplifting stories about that war. Inspiring? Yes. Uplifting? Not so much.

One hundred and fifty years ago today, the last real battle of the Civil War was fought. There would be skirmishes here and there, but, by and large, the Battle of Appomattox Court House was the last one. The Confederates were essentially a beaten army before the battle began. They were tired and hungry, inadequately equipped for battle. In the face of Union fire, they had abandoned their capitol, Richmond, Virginia, and retreated. The Union forces — superior in numbers, preparation and equipment — cut off the Confederates' retreat, forcing the battle at Appomattox Court House.

Lee attacked that morning, believing the Union forces to be entirely cavalry, but he soon learned the truth — the cavalry was backed by two corps of infantry — and he was left with no choice but to surrender. The surrender, in McLean's parlor, came that afternoon.

On that day, Grant displayed the kind of wisdom that, unfortunately, he seldom showed in his later actions as president. He permitted the Confederate soldiers to keep their sidearms and horses. None of them would be prosecuted. They could return to their homes, their dignity intact. After all, the Yankees and the Rebs would be compatriots again, just as they were before the war.

As Lee rode away, Grant's men began to celebrate, but Grant sent word that it should stop. "The Confederates were now our countrymen, and we did not want to exult over their downfall," he said later.

I've been hearing and reading about the Civil War all my life, and I have long believed that there were many examples of heroism, sacrifice and courage on both sides of that conflict, but it was a tragedy from which this nation is still trying to recover. Sometimes I wonder if it will ever fully recover from it.

It was a traumatic experience for the people who lived through it and the people who have lived and are living with the cultural consequences.

On this occasion, I suppose it is tempting to suggest that the war never really ended. It's a temptation that some, like David W. Bright of The Atlantic, seem to have found impossible to resist.

The war did end, of course — 150 years ago today. And what I can't help wondering is how different this country could have been — not if there had never been a Civil War (because I believe, as agonizing as it was, the Civil War was necessary to re–define what America stood for), but if Lincoln had not been killed only a few days later or if Grant had displayed the generosity to the South as president that he had shown to the South's soldiers 150 years ago today.

Lincoln, of course, was killed a few days later, and Grant's presidency lacked many of the fine qualities he had shown as general (among them backbone). As a result, those who wanted to punish the South did so in the form of Reconstruction. It is my belief that Reconstruction produced much the same result in this country that post–World War I sanctions on Germany produced in Europe — chiefly, resentment from those who felt oppressed.

I believe that much of the racism and bigotry that has survived for the last century and a half in the South was conceived in Reconstruction. The Jim Crow laws were enacted after Reconstruction had ended but the pain endured. In the Germany of the 1920s, much the same thing happened although the economic sanctions continued.

For the most part, I am inclined to think that a lot of what happened in 19th–century America and 20th–century Europe can be classified as unintended consequences. Oh, sure, I know there were some folks in both places and times whose only desire was to inflict pain on the vanquished — and they succeeded, perhaps beyond their wildest dreams. But I believe most simply wanted to fulfill a code of justice — arbitrary though it may have been.

I would like to believe, anyway, that what came to pass in 19th–century America and 20th–century Europe was not intended — because, if it was, that would be a greater tragedy than the one that preceded it.

Paging Indiana Jones ...

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As always, the world's attention has been on the present and the future, but knowledge of the past is important, too.

I know it sounds simple, but I have always believed that you have to know where you've been before you can decide where you're going, and discoveries that can provide valuable insights into the past have been occurring at a positively prodigious rate lately.

The discovery that probably would ring a bell with most Americans is the apparent finding of Christopher Columbus' sunken flagship, the Santa Maria, off the Haitian coast in the Caribbean.

As a child, I recall studying Columbus and the three ships in his fabled voyage across the Atlantic in 1492, but I don't recall hearing anything more about them. I don't think I ever heard what became of those ships.

Apparently, the Santa Maria ran aground on Christmas Day in 1492. Columbus must have known the ship could not be saved because he instructed his crew to strip timbers from it — which were later used in the construction of a fort. Today the Santa Maria's anchor is on display in a museum in Port–au–Prince (I have no idea why the anchor was salvaged).

When I was a child, I imagined all three ships as huge vessels when, in reality, they were very modest in size. The Santa Maria was roughly 58 feet long; the Nina and the Pinta were smaller.

Civil War buffs may be the only ones who recognize the name of the Planter. It was a Confederate steamer that was commandeered by a slave named Robert Smalls 152 years ago today, as a matter of fact.

Around 4 in the morning, while the captain of the Planter was ashore, Smalls piloted it out of the harbor. Once out of view of Confederate eyes, the ship's Confederate flag was lowered and replaced with a white flag.

Smalls turned the ship over to the Union and was chosen to recruit other slaves to fight for the North. He piloted the ship for the Union for the remainder of the war.

The Planter served several roles for the Confederates, including, for a short time, gunboat. When Smalls commandeered the Planter, it was found to have four guns in its cargo.

In addition to Smalls, the ship carried 15 other slaves to their freedom that day.

The Planter sank in a storm more than 10 years after the war ended. Researchers believe they have found its remains off the coast of South Carolina.

There may not be much to study. As I understand it, most of the ship's equipment was salvaged at the time.

But the discovery that promises to dig deeply into the past is one in Egypt. A tomb that has been dated to 1100 B.C. has been found at Saqqara, a burial ground near Memphis.

