44 Comments

1. Patrick Tyson:

He taught me, first?and I’ve confirmed it may times on the road?that there is no such thing as ideological truth. To the extent that a reporter is a liberal reporter, or a Communist, or a conservative, or a Republican reporter, he’s no reporter at all.

Unlike Mencken’s previous biographers, I write, very broadly speaking, from his point of view, and I hope this has helped me to understand him more completely than either frankly hostile critics or those admirers who find his philosophy symathetic but shrink (often quite properly) from its implications in the real world of action and ideas.

The first is Alistair Cooke from the penultimate episode of the PBS series Alistair Cooke’s America. The second is from Terry Teachout’s biography of the American icon about whom Alistair Cooke is speaking.

These days there are few reporters. Teachout’s biography, The Skeptic, is more interesting for what it says about Teachout than for anything it tells us, even accurately, about Mencken. What I’ve read of Johnson is much the same.

I’m not complaining. “Well written” is my only requirement. I do sometimes wish that I had even a small part of Mencken’s gift for exploiting “the disparity between what is officially approved and what is privately done” in words. No prisoners, indeed.

More off-topic:

My choice as the greatest of American Presidents (Coolidge is the coolest) is Abraham Lincoln. I link to the words spoken by Frederick Douglass on April 14, 1876 at the Unveiling of The Freedmen’s Monument in Memory of Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C. They’re a whole lot more than just “well written.”

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=39

Feb 20, 2005 - 9:49 pm 2. Patrick Tyson:

Damn TypeKey.

Hunter S. Thompson, once a favorite read, died by his own hand today.

A story I heard, I don’t know where , concerned a meeting between a Rolling Stone contingent made up of William Greider, P.J. O’Rourke and Hunter S. Thompson and then President-elect William Jefferson Clinton. The first thing Hunter tried to ask the President-elect about had to do with drugs and he didn’t even get his question out before the President-elect cut him off and made it clear that he supported and would continue the “War on Drugs.” Hunter S. Thompson, devestated, said nothing more.

Feb 20, 2005 - 10:51 pm 3. heather:

The American Revolution, unlike the French one, has led to a very successful and inclusive society. It is a great pity that the founding documents (eg Federalist papers, etc) are not taught in schools or universities. In my time, in the 60s and 70s, we learned all about the Communist Manifesto and Mao’s little red book. I do not recall ever having been introduced to the writings of the American thinkers.

Canada’s government was formed in 1867, immediately after the Civil War. In an effort to prevent a similar breakdown, we ended up with a hyper centralized system which has decayed into a kleptocracy so well described by Mark Steyn. And then, we can add the Trudeau effect: a huge bureaucracy in order to maintain “biculturalism” and “bilingualism” throughout the land.

Australia, on the other hand, has managed to maintain a strong federal system, much like that of the USA. Also, it does not have a Quebec to deal with.

Actually, Canada is much like Nigeria or even Iraq, a left over from the British Imperial system that squashed together desparate peoples anointed with a parliament etc.

Feb 20, 2005 - 11:19 pm 4. heather:

another history lesson: back in good ol’ Europe and the ancient Chinese civilization etc etc., the peasantry were not allowed to own or use guns (unless engaged in cattle drives, or in war).

Thus the right of a citizen to bear arms is quite a statement, a major refutation of class oppression by the American constitution.

Feb 20, 2005 - 11:22 pm 5. Kenneth Almquist:

I don’t want to beat up on you too much, but I’m at a loss as to why you dignify the linked article by calling it an “analsys.”

“[After the initial defeat of Iraq] the hope and expectation was that democratic nations and peoples the world over would come and help.”

Who was doing the hoping and expecting? Without that information this sentence is pretty meaningless. As far as I can see, the sole function of this sentence is to try to create the impression that the hopes and expectations were reasonable, without actually making the case that they were.

“The worst example is Spain. On the eve of elections there, terrorists detonated bombs on trains in Madrid, panicking the nation. In a spasm of fear the Spanish…voted in a Socialist government.”

Where’s the evidence that the nation panicked? The Spanish government prematurely blamed the ETA for the attacks, undermining its credibility with the voters and giving Spain a diplomatic black eye. Furthermore, the vast majority of Spanish voters opposed the deployment of Spanish troops in Iraq, and it is plausible that that issue weighed more heavily with voters in the wake of the attack. The outcome of the election can be explained without assuming voter panic.

We are in a war, or something akin to war, with Islamic terrorists. To declare, in the absence of evidence, that the other side has scored a victory, strikes me as irresponsible.

