Charlottesville

[JJamiekinder]

I wanted to reach out to a forum of smart, intelligent folks who also have a real sense of history and I knew my fellow Lincoln assassination community would have a true dialogue concerning the events of the past week in Charlottesville and around the country. What seems to be missing in all of this is just that; a true conversation between people who can peacefully exchange views and perspectives. As some of you know from meeting me at the assassination conference, I have been a middle and high school social studies teacher, so anytime the conversation of “teaching history” or “discussing our past” comes to the forefront of the national conversation I think teachers should join in the dialogue whenever possible. I must admit that I have mixed emotions concerning the taking down of Confederate symbols, statues and the “cleansing” of our history.
On one side, I completely understand that the African-American community and others want these statues in public places taken down, as it can appear as though it actually glorifies what the Confederacy stood for. And to their point I agree with Susan Higginbotham that if my ancestors came over in chains I would probably want them down as well. To that end, I think that if they upset people that much then they should take them down in public squares and public spaces and move them to places where they are within the correct historical context such as a battlefield or museum (Could you imagine Gettysburg and Picket’s Charge with no Southern statues?). But in many ways, this debate actually signals a greater problem in our country, which is that we as an American society do not actually understand our past.
I am of the belief that most simply think the only cause of the Civil War was entirely based upon slavery and nothing else. But to simplify it in that manner is to completely miss the true mark of causation. There is no doubt that the biggest underlying cause of the conflict was slavery, but there were social, political and economic threads intertwined within that cause as well. In Lincoln’s first inaugural address, he essentially stated that he would not veto legislation currently in congress (Corwin Amendment) that would have constitutionally guaranteed slavery where it existed. Most do not know this and most histories do not address it because it does not go with the deity personifications of the Lincoln who is our American hero. Americans like their heroes clean and without refute. But to pass over the reality that Lincoln was a nationalist first and an emancipationist second is to not fully understand the man and the times he lived and governed in.
Civil War professor James I. Robertson from Virginia Tech points out in Tenting Tonight that less than 6 % of the South owned slaves and that the majority of the volunteer army did not own slaves. This is why those that took up arms against the North usually saw it as a “"a rich man's war and a poor man's fight." These men fought for various reasons such as upholding state sovereignty or simply a regional duty they felt, much aligned with Robert E. Lee’s reasons for taking up arms.
The reasoning behind the pure belief that Lincoln was a tyrant and the industrial North was usurping their power to infringe upon the South what THEY believed to be right (Remember that slavery was constitutionally protected) was a very strong and real perspective below the Mason Dixon line and slavery was very much involved in that. But to disregard the fact that to many this was the Second American Revolution, and they felt they legally had the right to break the contract is to minimalize the context of the times.
Slavery was an evil and vile institution left behind by the American founders for this new generation of Americans to solve but one that would have its answer intertwined into the financial well being of a whole society. Morally, the question could never be asked, but constitutionally and legally it can.
Although, the concept and practice of slavery in America was in contradiction from the founder’s true ideals of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, the American South was in its complete and legal right to leave the agreement it had made with their Northern brethren. The Confederate States who seceded from the Union and rebelled against the existing and contemporary American Constitution, with all its flaws, were completely within their legal right to do so.
The Declaration of Independence, although not a legal document, was referenced and used as an example of the very rights the founders had made for exercising their own departure from England. As the document states; “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security”. In their eyes it was their duty to revolt, to lash back at what was threatening their homes, their property and their way of life. They believed it was not only an obligation but also their right to “institute” what they considered a “new Government”. Southern states understood that the time had come “for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another”.
The Constitution of the United States of America had no article or amendment that prohibited or outlawed any state from seceding from the union. Unfortunately, the document does not have one that affirms the right for a state to secede from the Union. But the Constitution of the United States does have the 10th Amendment that states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
If there was no constitutional law prohibiting secession then the onus fell upon the states to decide their own fate as the 10th Amendment left this power ‘reserved to the States respectively’ This in effect, spells out the legal right of southern secession regardless of their reasoning for revolt.
My whole point in this is that I teach my students that there are no real “right” or “wrong” answers to history, there is only opinion of what happened backed and supported by evidence from proper sources. It is up to us as an American society to take our past, warts and all and place it within the proper context and place from which to remember and learn from it. Remember, the majority of Confederate statues came into place after the turn of the century by societies such as the Daughters of the Confederacy when the notion of the “Lost Cause” helped to ease tensions between North and South but also solidify the failure of reconstruction and help issue-in Jim Crow laws. This point should not be taken for granted when considering the statues in downtowns across the South.
All we have is our history and not learning from it could be our biggest mistake as a society. My only point is that we may just have to “move the classroom” a bit so everyone can truly understand where we came from and how we got here.