According to Egypt's antiquities minister, the tomb belongs to a guard of the army archives and royal messenger to foreign countries.

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I'm not sure where that would fall on the ancient Egyptian social pyramid — probably the third level, just below priests and nobles but, perhaps, just above traders, artisans, shopkeepers and scribes.

Reportedly, the inscriptions and contents of the tomb are in excellent condition and, apparently, relatively intact. That may be more significant than you realize. The contents of tombs of more high–profile Egyptians have been vandalized and looted repeatedly over the centuries.

If its contents are largely intact, the study of such a tomb may help to fill in some gaps in mankind's knowledge and understanding of the world of 1100 B.C.

Four Score and 70 Years Ago

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The president's speech followed a two–hour address so
photographers could be forgiven for thinking they had
plenty of time to prepare. But Lincoln's speech was so
brief it was over before photographers could get ready.

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"The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."

Abraham Lincoln
Nov. 19, 1863

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In my experience, days that have truly historic significance rarely begin with any clue that something special is going to happen.

Take Sept. 11, 2001, for example. When I think of that day, I think of how truly ordinary it was when I drove to work that morning. There was no hint that anything unusual was about to happen — until the radio mentioned an apparent airplane crash at the World Trade Center.

I'm not old enough to remember the day John F. Kennedy was shot, but I have read a lot about it, and the accounts I have read suggest that there was no indication that morning that anything was going to happen — at lunchtime or any other time.

Sometimes big events are anticipated, but nobody really knows when they will happen — like the fall of the Berlin wall or Richard Nixon's resignation.

Sometimes, of course, there is advance notice that something historic will happen at a certain time on a certain day. When I was a child, I followed the Apollo 11 moon landing — as did everyone, frankly — with great interest. And, if you followed their mission schedule, you knew when the astronauts were scheduled to land on the moon and take their first steps. There was no element of surprise, just the sensation that all the people in the country, if not the world, were holding their collective breath waiting for the Eagle to land or Neil Armstrong to take that giant leap for mankind.

Even in the annals of unexpectedly important events, the Gettysburg Address, which Abraham Lincoln delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pa., 150 years ago today, holds a unique place in American history.

(Few speeches have begun as memorably: "Four score and seven years ago ...")

It was in that speech that Lincoln re–defined the objective of the Civil War. It began as an effort to keep the Union together. But, after Lincoln gave this speech, it was about abolishing slavery. That was what he meant when he spoke of a "new birth of freedom."

It had been the official policy of the Union since Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, but it became the focal point of the war effort after Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg.

As I wrote last summer on the 150th anniversary of the start of the battle, I remember when my classmates and I had to memorize the Gettysburg Address and deliver it in class. I took my turn at reciting the speech, just like everyone else, but I don't know if I gave much thought to the words or what they meant.

I don't remember it as some kind of epiphany. I didn't feel anything unique when I was called to the front of the room to deliver the speech. Well, my stomach was a little queasy ...

Heck, I was a teenager. I was nervous about having to stand in front of a room full of my peers and say anything. But I committed it to memory, and I recited it, just as everyone else did.

Years later, I could still recall all the words upon hearing a single sentence, even a single phrase, from the speech. And then the talk about a rebirth of freedom had more of an impact on me.

I realized that Lincoln was not talking about the past, about the sacrifices that the soldiers on both sides had made at Gettysburg. He had turned his attention to the future. Like spouses renewing their wedding vows and re–pledging themselves to each other, with a deeper understanding of what the commitment meant, Lincoln urged the people of his own time and the generations to come to periodically renew their commitment to freedom.

But Lincoln's actual words were "a new birth of freedom," and I interpret that to mean an expansion of freedom to those who had not experienced it — primarily the slaves. Lincoln had already issued the Emancipation Proclamation; the Gettysburg Address confirmed it as an objective of the war.

As I said before, that wasn't the objective when the war began. But it became one 150 years ago today.

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Maybe that is the special quality of the Gettysburg Address. It had the power to move people at the time it was delivered — well, except for Lincoln — and it can have the same influence in a sort of delayed reaction, kind of like those time–release capsules you take when you're sick.

Carl Sandburg's biography of Lincoln reported that the president was not pleased with his speech — which was a rather last–minute assignment. Edward Everett of Massachusetts, one of the great American orators of the 19th century, was the featured speaker, and he spoke for two hours. Lincoln followed with his two–minute address.

"That speech won't scour," Lincoln told his bodyguard after he concluded and sat down. "It is a flat failure, and the people are disappointed."

To understand what Lincoln meant, it is necessary to understand something about the language of the farmers of Lincoln's boyhood. "When wet soil stuck to the mold board of a plow, they said it didn't 'scour,' " Sandburg explained.

Some of the newspapers of his day agreed with him.

"The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dish–watery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the president of the United States," wrote the Chicago Times.

(The Times no longer exists, but a Pennsylvania newspaper recently felt compelled to retract its 150–year–old negative review of the speech.)

But some did not.

The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, for example, wrote that few who read Lincoln's words would do so "without a moistening of the eye and a swelling of the heart."

Everett himself, in a letter to Lincoln, wrote, "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as close to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."

"Lincoln had translated the story of his country and the meaning of the war into words and ideas accessible to every American," wrote historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.

"The child who would sleeplessly rework his father's yarns into tales comprehensible to any boy had forged for his country an ideal of its past, present and future that would be recited and memorized by students forever."