“The new government took the coward’s way out and withdrew its troops from Iraq.”

Huh? The new government was elected on a platform that called for withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq. After being elected, the government honored its campaign promise. What’s cowardly about that?

“But even though it has tasted the sweets of democracy itself, Ukraine is also withdrawing its troops from Iraq–a case of cowardice compounded by selfishness that bodes ill for the country’s future.”

The notion that selfishness “bodes ill for the country’s future” is odd. Countries typically look out for their own interests, so this dictum, if true, would predict a poor future for just about every country in the world. Yet Johnson assumes that this is proposition is self-evident, or at least he doesn’t bother to provide any evidence to support it.

And we have yet another unsupported accusation of cowardice. It seems to me that Johnson is engaging in namecalling rather than analysis.

“Spain and Ukraine expect to enjoy democracy but will not lift a finger to help the Iraqis, who have never had such a luxury.”

Here Johnson implies that there is an ethical duty for nations to help less fortunate nations. Granting this, why should Spain and Ukraine send troops to Iraq, rather than, say, trying to halt the genocide in Darfur? Johnson doesn’t say. What I object to is not so much the lack of logic as the failure to take the ethical issues seriously. I find the latter rather repugnant.

“The Germans have had democracy imposed on them twice by the victorious Allies, each time after a world war Germany started. German democracy is a superficial growth, and if the Socialists there continue to mismanage the economy and impoverish the people, who can say whether freedom in Germany will survive?”

Germany became a (messy) democracy prior to the end of the first world war. The Allies didn’t “impose” democracy on Germany after that war; if anything the heavy war reparations demanded by the Allies contributed to the collapse of democracy in Germany. Johnson doesn’t provide any evidence that the historical concensus is wrong about this. And the historical record is clear enough that its hard to see how this could be an honest difference of opinion in any case. Johnson is just making stuff up.

His assessment of the current state of German democracy is a judgement call, but it’s a wacky one.

“It may well be that in history’s long perspective, America’s success in turning Afghanistan and Iraq away from tyranny, fear and murder toward the peaceful rule of the ballot will seem a historic turning point.”

I’ve included this quote because I thought I should say something about the conclusion of his piece. But what’s there to say? Of course I agree with the quoted statement–it’s a tautology. That would be fine if coupled with an analysis of the evidence for and against the proposition that we have “a historic turning point.” But analysis of any kind is missing from the piece.

Feb 20, 2005 - 11:40 pm 6. JohnL:

Spain panicked. The polls showed Aznar’s party ahead before the election, and the Socialists won. What changed? The Madrid bombings. The government tried to pin the blame on the ETA because they were afraid the voters would vote socialist if the terrorists were islamic. The government was right about that. The voters blamed the government because they perceived that support for Iraq made Spain a target. It’s not very brave to vote the way your enemies want you to.

Just because the Socialists pormised to pull out of Iraq doesn’t mean it wasn’t a coward’s promise.

The German economy is in the tank, and faces a demographic problem that makes our Social Security mess seem minor. The Germans aren’t doing very much about it.

I don’t see German freedom going away. That’s a bizarre statement by Johnson.

Feb 21, 2005 - 2:23 am 7. HenryB:

It’s an interesting essay, but reveals Mr. Johnson’s distinct ignorance of American history, especially with respect to the notorious Pres. Lincoln. I guess Pres. Bush will want to go down in history as Iraq’s savior, just as Mr. Lincoln’s biographers have constructed the utterly false notion that Lincoln went to war (a war that ultimately killed about 600,000 Americans) to free the slaves, an idea that would be laughable if it were not such obvious propaganda.

It’s hard to say what Bush’s original reasons were for wanting to clean up Iraq, but it’s obvious that his Administration was utterly fixated on getting rid of Saddam. I always assumed that they wanted to correct the complete mess left by the 1991 war, but I do not claim to be able to read minds.

Feb 21, 2005 - 5:58 am 8. Morgan:

HenryB:

Are you sure you can’t read the minds of the Bush administration? You seem to be able to read Lincoln’s.

The great national debate at the time of the Civil War was abolition. It had become clear that the abolitionists would be able to outlaw slavery. This was unacceptable to many powerful people in the South. Hence secession.

So if your claim is that Lincoln’s primary motivation in the Civil War was preserving the Union, not ending slavery per se, fine. We’ll debate. But it was perfectly clear that the Union he was fighting to preserve would no longer tolerate slavery.

