Approximately five years ago, we built a vacation house at Lake Anna, Virginia. Lake Anna is approximately 75 miles southwest of Washington D.C. and 30 miles northwest of Richmond. I have often heard people refer to the 100 mile drive from Washington D.C. to Richmond as the longest hundred-mile drive in the United States. The contrast in surroundings is astounding. You leave the urban and developed area of Washington D.C./Northern Virginia and arrive in a much more rural surrounding in the Richmond Area. The Lake Anna area is especially rural and it contains an eclectic mix of vacation homes and full-time working farms. It is not unusual to see cows swimming in the lake while tubing or water skiing.
There are also several Civil War battlefields very close to Lake Anna. Since I am an amateur Civil War buff, I visit Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and the Battle of the Wilderness more than a normal person. In contrast to the big battlefields, several smaller battles are marked along local highways by the small, gray signs. The battles of Ox Hill, Front Royale and Winchester are marked by such signs. Again, vivid reminders that a good portion of the Civil War was fought in Virginia.
My all-time favorite "war" stop is at the Chancellorsville battlefield. More specifically, I visit often the location where General "Marsh" Robert Lee and General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson bivouacked for the last time. Jackson, one the Confederacy's most able generals, was shot by North Carolina troops during the battle and died later from complications from the wound. The location of the meeting is non-descript and if not for the markings could easily blend back into the cover of the Virginia woodlands.
But there is a true aura surrounding the site. Two of America's most brilliant and daring military leaders sat there over 150 years ago and discussed strategy. Ironically, these two notable American warriors were not planning on how to defeat America's enemies but were plotting on how to defeat America. Not that they were alone, as they schemed; Northern Generals on the other side plotted on how to kill rebels.
I was born and raised in New York but have spent the last 13 years of my life raising my family in Virginia with my wife. I have come to despise the term" Rebel." Every rebel was an American. Additionally, the same Virginia countryside that gave up their sons to fill Stonewall's 27th Virginia gave up their sons to fill the ranks of the US 29th. The 29th served honorably in both world wars and is famous for its part-filled landing on Omaha Beach during the D Day invasion. On a family trip to Normandy, I was reminded on the depth of the 29th's sacrifice when Frenchman reacted very emotionally when he saw my University of Virginia hat. He was quick to remind me how bravely the 29th had fought and sacrificed on D Day. As I said before, all rebels were Americans.
The sheer magnitude of the Chancellorsville battlefield is also daunting. Close to 200,000 Americans participated in battle and close to 30,000 died. To put 30,000 dead in perspective, it is close to 10 times the number of Americans that died during the attacks on the World Trade Center.
As I watch America become more polarized, I worry that a balanced approach to the biggest problems of our generation will elude us as a country. And I worry more that the lessons of Chancellorsville will be lost and the battle lines will be drawn again. The new lines will not be so neatly cut along geography as they were during our first war of separation. Today's lines will be drawn in every city, every town and every house in America. I shudder to guess what types of causalities such a conflict could produce.
I can only hope everyone has the common sense to tone down the rhetoric and remain civil and respectful while working through the issues. I get the sense that collective soul of the 30,000 Americans who died at Chancellorsville feels the same.
Mr. McGrath, I greatly appreciate your sentiment and call for civility in our rational discourse between all Americans.
However -- and I'm not the first to mention this -- those who fought for the CSA were *not* Americans in their own minds, though they certainly were Americans in rebellion against the lawful government of the United States in President Lincoln's and others in the Union. The Southerners viewed the CSA as a separate, sovereign nation and the CSA troops took an oath of allegiance to that "nation."
That's not to say that General Lee and General Jackson weren't both brilliant generals -- they were, and continue to be studied to this day, and not just in the U.S. Nor is it to say that many Southern soliders brought bravely and, at least by their lights, honorably.
I grew up a rural Texan, and still have land and family there, and visit there every so often from my home of many years halfway around the world. I'm old enough (soon 61) that I remember the nostalgic longing for the "good ol' days" of the Confederacy. On the south side of Old Courthouse Square in my home county, there's an arch with a Confederate soldier atop it, complete with the official CSA seal and and the inscription "OUR CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS" the Daughters of the Confederacy had erected and maintain it. (Apparently, no money was used though it is on public property.) Picture here:
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WON!
Federal law trumps state law. You lost on claiming the 10th giving you that right over 150 years ago.
THE SOUTH LOST NOW GET OVER IT OR YOU GET OUT LIKE YOU TELL US.
If this country was to break up do you think the south would survive. Those foreign companies are not going to take their BS when they tell them to turn those production lines into arms, bullet and ammo lines. They will tell them to jump off the nearest bridge and leave for greener pastures. Then the area that would do well would be those liberal sections with the population in them. The rest of the minor and unpopulated states would be more like small Europein countries like Poland was back before they turned democratic.
Tariffs would be back among the states ( countries) and those that break up the country would most likely pay the price with higher tariffs, that is if we even trade with them or want their stuff.
A state like California would trade with Asian countries just like they do now but more so. and we are the food basket and put some heavy tariffs on Texas and the south. New Year with West Europe what does those southern middle land lock states have to offer.
Texas would survive only because it is not land locked.