Was Gettysburg As Decisive As Historians Say?

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"If I had had Stonewall Jackson at Gettysburg, I would have won that fight."

Robert E. Lee

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I think I was in ninth grade when I was required, along with everyone else, to memorize the Gettysburg Address and recite it in my civics class.

I remember little about the day when I finally had to deliver that speech; what I do remember is that my mother endured hour upon hour of listening to me practice giving that speech at home. By the time we finished, Mom probably could have delivered the speech herself — and she probably would have done a lot better than I did.

(Of course, she probably had to memorize that speech when she was a teenager, too.)

Today is not the anniversary of that speech — nor is it the anniversary of the day I delivered it in class. Today is the sesquicentennial (the 150th) anniversary of the start of the three–day Battle of Gettysburg. The Union's victory at Gettysburg (with affiliated battles in the Pennsylvania campaign of 1863) is widely believed to have been the turning point in the Civil War.

That was the premise of an excellent mockumentary that I saw several years ago called "C.S.A." It was about the alternate history of America if the South had won the Civil War — presuming the South had prevailed at Gettysburg.

This was accomplished in the movie, as I recall, when the South persuaded Britain and France to support the Confederacy, seizing the moral high ground (before the Union could do so by making the conflict about a "rebirth of freedom," to quote Lincoln in the address he delivered at Gettysburg in November of 1863).

That didn't happen, of course. Britain and France did not intercede on the South's behalf.

In two days, it will be the 150th anniversary of George Pickett's ill–advised "Pickett's Charge" in a final attempt to reverse the outcome of the battle. Apparently, that anniversary is going to be a huge deal in Gettysburg.

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The charge failed, as Gen. James Longstreet had predicted, and the South never really recovered from the setback.

Robert E. Lee believed that he would have won the battle if Stonewall Jackson — Lee's right arm — had been alive. But Jackson was killed about two months earlier in the Confederates' victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville.

Confederate losses at Chancellorsville had been heavy — not as heavy as the Union's but heavy nonetheless. And, as far as Lee was concerned, the loss of Jackson made it a costly win indeed. He still had Longstreet, of course, but Jackson had been his finest commander, capable of quickly and accurately assessing battlefield situations and identifying weaknesses that could be exploited.

In Lee's eyes, he was irreplaceable.

No one will ever know if the South could have won the Battle of Gettysburg if Jackson had still been alive — or if Jackson could have kept casualties down. But we do know that, without him, it was the bloodiest battle of the war with roughly 50,000 casualties combined.

And no one can say with any certainty that Gettysburg alone was as decisive as it is said to have been. It was, to be sure, the largest of the war, but, as a student of history, I have always felt that it was Gettysburg and the series of battles in and around Vicksburg, Miss., at the same time that combined to deal the South a setback from which it never recovered.

While Lee, Longstreet and Pickett were trying to turn things around in Pennsylvania, Lt. Gen. John Pemberton's Confederate troops were engaged in a nearly seven–week battle for Vicksburg with Ulysses S. Grant's Union troops. When the Confederates, who had been cut off from reinforcements and supplies for most of that time, finally surrendered on July 4, 1863, the Union controlled the Mississippi River and the supply route it provided.

In most ways, the value of the Gettysburg campaign was symbolic. It effectively ended the notion that Lee was invincible — an important psychological hurdle for the Union troops.

That doesn't mean the defeat at Gettysburg wasn't costly for the Confederates in a very real sense. The number of casualties alone was staggering for the Southern cause.

But the loss of vital supply lines at Vicksburg had a very real impact on the daily lives of all Confederates. Strategically, I have to think Vicksburg was the more meaningful victory.

Those two Union triumphs demonstrated that the Union had deeper pockets when it came to both personnel and firepower and that it was far better equipped for a long–term engagement.

The war went on for nearly two more years, but the South never mounted an offensive attack again. All its subsequent military moves were defensive in nature.

When I was a child, my family frequently planned summer vacation road trips that took us to Civil War battlefields, and I remember walking around the grounds, observing the statues that had been erected in memory of the fallen and touring the museums that were often on the sites.

There probably wasn't anything special about the Gettysburg battlefield when we were there. It was like most of the others we had seen. What was different was what it represented in the story of the Civil War, the reputation it has for being a game changer.

Its place in American history may also account for all the tales of ghost sightings in the area.

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One of the more persistent of such stories concerns Devil's Den, a boulder–strewn ridge south of Gettysburg that was the scene of some of the most intense fighting of the battle.

For me, Devil's Den has always been one of the most fascinating parts of the three–day battle of Gettysburg. That dates back to the first time I heard about it — when I was a kid.

I was probably 8 or 9 when my family visited the Gettysburg battlefield, and Devil's Den was like an outdoor playground. There were boulders to climb — the same ones from which Union snipers picked off Confederate soldiers down below. There were caves. Some of the boulders and caves were restricted, probably for safety reasons, but there were many others that were not.

I'm sure it was a lot more fun for my brother (who is three years younger than I) and me than it was for the Confederates who tried to take it 150 years ago.

Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood (for whom Fort Hood in Texas is named) was assigned by Lee to assault Devil's Den. Hood didn't like the assignment and requested a different one that he believed had a greater chance of success, but he was turned down repeatedly.