Feb 21, 2005 - 7:41 am 9. Rick Ballard:

Morgan,

It’s Presidents day – time for babbling pretention from those who consider Howard Zinn to be an historian.

Feb 21, 2005 - 7:54 am 10. richard mcenroe:

HenryB ó Anyone familiar with Lincoln’s own writings, let alone those of his serious biographers, knows that while he opposed slavery, he went to war to enforce the Union, not for emancipation. We had been at war for years prior to the Emancipation proclamation. But Lincoln did come to the conclusion that Emancipation was both morally and politically necessary to the prosecution of the war.

Feb 21, 2005 - 7:56 am 11. Knucklehead:

HenryB,

One needn’t dive particularly deeply into the vast ocean of Lincoln biographies (let alone Civil War histories) to demonstrate the shallowness of:

Mr. Lincoln’s biographers have constructed the utterly false notion that Lincoln went to war… to free the slaves, an idea that would be laughable if it were not such obvious propaganda.

Your inability to scratch through even the most sophmoric of Conventional Wisdoms is further exemplified by

I always assumed that they wanted to correct the complete mess left by the 1991 war…

This is a particularly inappropriate forum for such unserious tripe. Please consider reviewing a broader sampling of the historical record and analysis of both Lincoln and the current conflict of which Iraq is one theater.

Feb 21, 2005 - 8:24 am 12. Knucklehead:

Ooops, I forgot to thank Patrick Tyson for the pointer to the Douglass speech. He’s always worth reading, isn’t he.

Feb 21, 2005 - 8:26 am 13. Oyster:

There are many, if not most, from the Democrat’s camp that are absolutely sure we are too stupid to make our own decisions for ourselves. On the other hand, President Bush puts too much faith in the abilities of all of us to make those decisions wisely.

Paul Johnson is only guilty of the latter. He assumes too many of us know enough of our history to understand what he’s saying without having to spell out every word. I’d like to think I know enough to understand exactly what he’s saying because I agree with him. And I won’t write a lengthy essay explaining why.

“Here Johnson implies that there is an ethical duty for nations to help less fortunate nations. Granting this, why should Spain and Ukraine send troops to Iraq, rather than, say, trying to halt the genocide in Darfur?”

An odd argument – since a good many people in the world DO think that those more fortunate DO have an obligation to help others and they’ve not wasted any time telling us so. But it’s up to the individual person or individual nation to decide what they think is a worthy cause. Given this, we are not a “nation for hire” and we have made our own decisions, not what popular consensus says we should do. Our president made a decision and in the long run I think it was the smarter one. If others think we should concentrate on Darfur, no one is stopping them from handling that one themselves. Instead, they spend all their energy criticizing us to justify their lack of resolve or inaction then pat each other on the back for sending in a few bags of rice and some penicillin.

Feb 21, 2005 - 8:47 am 14. HenryB:

Morgan & Richard,

I do not attempt to read anyone’s mind: I was merely assuming that Lincoln was not lying when he stated (many times) that the war’s purpose was to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery.

Certainly there was enormous division between the Northern states and the Southern States for literally decades prior to secession. And it is true that abolitionists were a powerful force in the Congress, especially after the Southern states seceded! Lincoln’s issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation is widely regarded as a way of placating the abolitionists in Congress, as well as encouraging slaves in not-yet-conquered southern states to flee to those states that had already been conquered by Union forces.

BTW, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in preliminary form on 22 Sept. 1962, just 18 months after the beginning of the war (the final version was released at the beginning of 1863). It only freed slaves in the conquered territories, of course, as Lincoln did not have authority to free the slaves in the slave-holding states of the U.S. (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, plus the District of Columbia). Mrs. Lincoln is reputed to have retained her slaves, though I’ve never seen verification of this claim.

Lincoln stated that the war was to preserve the Union, but a cynic might take the view that the war was fought primarily to preserve U.S. control of the continent, which it would have lost had the CSA been in control of much of the lower Mississippi. In any case, it was an awful and, in my view, very much unnecessary war that haunted the country for over 100 years. All this is mute now, of course, but I find it very difficult to honor a man who was the principal architect of such slaughter, especially when the war was not undertaken with a moral purpose.

Feb 21, 2005 - 8:48 am 15. charlotte:

it very difficult to honor a man who was the principal architect of such slaughter, especially when the war was not undertaken with a moral purpose.

What? No WMD found?

