Civil War-era conflicts endure
Los Angeles Times: At least 620,000 American soldiers died during the four years of the Civil War, succumbing to bullets, illness and the elements in a fight not against an external threat but over the nation’s soul. By far the deadliest conflict fought on U.S. soil, the war came to a symbolic end 150 years ago last week with Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House.
The nation still bears scars from those horrendous days, in which more American soldiers were killed than in World Wars I and II combined. There were many reasons for the war, including the Southern states’ belief that they could leave the Union unilaterally — a notion President Abraham Lincoln rejected. But the central issue was slavery, which drove the Southern economy (and enriched more than a few Northerners in the financing and shipping worlds). Although the Union victory ended the “peculiar institution” that had 4 million people in chains at the start of the war, true racial equality remains elusive to this day.
CONSTRUCTIVE CHANGE
But the nation has changed in many ways. The 13th, 14th and 15th “Reconstruction Amendments” collectively ended slavery, guaranteed equal protection under the law and allowed all men to vote regardless of race or former slave status.
It is good, and right, to look at the narrative arc of our nation’s history to give some context to our current divides. Although today’s controversies are far less threatening to the national fabric than was slavery, we are living through an era of stark and coarse political dialogue weighted by race, concepts of the proper role and size of government, economic disparity and, perniciously, a resurgence of efforts to disenfranchise non-white voters.
That brings to mind part of Lincoln’s final public address, two days after Lee surrendered: “We simply must begin with, and mould from, disorganized and discordant elements.” A century and a half later, we’re still molding.