Hood's assault began in the late afternoon of July 2, but battlefield factors (probably the 19th–century equivalent of the "fog of war") diverted his remaining troops from their intended course, and they wound up joining other Confederate forces in their assault on Little Round Top.

Even 150 years later, people try to rationalize the Battle for Little Round Top. Michael Rubinkam of the Associated Press writes of topographic evidence that suggests Lee didn't realize how many Union troops there were on that ridge.

Little Round Top is still regarded as the crucial defensive effort for the Union that day. Col. Joshua Chamberlain of Maine directed his troops, who were low on ammunition, to mount a downhill bayonet charge that completely caught the Confederates off guard.

A day of glory for Chamberlain was a day of loss for Hood, who not only lost the conflict but the use of his left arm as well.

Hood was a career soldier with a reputation for courage and a fighting spirit, but some said those qualities bordered on a careless disregard for consequences. Attacking Devil's Den had not been his choice, but he was determined to give it the best he and his men had.

A college professor by training, Chamberlain was praised and promoted for his daring at Little Round Top. After the war, he returned to Maine where, in part because of his exploits, he was elected governor four times and served as teacher and president at his alma mater, Bowdoin College.

What a difference a day made in the lives of those two men — and, perhaps, in the life of a nation.

The High Ground

One of my favorite movies of the last 20 years is 1993's "Gettysburg."

It was a long movie — more than four hours — but I guess it had to be that long if it was going to do justice to what may well be the most important and most decisive event in American history. Many historians believe — and I am inclined to agree — that victory at Gettysburg paved the way for the Union's eventual triumph over the Confederacy.

I have not done a comprehensive study of the Battle of Gettysburg, but I do know, from what I have read, that there were many examples of heroism and sacrifice on both sides in that battle. Most of those who fought in it had no idea what to expect, but, if the story told in the movie was accurate, there was at least one person who thought he knew how things would play out before the battle truly began.

There is a scene, early in the movie, when Union cavalry officer John Buford (played by Sam Elliott) essentially chooses the spot for the confrontation, establishing a defensive perimeter on the tactically critical "high ground" of Gettysburg's Cemetery Ridge.

He has spotted the approaching Confederate army and sent a message asking for support, but he worries that those support troops will not arrive in time.

Pessimistically, Buford tells a colleague that he can see how the battle will play out — as if gazing into a crystal ball.

"You know what's going to happen here in the morning?" he asks. "The whole damn reb army is going to be here. They'll move through this town, occupy these hills on the other side and when our people get here, Lee will have the high ground. ...

"Meade will come in slowly, cautiously. New to command. They'll be on his back in Washington. ... So he will set up a ring around these hills. And when Lee's army is nicely entrenched behind fat rocks on the high ground, Meade will finally attack, if he can coordinate the army. ... We will charge valiantly ... and be butchered valiantly! And afterwards men in tall hats and gold watch fobs will thump their chest and say what a brave charge it was.

"I've led a soldier's life, and I've never seen anything as brutally clear as this."

And his vision was very nearly fulfilled — except that both sides were "butchered" and victory ultimately went to the Union, thanks in large part to Buford's foresight.

The charge he foresaw did happen — but Pickett's Charge, as it is known in the history books, was carried out by the South.

If Buford had not held the high ground until other Union forces could arrive, the battle might have been won by the South — and the story of the last century and a half might have been dramatically different.

I don't know if Elliott's monologue was some sort of literary device (perhaps created by Michael Shaara in the historical novel upon which the movie was based) or if Buford really had some sort of premonition (and just couldn't see clearly enough to tell which side would be vanquished), but I know the nagging feeling of a troubling and seemingly inevitable vision of the future.

It is truly a relief, isn't it, when it turns out that such a vision was faulty, but the mind certainly can run wild when it is allowed to do so. Fear has a way of doing that to people.

In more ways than most people probably could imagine at the time, FDR was right when he said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

I guess fear really is what motivates most people to do most things. And fear is undoubtedly behind the polarization of modern American politics — not necessarily racial fear, although that is a component, as is religious anxiety, divisions over gender–related issues, fear of immigrants of all kinds, generation gaps, but fear in general (and, to be fair, fear of some specific things, too).

Everyone fears something. Buford — or, at least, Buford's character — feared losing the high ground, feared defeat. His fears turned out to be unfounded.

He held the high ground, thanks to some creative strategy (and, I guess, a little good fortune, too) — but there was a period when his success was not certain.

In the 21st century, it seems to me that none of America's leaders on either side of the political fence are holding the moral high ground.

I'm sure they would all protest that assertion. They would say they are motivated by and for all kinds of good things. But fear is really what is at the heart of it all.

Fear is why the outsiders (the Republicans) warn of the dire consequences of the Democrats' policies — and why the Democrats warn against the extremism inherent in the outsiders' politics.

Both sides are afraid of losing — for different reasons.

And, to be sure, there are very good reasons why both sides should take the other seriously — and earnestly try to avoid any sort of sense of complacency about 2012. In the past, there has usually been a large group of swing voters, but this time things are different. People have been taking sides, and there is little room for error.

The parties do need to win over those who really haven't decided, but there don't seem to be many of them, once you get past those who say they are undecided but that they are leaning to one side or another. That means that the challenge will be to motivate the bases, the true believers, and make sure they get to the polls.

Mark my words. Next year's election will be about mobilizing the faithful, and that could get rough. Scare tactics are likely to be used to a greater extent than voters have seen. It ain't gonna be pretty.