Seriously, Henry B, preserving the Union is not a moral purpose? Allowing the South to secede and keep its institution of slavery would have been more moral? And are we revisiting the Civil War now, and are you posting your “War Was Not the Answer” sign?

Feb 21, 2005 - 8:58 am 16. Hogarth:

All this is mute now

Well, apparently not, given all the words being thrown at it.

Or did you mean ‘moot?’

Feb 21, 2005 - 9:06 am 17. Rick Ballard:

Charlotte,

You’re arguing with someone who doesn’t know mute from moot. And he’s just trolling anyhow, so you can us HE rounds. I’d set’em for a 10 meter airburst.

PS Great line about McKinney.

Feb 21, 2005 - 9:07 am 18. HenryB:

Gosh, why would one consider preserving the Union to be a moral justification for war? I see no moral purpose in such, at all: the Union is not sacrosanct, it is merely a government established by the people. Lincoln simply insured that the U. S. established a government by military force.

If the U.S. had really been serious about ending slavery, it might have attempted to purchase the freedom of the slaves in the South. I doubt that the Confederates would have accepted, for by that point the southern states were largely run, as they had been for some time, by a small number of wealthy planters who seemed ideologially committed to slavery. However, I don’t believe the issue was ever even discussed.

Well, no, I definitely do not think that war was the answer. But, as I stated before, the issue is moot now. Many have speculated on what would have occurred had the war not happened, pointing out that everywhere else in the Americas (save Haiti), slavery was peacefully abolished. However, this is speculation, and we have no way of knowing what would have happened. But, as stated previously, Lincoln did NOT go to war for any higher purpose.

Feb 21, 2005 - 9:16 am 19. Knucklehead:

HenryB,

And the “moral purpose” of the bombardment of Ft. Sumter begun at ~4:30AM on April 12, 1861 was… what exactly?

Feb 21, 2005 - 9:18 am 20. HenryB:

Well, that seems prety obvious: self-defense. The Federals comprised an occupying force. Certainly, though, one can question the wisdom of the decision…

Feb 21, 2005 - 9:42 am 21. charlotte:

Thanks, Rick. Can I get HE rounds at Walmart or when I open a bank account?

Is Harry B arguing for an alternative history from the far Left that would say ‘no’ to US Manifest Destiny and ‘yes’ to sharing the continent with the slave nation of the CSA, the missions and slavery of Spain-Mexico, France, Russia, and sovereign Texas and California, etc? Is the idea here that a multi-country American continent would have been more moral because Indians and imported Africans would have been treated well? Because natural resources would not have been plundered? And because the different countries wouldn’t have competed with each other and engaged in wars among themselves? Sure thing.

Or is Harry B a far Right romanticist of the CSA?

Feb 21, 2005 - 9:44 am 22. TmjUtah:

I’m confused.

It was morally incumbent on the North to write a check to repair the social ills of the South?

The abolitionist movement was just one of the political divisions that existed prior to the Civil War.

I don’t know just which historians our friend has nominated as the authorities on the Civil War; my reading of Sandberg’s The Prairie Years and The War Years left me with a picture of Lincoln the Ultimate Lawyer and student of republican, constitutional government.

The South was watching their agricultural aristocracy swirl down the drain in the face of Northern population and economic growth. Their version of changeless feudalism locked the vast majority of their population into castes, whether they be slave or white trash, and their political class recognized that to remain in the Union would eventually spell the end of their power.

It was about numbers, to them. Lincoln recognised that the future would be just repetitions of Missouri and Kansas unless a decision was reached on the slavery question. It was the South, however, that broached seccession and war as solutions to the problem. Lincoln’s duty as president was clear – “protect and defend” – and that is what he did. That abolition conformed with both the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the letter of the Constitution was beneficial politically in the short term and long term is a bonus; in the end abolition was but one step in removing the institutions that kept the South from falling fatally behind the rest of the Union.

Lincoln spent a lot of time working on a strategy of bond issuance to purchase the freedom of slaves. He quickly became convinced that it wasn’t the slaves, but rather the classes that measured their wealth in slaves, that was the problem.

Washington, Lincoln, TR, FDR, and Reagan are my favorites. FDR is in there only by the grace of his decisions to begin rearming in 1938 and his decision to pursue unconditional surrender of the Axis – not for any long-term philosophical achievements.

We are still fixing his errors, and the subsequent promulgation of the same by his party, today.

I second the motion that the Federalist Papers should be an early and core part of any government course.

Feb 21, 2005 - 9:45 am 23. charlotte:

Henry B, not Harry! Sorry, Henry.