America will never choose an extremist challenger over an incumbent, Democrats tell each other reassuringly. Really? Perhaps they have forgotten that Ronald Reagan was portrayed as a wild–eyed extremist who couldn't wait to get his itchy trigger finger on the nuclear button when he was nominated to run against Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Extremists of both stripes were spectacularly unsuccessful in the years before Reagan came along, but they were usually perceived as threatening in some way. Reagan had an amiable personality that drew people to him, even many who disagreed with him.

Today, Reagan is held up as a model by both sides. Republicans, understandably, remember him as popular and successful, the embodiment of conservative values, and they are nostalgic for those days.

And Democrats, who are just as understandably eager to be free of the burden of a troublesome economy and high unemployment, remember that Reagan rebounded from the recession that plagued his first term to win re–election by a landslide. While they are busy reminding voters that the son of Reagan's vice president was in charge when the economy imploded, Democrats will be seeking to emulate the tactics the Gipper used to overcome economic concerns during his successful re–election campaign.

They seem to have conveniently forgotten what really elected Reagan in the first place — individual answers to his question in his only debate with Carter in 1980. "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

Not many Americans would answer in the affirmative today.

Until 1980, Republicans were generally considered moderate, but they linked arms with the Tea Party of their day, the "Moral Majority," in what was seen by centrists and liberals as a nationally unacceptable lurch to the right.

Many of the Democrats I knew scoffed in the summer and fall of 1980 — but they weren't scoffing in November when the Republicans won the presidency and the Senate.

Today's Democrats sound just as certain as their forebears did 30 years ago that Americans are too knowledgeable, too sophisticated to be taken in by what they see as the lunatic fringe.

Nevertheless, the insiders are hedging their bets with a little bribery in the form of 60 million barrels of oil from the International Energy Agency.

In the short term, that might be a good move, but it seems likely to be delayed gratification — considerably delayed. The influence on prices at the pump, like the delayed implementation of the health care package, won't be felt immediately and might not be seen until you start making your plans for Labor Day — which is usually long after most Americans have gone on their summer vacations.

Don't get me wrong. Americans who need to get away from home for a little while should do so — for their own good as well as the businesses that cater to tourists — but many, I am sure, have put such thoughts on the shelf in the face of $4/gallon gas. A break at the pump might encourage more to get away to the beach, to amusement parks, to ball games.

I'm sure that is the kind of thing that Obama and other Democratic politicians would like to see. But the timing is way off. Here we are, nearly halfway through summer, and this policy, which I have heard will not be felt at the pump until August, is only now being enacted.

This isn't something that happened overnight. Gas prices have been rising steadily for months. And, as Jordy Yager writes in The Hill, it is a plan that has been in the works for nearly two months.

But a lot of time was wasted back in February and March and April, when Ben Bernanke was insisting the price increases would be temporary. (Obama's confidence in Bernanke may have been misplaced. He conceded this week that he does not know why growth has been so sparse — which doesn't seem like the kind of thing the Federal Reserve chairman should be saying — even if it is true.)

I'm no economist, but even I know that if you want consumers to get a summer boost from your economic policies, you can't wait this long. You have to prime the pump long before that.

Well, prices will drop a bit as a result, but who knows how long the good feelings will last? Will prices remain artificially suppressed until you go over the meadow and through the woods to grandma's house at Thanksgiving or Christmas?

If this isn't politically motivated — like those "rebates" the Bush administration foolishly gave to every American in the months just before September 11 — what is it?

Supposedly, this is intended to make up for the disruption of supplies from Libya — but prices were already going down, not as rapidly as folks would like but they have been dropping.

The administration protests that this is not political — but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck ...

The president does seem to be recognizing, perhaps belatedly, the symbolic value of gestures — and that is what this appears to be. After all, 60 million barrels of oil sounds like a lot — and it is — but, realistically, it wouldn't keep the engines in this country running for a week.

It is, however, something he can mention during the campaign, a weapon in his arsenal. But he should be careful about using it. It could backfire.

That doesn't change the fact that this president, who has spoken so eloquently in the past of changing our energy priorities and breaking free of our dependence on nonrenewable energy sources, is treating a symptom, not the disease, with this policy.

Releasing all those barrels of oil will do nothing to promote Obama's energy objectives — but it will put more money in people's pockets. They might not be able to spend it on a family trip to Disney World, but they might feel inclined to contribute it to his re–election campaign. And it might improve his approval ratings for awhile.

But it isn't likely to change the fact that most people believe the country has veered off on the wrong track — and polls consistently show that, by at least a 2–to–1 ratio, more people think the country is going in the wrong direction than the right one.

As for the Republicans, well, their presidential field is more conservative than it was four years ago — and, normally, I would see that as a negative — but prevailing conditions at the time of an election usually have a lot to do with the outcome and, if things seem bleak to voters in November 2012, they are likely to vote for someone new.

That's the way things are done in America. Incumbents usually get the credit for good economies or the blame for bad ones.

James Carville writes that, no matter how tempting it clearly is for Democrats, blaming the Bush administration for the poor economy is not wise. And he is right. It was OK in the early days of the Obama presidency, but after 2½ years, like it or not, this economy belongs to this president.

A couple of years from now, in early July 2013, America will mark the sesquicentennial of that three–day battle in Gettysburg. Whoever is president at that time will undoubtedly come to Pennsylvania for whatever will be done to mark the anniversary.