Feb 21, 2005 - 9:46 am 24. Morgan:

HenryB:

I reject the idea that Lincoln was only interested in preserving the Union. If he had been, he would (as President-Elect) have supported the Crittenden compromise, which might have preserved the Union, but also would have amended the constitution to allow slavery in the South.

In truth, we often do things with multiple motivations. It is possible to invade Iraq both because of a belief in WMD and to bring freedom and the long-term safety that (we hope) comes with it. And it is possible to go to war both to preserve the Union and to abolish slavery.

Feb 21, 2005 - 10:03 am 25. HenryB:

“…romanticist of the CSA…” The CSA was, much like the South following the end of Reconstruction and continuing until at least the early 1970’s, run by a relatively small group of wealthy planters who pretty much ran things in an manner that benefited themselves and few others. Andrew Johnson despised them, for a number of good reasons. The CSA itself, despite lofty goals expressed in its constitution, quickly devolved into a more-or-less totalitarian state, primarily due to war requirements. The fact that its constitution was well-written wasn’t terribly relevant, just as the constitution of the former U.S.S.R had little to do with its actual legal practices.

However, the discussion, I thought, was about Lincoln.

Feb 21, 2005 - 10:08 am 26. Knucklehead:

Tmj,

I can’t tell if HenryB is serious with this stuff or trolling for… who knows what.

By his logic it was apparently a moral act to wage war to break the union for the sake of

…the southern states [that] were largely run, as they had been for some time, by a small number of wealthy planters who seemed ideologially committed to slavery.

but an immoral act to wage war to preserve the union because, after all, the US

… might have attempted to purchase the freedom of the slaves in the South.

There’s an interesting bit of moral elegance – the US should have “ransomed” the slaves. Of course, even HenryB admits

I doubt that the Confederates would have accepted

So Jefferson Davis and the leaders of the Confederacy are off the moral hook because they waged a war of “self-defense” to preserve the economic viability of a “small number of wealthy planters ideologically committed to slavery”

yet we shouldn’t honor Lincoln because he apparently never floated the idea of ransoming the slaves (which the wealthy planters, by HenryB’s own admission would not likely have accepted).

Fascinating view of history. I personally find it not the least bit surprising that this sort of revisionist historical speculation is largely mute anymore. It does apparently have its adherents who try to give it voice periodically.

HenryB is not the first I’ve heard make similar arguments. As far as I can tell the speculation goes something like…

If Lincoln had not been elected president (or, conversely, had paid attention to the wisdom of McLellan) the Civil War would have been a minor conflict with little bloodshed. The sourthern/slave states would have split off, territories would have joined either the slave states or the free states as they saw fit or, alternatively, formed their own nations. The “US” would have been a collection of small, peaceful nations rather than a gigantic and, ultimately, powerful hegemon, slavery would have died “peacefully” and the world’s citizenry would be living today in post-modern bliss or, at the very least, we would have arrived at a situation where we would have been able to hide behind our oceans in splendid isolation. Just speculation on my part.

Feb 21, 2005 - 10:11 am 27. TmjUtah:

A constitutional compromise would have looked nice on paper.

It would have done nothing to address the objective results of allowing half of the country to maintain a non-competitive economic/social structure at the expense of codifying a lethal contradiction with the precept that “all men are created equal” in the same document. Missouri and Kansas, again.

Feb 21, 2005 - 10:14 am 28. WichitaBoy:

I agree wholeheartedly with TmjUtah’s comments.

HenryB, go back and read the link provided by Patrick Tyson. Douglass says it all for anyone with eyes to see.

Abraham Lincoln fought the war started by the Confederates in order to preserve the Union, as was his solemn duty. He continued it in order to free the slaves. There is no question but that he deeply abhorred slavery and fervently wished for its end; yet he was pragmatic enough to realize that none of this would occur without the help of the slaveholders of the border states. Read Douglass, who makes it abundantly clear. Lincoln was forced by circumstances to walk an extremely narrow tightrope, needing the help of both the abolitionists and the slaveholders. I daresay that 9999 out of 10,000 politicians would have flubbed it.

If you think 620,000 deaths or so was a waste, you should be reviling the names of Robert Toombs, Jefferson Davis, and even Robert E. Lee–one of the noblest Americans who ever lived–for extending the war far beyond what was necessary.

The truth is there was a hole in the Constitution as originally written. Who had the ultimate authority, the states or the federal government? The Constitution glosses over this problem which would have had to have been resolved by violence in all likelihood, slavery or no slavery.

Northern motivations were twofold. In New England abolition was the driving force. In the Midwest the driving force was to destroy the caste society which had been created in the South. H.L. Mencken accused Midwesterners of “pumping

its revolting silo juices into the East and West alike”. By which he means, of course, democracy for little people. (Mencken was a believer in the rule of the ueberman.) Many of those Midwesterners in Sherman’s army who cheerfully burned the slave plantations in South Carolina, the seat of secession, were, like Lincoln, of Southern descent. Thank God they did say I. And thank God for Abraham Lincoln the plebeian.

Feb 21, 2005 - 10:17 am 29. WichitaBoy:

Knucklehead,

One factor which is now conveniently forgotten is that the slaveholding aristocracy of the South had serious plans for a vast slaveholding empire which was to comprise all of Latin America. They planned to extend slavery all the way to California, then to conquer Mexico and Cuba and export their “peculiar institution” to those parts and to proceed from there. My apologies to the Christians but, historically, the lion has never lain with the lamb. Peaceful collection of happy little North American states my left foot.

Feb 21, 2005 - 10:26 am 30. charlotte:

Revisionism or historical nihilism at play here?

Feb 21, 2005 - 10:27 am 31. Knucklehead:

Witchita,

IIRC the notions of an American Empire including South America were fomented by Aaron Burr (or, perhaps more accurately, he saw an opportunity to assuage his ego and get rich leading such an effort – I suspect he wasn’t creative enough to come up with the plan himself). It wouldn’t be the least surprising that the southern aristocracy kept such notions alive.

Feb 21, 2005 - 10:39 am 32. Knucklehead:

Hmmm… could it be that HenryB just finished reading The Politically Incorrect Guide…?

Mitch Townsend at ChicagoBoyz provides some links to (IMO) amusing commentary re: the PIG with some folks making some, ummm, interesting accusations about the author. Personally I don’t give a rat’s patoot. I ain’t gonna read the PIG since my reading shelf is overloaded as it is.

Feb 21, 2005 - 1:03 pm 33. heather:

US Grant, in the last part of his “Memoirs” talks about slavery and The Civil War. His conclusion was that the US government could not have avoided a war, or disintegration, so long as slavery existed in a part of the country. That is, there were too many political and legal problems inherent in maintaining a slave state WITH and WITHIN a non-slave society. The Dred Scott case is a good example of all this: a man/slave lives for some years in a state where slavery is illegal; can he therefore demand a non-slave status? The Supremes said no, implying that the Federal Constitution had no right to exclude slavery in American territores, and therefore anywhere in the USA (ie, Fugitive Slave Law.)

And then there was John Brown…

Now, why on earth is this issue being debated in this day and age? Where do people like Henry live anyway?

Feb 21, 2005 - 1:25 pm 34. chuck:

I believe another consideration in maintaining the union was the role of the mississippi: having its mouth controlled by the confederacy would have strangled the northern states that depended on it for commerce. I believe either Grant or Sherman made this point, and it was emphasized by Marx in his Civil War dispatches while acting as the London correspondent for the New York Herald.

Anyway, I think things worked out for the best. The slavery guestion was settled, the conflicts on the frontier ended, and the nation settled into its borders. And we have the veterans themselves on record:

This program contains recently discovered newsreel and radio broadcasts that were recorded live during the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, June 30th – July 4th, 1938. Almost 2,000 surviving veterans of the Blue & Gray gathered for a Final Reunion on that famous battlefield. Sharing memories, mixed with laughter and tears, the old veterans prayed for “Peace Eternal in a Nation United.”

Note the veterans’ prayer.

Feb 21, 2005 - 2:10 pm 35. Attila:

Sorry for not getting involved in this lovely debate over Lincoln, but I do want to endorse Roger’s plug for Paul Johnson’s History of the Jews. Jewish history has traditionally been written by Jews, and there’s been little to compare with Johnson’s outsider (but philo-semitic) take on it.

Feb 21, 2005 - 3:02 pm 36. TmjUtah:

Knucklehead:

I respectfully, but profoundly, disagree with your conclusion regarding an alternate history, had there been no Lincoln:

“If Lincoln had not been elected president (or, conversely, had paid attention to the wisdom of McLellan) the Civil War would have been a minor conflict with little bloodshed. The sourthern/slave states would have split off, territories would have joined either the slave states or the free states as they saw fit or, alternatively, formed their own nations. The “US” would have been a collection of small, peaceful nations rather than a gigantic and, ultimately, powerful hegemon, slavery would have died “peacefully” and the world’s citizenry would be living today in post-modern bliss or, at the very least, we would have arrived at a situation where we would have been able to hide behind our oceans in splendid isolation.”