We should have a better idea at that time if he or she held the high ground in 2012 — and whether he/she continued to do so after Inaugural Day.

The Sesquicentennial of the Civil War

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It was 150 years ago today that the Civil War began with the Battle of Fort Sumter.

In hindsight, it was probably inevitable that a civil war would occur. There were simply too many issues that had to be resolved — and they had to be resolved before the young nation could begin its maturation process.

The election of Abraham Lincoln as president in November 1860 led to South Carolina's decision to secede on Christmas Eve, and half a dozen Southern states followed in the next six weeks. Four more states seceded after the attack on Fort Sumter.

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Folks have been anticipating this anniversary.

• Mike Litterst of the National Park Service wants people to know that what will take place today and over the course of the next four years, as the 150th anniversaries of everything that happened during that time are observed, are "commemoration[s], not celebration[s]," writes Jay Clarke in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
  
  I guess it's crucial to make that distinction in today's politically charged, politically correct atmosphere.


• It could be a little hard to discern, given the somewhat romanticized approaches that have been taken to the anniversary of the first battle of the war by outfits like MSNBC and NPR.


• The Americans of 1861 had been anticipating the start of hostilities for some time, but they had no idea, as I wrote a few months ago, what their future held.
  
  If they had, I rather suspect they would have made more of an effort to avoid the whole thing.

There really was very little that the Americans of the mid–19th century knew, to be honest about it.

Southerners knew who their general was going to be — Robert E. Lee — but he was seen as old and not necessarily in touch with developments in modern warfare — kind of the John McCain of his day.

In the heat of battle, though, Lee won the respect of his men and the confidence of the Confederacy. To this day, he is admired and remembered for both his military knowledge and his integrity. He could have been the general of the Union forces — Lincoln wanted him — but he declined, choosing to fight for his home state of Virginia, even though he disagreed with its decision to secede.

Well, that's been the official story for quite some time now. But, as Elizabeth Brown Pryor wrote in American Heritage in 2008, it may have been a lot more complicated than that.

Lincoln went through several generals before deciding on Ulysses S. Grant to lead the Union forces. In the course of that journey, Lincoln relieved the man who would run against him in 1864, George McClellan.

Frustrated with McClellan's rather plodding approach to warfare, Lincoln, in what may be my favorite example of his unique wit, said to his general, "If you don't want to use the army, I should like to borrow it for awhile."

Grant had served in the Army during the Mexican–American War, then abruptly resigned in 1854; several biographers have written that Grant had been drunk off duty and had been told by his commanding officer to resign or face a court–martial. He was not in the service when the Civil War began on this date in 1861, but he re–enlisted shortly thereafter.

Initially assigned to recruiting and training, he performed so well he was rewarded with a field command and eventually given command of the entire Union army.

As America pauses, from time to time, in the next few years to re–examine that pivotal period in the 19th century, I hope we will re–examine the people who fought in it and their reasons for doing so.

The Budget Deal

I really have to believe that news of the budget compromise that was reached late last night — and, presumably, prevented a government shutdown — is being welcomed enthusiastically by the members of the National Park Service.

This would have been an astonishingly poor time for such an impasse to occur because it would have kept the employees of the National Park Service from observing an important date.

Tuesday will be the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Sumer, S.C. — the event that the history books tell us was the first clash of the Civil War.

A federal shutdown would have closed the National Park Service, which is responsible for Civil War battlefields as well as places like Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon — and, as a consequence of that, it would have shut down Fort Sumter, too.

But it doesn't appear that will happen now.

After the fuss that was made over the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth two years ago — and the sesquicentennial observations of every major Civil War battle that will no doubt occur between now and 2015 (culminating with the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's assassination) — it seems to me it would have been embarrassing if nothing had been done on Tuesday — the anniversary of the day it all began.

But now, as I say, that possibility seems to have been eliminated.

Temporarily, anyway.

I'm not sure what to think of the compromise itself, though — and about the only other thing I can say with any certainty is that this matter is not resolved. This was only the first skirmish.

The compromise only resolves conflicts over some small, rather inconsequential cuts (compared to the amount of money we're talking about here). It does not address much larger issues that are sure to provoke even greater arguments in the near future.

It sweeps those issues under the rug, but I suspect that doesn't really bother either side. The Democrats clearly demonstrated when they controlled enough seats in Congress to do whatever they wished that they have no taste for tackling really tough questions, and the Republicans probably are content to give the Democrats just enough rope to hang themselves with as 2012 draws ever closer.

So I think both sides are glad to have avoided a shutdown and put off the important decision making for another day.

Things We Think We Think

(Note: Peter King of Sports Illustrated, one of my favorite sports writers, writes a column on pro football and routinely includes a list titled "10 Things I Think I Think.")

Last month, I wrote about the anniversaries of some noteworthy elections:

• Ronald Reagan's triumph in the 1980 presidential election,


• Ann Richards' victory in the 1990 Texas gubernatorial race,


• California's vicious Senate race in 1950,


• the seemingly endless 2000 presidential campaign and


• John F. Kennedy's narrow victory in the 1960 presidential election.

I didn't observe the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's victory in the 1860 presidential election (for the record, Lincoln was elected on Nov. 6, 1860) — in large part because I've already written much about Lincoln in this blog. I figured it was probably about time to give him a rest.