Look carefully at the congressional landscape of 1860, and of the objective pressures that were coming to bear on the nation.

Congress was full of machine politicians. Frankly most of the talent and fire was on the southern side. The concept of manifest destiny appealed to Northern farmers and industrialists mainly as an ocean – to – ocean vision; the South did indeed have designs extending to empire toward the South and into the Caribbean.

Men who didn’t blush at attacking the industrialized, populous North would have had no trouble at all directing the same energies elsewhere. Especially at targets who so clearly fit their ideology of “white on top” power. They’d buy their weapons from the foundries of Pennsylvania and Ohio, too. It would be good for business, and there has never been a more avaricious capitalist class than existed here in the latter half of the 19th century.

How long would a cosmopolitan, liberal, explosively growing North be able to live along a common border with a feudal aristocracy – one that counted on an honor code right out of Camelot to keep its huge underclasses looking outward for enemies – in competition for diminishing vistas for expansion? How long until “slave/free?” was asked of say, Nevada Territory, and neither side would give?

Does this situation begin to sound familiar? Just a little?

We fight fundamentalist Islam now because there are no longer any distances great enough to keep the despotism (ANY flavor) from bumping up against democracy. There are no more oceans broad enough to insulate the two from having direct impact on the lives of Johnny Man On The Street.

The fight is here, and the enemy is in front of us. Now.

In 1865 we resolved to be a nation of free men – all men. It cost tens of millions of broken lives (dead/wounded/survivors) but we did end up with a working solution. We face the same challenge today, just on a battlefield that encompasses the world.

We means the world, by the way. I second or third the motion that Spain’s decision to appease was cowardice. Did they vote their decision? Sure they did.

You can vote murder to be legal, too, but that won’t make it any less a crime. Freedom is never free – even if you opt out of the fight and let somebody else do the heavy lifting.

Canada. France. Germany. Spain. The Philippines.

Time fills, and we’ll probably live long enough to see what price those shirkers pay for appeasement. The nature of our enemy, and of our current posture, will drive attacks where they are easy to commit. Both Spain and the Philippiens are already discovering this.

Feb 21, 2005 - 3:46 pm 37. RogerA:

I have very mixed feelings about this thread: not because our commentariat is at its usual brilliance, but because the American Civil War, like most cataclysmic events of human history, do not lend themselves to simple, single answer solutions. HL Mencken was quoted (and we all know the sage of Baltimore was a notorious anti-semite), but it is worthwhile to recall his admonition: For every complex problem there is a solution: neat, simple, and wrong.

Arguments can be made on all sides, citations can be brought to bear, logic can be invoked; but in the final analysis nothing changes. The moving finger has writ. In the analysis at this point in time, to me, the only question that obtains: is the United States of American, and its entire population, better off because the union stood? I think that answer is an unqualified yes.

Feb 21, 2005 - 4:05 pm 38. Catherine:

Uh-oh—unearned credit alert!

I found Paul Johnson’s essay over at Betsy’s Page (and forgot to tell Roger!)

Sorry!

http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/

Feb 21, 2005 - 5:11 pm 39. Knucklehead:

Tmj,

The “alternative history” I put forth was my speculation about what those who devalue Lincoln, rehabilitate McClellan, etc, seem to believe would have happened. I don’t subscribe to the theory for one second.

Sorry if I failed to make that clear.

Feb 21, 2005 - 5:21 pm 40. Terrye:

I had an ancestor that died in the last battle of the Civil War. He was a ppor man, a Southern white farmer,and he left a hungry family of nine behind. He died to preserve a life that had more to do with cheap cotten for British mills and the lifestyles of southern slave owners than self defence. He just did not know that.

So Henry B is wrong of course. If things were as simple as he says there would have been no Civil War. Brilliant men had debated for decades, they had tried to avoid that war but the union and slavery were not compatable. Lincoln went to war to save the union, but he also freed the slaves.

And Wichita Boy is right. People today may think the southerners were an anachronism but they did not see it that way. Nor did the British blockade runners or for that matter the British threatening a possible invasion of the north.

Imagine, Alaska belonging to Russia, Spain owning a great deal of the southwest and the Europeans fighting their wars here just like they did on their own continent. The idea of manifest destiny was not just about stealing land from the Indians, it was about keeping Europe at bay.