But I must admit that I have been regretting that decision recently as I have been following entries at The American Interest blog under the heading "The Long Recall."

Every day, the site posts descriptions of what was happening in the United States on that day 150 years earlier. The site also provides links to reprints of editorials and news accounts from the newspapers of the day. You can find rumors, financial news, world news, all the things that were shaping America and the world in the mid–19th century.

All these tidbits provide us with a glimpse into another world, another time. It is, alternately, captivating and heart–breaking to read what the people of that time were saying.

They spoke of things like secession and war, but it is clear — to me, at least — that they had no idea what was ahead.

Nearly everything they wrote or said would fall under the heading of "Speculation." It was, for the most part, educated speculation — but it was still speculation.

The scope of the war that lay in front of them — the pain and suffering it would bring, the lives and property that would be destroyed — was beyond their comprehension.

They were on the precipice of a major event, but they could not know what was to come. They knew what they thought, but what they thought was not yet a reality.

Isn't it the same with us and our time in history? For that matter, isn't it the same for every generation in every nation?

Last night, I was watching a program on Nazi Germany on The History Channel, and a scholar observed that those Germans who voted for the Nazis in the early 1930s had no idea they were voting for the Holocaust.

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That is true. It is also true, I think, that the people who lived in 1860 were not so different from us — or the people in Germany in the 1930s. From reading these entries, it is clear they knew that things beyond their control were shaping a future they could not yet see. They were living in their time in history, and they did not see what is so painfully clear to us a century and a half later — that a war that would change everything was about to begin.

It is a reminder to me of conversations I have had with people who did not like the fact that I pointed out that Lincoln was not always the open advocate of abolition that the history books say.

He came to the presidency determined to keep the nation together, and he directed the war effort with that as his supreme objective. It was only later — and with pragmatic political considerations driving him — that he became associated with the abolitionist effort.

In his conversations, he used the language of his time — including the word "nigger," which was commonly used in the 19th century and can be found in non–racist contexts in the works of 19th–century types like Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.

To my knowledge, he never pondered how his words might be viewed by the inhabitants of the 21st century.

Are we any different?

I can remember, with stunning clarity, everything I did on Sept. 10, 2001 — but I probably remember it so clearly because so much changed within 24 hours.

One of the things I remember about September 10 is how blissfully ignorant I was of what was about to happen. If I had had any idea what was going to happen, my actions probably would have been different, I tell myself.

And perhaps they would have been.

But I was no different than all but 19 people in the United States on that day. I had no clue what was going to happen.

And I get the feeling, from reading the entries in "The Long Recall," that those Americans who were still living when the Civil War ended in 1865 could probably look back to those days in 1860 and only marvel.

If they had only known, they might say. But if they had, what would they have done? What could they have done?

And can't we all look back on days like that in our lives — days before someone close to us died, days before we lost a job or failed a test — and wonder if, by changing something we did, even some little thing, we might have changed the course of events — like the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings and creating a ripple effect?

But that would require a kind of knowledge that is not given to mortal men, an insight into future events — even near–future events — for which we could make appropriate preparations.

In 2010, we do not know what lies ahead. We never do. Economic experts can tell us what they think will happen. They can tell us that they think the recession ended in the summer of 2009, but as 2010 draws to a close, unemployment is on the rise again.

Perhaps a catastrophic stock market crash is looming in the months ahead.

Or perhaps there will be a natural disaster — an earthquake in California, maybe, or a huge hurricane in the Gulf next summer — that will bring death and destruction on a massive scale. More people undoubtedly will die from cancer and heart attacks in the years ahead. Some will know it is coming and will make their preparations. Others will be caught by surprise.

Whatever it may be, in hindsight, people will say the signs were there for all to see. The tricky part is always recognizing those signs for what they are and taking preventive measures.

When people vote — as they did when they elected Lincoln, when they elected FDR, when they elected Barack Obama — they vote only with the knowledge of what is and what they want the future to be like.

They receive no guarantees. Only time will tell if their expectations have been met. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they are not.

In the aftermath of the 2010 midterms, there is talk of a left–wing challenge to Obama for the Democratic nomination in 2012. Such talk is not new.

It is, however, relatively new for Democrats, who, before the midterms, confidently asserted that Obama would face no challenges for the party's nomination — and, consequently, would be re–elected ...

Because, in modern times, only incumbent presidents who had to turn back a party challenge have been turned down by the voters.

Now, it doesn't seem to be a sure thing that Obama will coast to renomination — or re–election — in 2012.

"[I]f anything," writes Nile Gardiner in the The Telegraph, "the outlook is getting even worse for the Obama presidency, and the notion of an Obama bounce is simply a pipe dream at the moment."

Granted, Gardiner is writing from London. But he's got his fingers on the pulse of the American electorate when he writes, "Fears over the economy are undoubtedly the biggest factor in the lack of confidence Americans have in their president."

Obama knows — or he should know — what the voters expect from him under the current circumstances. It is now his responsibility to deliver. With Republicans in control of the House and a much narrower advantage for Democrats in the Senate, that will be a much tougher task for Obama in 2011 than it could have been in 2009.

But it is the hand he has been dealt.

Well, that's what I think, anyway.

Song of the South

On this day in 1865, the South surrendered to the North, bringing the Civil War to an end.

Well, that's the way it reads in the history books. It's too bad that most history textbooks don't seem to tell the most inspiring part of the story.

As Robert E. Lee rode to Appomattox Court House to meet with Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, he couldn't know what his fate would be. He was a rebel, and military tradition called for executing rebels.

In fact, as he left his troops, Lee said that he expected to be Grant's prisoner before the day was out, but he stoically rode to his rendezvous, presumably hoping that Grant would be merciful, prepared to sacrifice himself for his men. What he didn't know was that Grant had discussed this possibility with Lincoln, who wanted to welcome the South back to the Union with open arms. And, when Grant and Lee sat down to discuss the terms, Lee was pleasantly surprised to learn that Grant would insist only that the Confederate soldiers promise not to take up arms against the United States again, and they could return to their homes.

It was an incredibly generous gesture, virtually unheard of in the 19th century. A relieved Lee was only too eager to agree to the terms and told Grant they would have a "happy effect" on his men — as indeed they did. But less than a week later, Lincoln was dead, and the Northerners who were in control of the government gave in to the desire to punish the South in the form of Reconstruction. And that contributed to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and the implementation of the Jim Crow laws.

Realistically, I suppose, a kind of a civil war raged on for another century. Most of the casualties were blacks, who continued to live a second–class existence, segregated from whites in schools, restaurants and all public facilities and transportation, systematically denied basic privileges, like the right to vote. Those who dared to resist were quickly silenced.

I grew up in the South — in Arkansas. Today, many people speak of the landmark moments in the civil rights movement as if they were the dates when things changed. They were the dates when things started to change where I lived. Central High School in nearby Little Rock was integrated in the late 1950s; segregation went on for many more years in Arkansas' country towns. The schools in my hometown remained segregated for several years. I have vague memories of segregated water fountains and bathrooms. I don't remember when the theatre in my hometown was desegregated, but I do remember going to the movies with my parents and seeing black patrons being ushered in to a separate section of the balcony.

I remember seeing Confederate flags — not on public buildings but just about everywhere else — on homes, in yards, flying from car antennas, draped across the rear windows of pickup trucks. Folks took pride in their heritage — not necessarily what it sometimes stood for.

"Separate but equal" was always more of a concept than a reality in the South. There were isolated pockets, communities that sincerely tried to make sure that schools and other public facilities were of the same quality. But, mostly, it was something white Southerners told themselves and each other to justify separating the races, to assure themselves that blacks were not being denied anything that whites had, they were just being denied the company of whites.

That, of course, was absurd.

I've been thinking about this in the aftermath of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's decision to declare April "Confederate History Month." McDonnell's failure to mention slavery in his proclamation provoked quite a public outcry, prompting him to relent, apologize for his "omission" and add the following to the language of his proclamation:

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"WHEREAS, it is important for all Virginians to understand that the institution of slavery led to this war and was an evil and inhumane practice that deprived people of their God–given inalienable rights and all Virginians are thankful for its permanent eradication from our borders, and the study of this time period should reflect upon and learn from this painful part of our history ..."

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Revisionist historians, perhaps overly influenced by the modern political correctness movement and the manner in which certain words and phrases (like Confederacy and states' rights) have become code for racism and bigotry, view the 19th century through 20th– and 21st–century lenses. They believe the Civil War was always about slavery — more to the point, they believe it was about ending slavery.

But, like most armed conflicts, it began as one thing and ended up being about something else. Isn't that what happened in Iraq? America invaded in 2003, intent upon ridding both the region and the world of the threat of Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction." When the alleged stockpiles of such weapons were not found, attention turned to liberating the Iraqi people.

If you have a conversation today with someone who supported the invasion of Iraq and continues to support the war there, you will not talk about vials of anthrax but rather about the liberation of an oppressed people. Is it good that oppressed people have been liberated? Of course, it is. But is that why the troops invaded Iraq to begin with? No.

I'm not saying McDonnell shouldn't have adjusted his proclamation to refer to slavery. He should have. Nor am I saying that slavery was not "an evil and inhumane practice." Clearly, it was.

I'm just saying it was not necessarily seen in the same light in the 19th century as it is today. Even Abraham Lincoln, who is rightfully remembered in history as the Great Emancipator, was far more concerned, upon entering the presidency, with preserving the Union than he was with ending slavery. In fact, I wrote about this on the occasion of his 200th birthday last year.

I don't have a problem with setting aside a month to remember the history of the South. I think McDonnell's mistake was in the name. "Confederate History Month" brings to mind images of slaves, the Stars and Bars, rebellion. The war is part of its history — there is no escaping that — but I don't really feel it is necessary to draw more attention to that than to the other part of its history. "Southern History Month" makes more sense — and would let everyone participate.

Sort of like the difference between having a "German History Month" and a "Nazi History Month."

I've spent nearly all of my life in the South, and I know there are things that are unique to this region, people who have made valuable contributions to the betterment of mankind. I know that there are fascinating stories from Southern history that people outside the region seldom know.

And, as for the Confederate part, I know that most of the men who fought for the Confederacy did not own slaves. You can try to hang the "racist" label on them all you want, but, if you could ask them, I doubt that many would say they were fighting to preserve slavery. They would say they were defending their homes, their families, their friends.

The Civil War was a tragedy for this nation, but the men who fought in it often displayed true heroism and self–sacrifice. Their sacrifices should be remembered and honored.

But the month need not be limited to the Confederacy. That ignores the contributions of too many generations of Southerners.