If Lincoln had failed does anyone really think the Indians would be running with the buffaloe today? Or that a black woman would be the Secretary of State?

Feb 21, 2005 - 5:42 pm 41. TmjUtah:

Knuckle -

The Officials of the “First Damn Well Read the Post Closely League” have reviewed the tape and assessed me a five- hundred word penalty for carelessness in commission of a comment. My apologies, sir.

Terrye -

My only ancestors directly involved with the war were picking off settlers on the plains and trying to keep one or two days ahead of the cavalry of both sides. But your observation that the men of the South may have been fighting for reasons not entirely in their interests is key; they fought because their perception was that they had to fight. I may have more Sioux blood than say Ward Churchill – all the rest is Italian and Norwegian circa 1870’s and after.

I’ll take just a moment to say that it’s not simple cant to say that Southerners sometimes fight just for the hell of it. I grew up southern/western, and I’m here to tell you there’s always a bit of truth behind every stereotype.

And I agree with RogerA – only time has provided the perspective to judge whether it was worth it all. I agree that it was.

Feb 21, 2005 - 6:26 pm 42. Terrye:

TmJ:

My mother’s side of the family had the rebel. My Dad’s side of the family had the soldier on the other side of the war, in the Kansas Cavalry.

I also have more Indian blood than Churchill, Cherokee. That was my mamma’s side of the family too. After all, the Cherokee were a southern too.

Feb 21, 2005 - 7:11 pm 43. nittypig:

I have to agree with Kenneth Almquist on this one. I was really disappointed with this link – not up to Roger’s usual standards at all. I also was taken aback by the statement that Germany had democracy imposed on it after WWI – seems a massive simplification, and rather besides the point. And German democracy has been very robust since WWII.

And I really dislike taking particular aim at Spain and Ukraine. I don’t know what Spanish casualties in Iraq were, but Spain had 16 KIA per various places on the web, and presumably many more casualties than that (I believe that the US ratio of casualties to deaths is something like 9:1). Spain did help in Iraq, and her military paid a price. That should count for something. Aznar was very important early on, and, I think, is very much underapreciated by Americans in general.

Sure Zapatero’s backing out, and the electorate’s endorsement of it was a huge disappointment, and undoubtedly emboldened our enemies. But why single out a country that has helped over one that has been unabashedly obstructionist and provides much more aid and comfort to our enemies?

Feb 22, 2005 - 7:04 am 44. Kenneth Almquist:

Reply to JohnL:

“The polls showed Aznar’s party ahead before the election, and the Socialists won. What changed? The Madrid bombings.”

The Socialists might have won anyway, though probably by a smaller margin. The Socialists were gaining prior to the bombings. A poll conducted the day before the bombings showed the Socialists two points ahead. In short, the election was too close to call.

“The government tried to pin the blame on the ETA because they were afraid the voters would vote socialist if the terrorists were islamic.”

Agreed, or at least, Aznar’s People’s Party has been convicted of this in the court of Spanish public opinion.

“The government was right about that.”

For all I know, the People’s Party might have won if it had simply tried to defend its policies, rather than engage in a coverup. I trust you aren’t trying to justify the coverup here; your posting is ambiguous on that point.

“It’s not very brave to vote the way your enemies want you to.”

No, it would have been cowardly if the voters had responded to the attacks by rallying around the government and voting for a party that tried to deceive the voters.

“Just because the Socialists pormised to pull out of Iraq doesn’t mean it wasn’t a coward’s promise.”

True. Johnson did not claim that the Socialists made a “coward’s promise,” so I did not refute that claim. My objective was to respond to what Johnson actually wrote, rather than to knock down straw men.

Reply to Oyster:

“Johnson…assumes too many of us know enough of our history to understand what he’s saying without having to spell out every word. I’d like to think I know enough to understand exactly what he’s saying because I agree with him. And I won’t write a lengthy essay explaining why.”

I understand what Johnson is saying. I just think that arguments should be based on evidence rather than on name calling.

“An odd argument – since a good many people in the world DO think that those more fortunate DO have an obligation to help others and they’ve not wasted any time telling us so. But it’s up to the individual person or individual nation to decide what they think is a worthy cause.”

In that case, wouldn’t you agree that Johnson shouldn’t be bashing Spain and Ukrain for failing to believe that Iraq is a worth cause?

Feb 22, 2005 - 1:51 pm

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