The truth is that the discussions around dinner tables and water coolers, however polarized they may be, are completely irrelevant. The system is rigged, and the wealthy few that own it win regardless of who gets elected. They allow us the illusion that our votes count and our passion for the issues can make a difference, distracting us from the reality that they bypass elections by buying the elected. They pit us against each other with ideology, liberal versus conservative, black versus white, man versus woman, all to ensure that the discussion never becomes rich versus poor.
2011 NYC, NY - In a show of solidarity and contempt for ridiculous government rule, unfair taxation, and corruption rampant in government, a band of PATRIOTS stormed the streets of NY in a peaceful protest. They were branded as beatniks, criminals, and terrorists by the American government and immediately dealt with by arrests and assaults with pepper spray along with some batons to various skulls.
We've lost our freaking minds....
"Conservatives without Conscience" by John Dean
"The Coming of the Third Reich" by Richard Evans
"Broken Government" by John Dean
To put it very bluntly, no country can survive, if roughly a quarter of the citizens are not willing to participate in good faith in the greater society in which they live, and would rather the entire country come crashing down, if they can't have their way.
The author's point about civility in public discourse is well taken. But I am annoyed with those who glorify the south or apologize for what they stood for. The south deserved to lose.
It was only the ultra-Right lunatic fringe that so unfortunately took over the south, after decades of controlling the media and scheming against their government, that brought the terrible catastrophe of civil war on our nation. Loyal men who fought in the U.S. forces against the insurgents admired their courage but rightly considered them misguided by wicked men.
The pity is that these men were never brought to justice after their defeat, and so their legends still persist. Shakespeare thought "the good that men do is oft interred with their bones" but in American history, it is their evil that is forgotten.
When con artist politicians tell us today that "government is the enemy" they are repeating the slaveholders' obscene lie that the government that has protected the liberty of more people for a longer time than any other in human history is actually the enemy of freedom - George Orwell would be proud of this inversion of reality.
The Forest For The Trees...
I think you have very superficial understanding of our Civil War and the events that have led us to be polarized once again. If you would take the time to look beyond the horrors of the battlefield you would find that the civil war was about state versus a central government. It seems after all the loss of brave men we would have not foregotten the lessons learned.
Unfortunately, the progressive movement of the 20th and 21st centuries once again has put individual and states' rights at odds with those who want to use the power of a central govenment to advance their progressive agendas. The divide has been pushed further apart by those that have a much sinister agenda in turning this country toward a Eurpopean brand of socialism.
We are at a tipping point. We can end up in another civil war with those on one side who want to keep the constitutional republic intact against the other side who want a a European style socialism. The only way a confrontation can be avoided is that we start electing a leadership who is able to restore principles of individual responsibilty and accountability throughout the very institutions that have psychologically crippled the last two generations of individuals by having thebm believe that the government is their nanny and can take from the states and individuals who have earned prosperity to serve the crippled..
Warm regards,
Michael Winters
The Civil War was fought because the southern traitors insisted on maintaining HUMAN BEINGS in slavery. Who was on the side of "individual rights" again Michael? States rights has always been the spin the south has put on their treason. Slavery was their real motive. As always, the wealthy and powerful in the south were able sell the rubes on the myth that their rights were somehow at stake. Even today, the south by a large margin is easily manipulated along the same lines.
Progressives are trying to hold the line against those who would turn the United States into an oligarchy/plutocracy. The only way this confrontation can be avoided is that we start electing leadership capable of restoring a sense of shared responsibility and sacrifice throughout the very institutions that have been systematically crippled by a group of people who believe in an every man for himself fairy tale.
Just as now, "states rights" mean the right to discriminate, to invade women's lives and bodies, and to pollute and plunder the environment for profit. Accountability, indeed.
So even though slave ownership was not as common as we imagine, the South's 1% managed to get everyone else to fight and die for them. This was accomplished through laws but also through relentless propaganda stoking racial resentments, fears, and concerns. This was a deliberate strategy the South adopted after an early experiment mixing black slaves with white indentured servants. That didn't work because the black slaves and the white indentured servants tended to make common cause again the wealthy masters. So the wealthy masters created the virus of extreme racism that still infects the DNA of poor whites.
A well-written account of that is here: http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/spl/thandekawhiting.html
African-born slaves and European-0born indentured servants collaborated throughout the Anglo-American colonies.
The answer to the problem, obvious if unspoken and only gradually recognized, was racism, to separate dangerous free whites from dangerous slave blacks by a screen of racial contempt."
Racial contempt would function as a wall between poor whites and blacks, protecting masters and their slave-produced wealth from both lower-class whites and slaves the new laws led the poor whites to identify with the ruling elite,
The new multi-class "white race" that emerged from the Virginia laws wasn’t biologically engineered but socially constructed…And is in full operation in the minds of whites today passed down through the generations
1. One is that the two parties are equally culpable when it comes to inflammatory rhetoric and extremist positions.
The Democratic Party is positioned farther toward the center than at any point in my lifetime. The Republican Party is positioned farther to the right of right wing, as in "ready to jump off the cliff right wing" than at any previous time in my life. "Extremist" rhetoric, therefore, can only be generated by the GOP, the one party that has gone off and adopted a truly extremist agenda and the Democratic Party's is the only remaining party that can reasonably be described as "mainstream." The GOP's efforts to convince people of the opposite does not withstand objective evaluation, but unfortunately, that commodity is in painfully short supply at various media outlets.
2. The other is that both parties are equally unwilling to compromise.
The GOP has shown again and again that it is not interested in compromise, but only the total capitulation and defeat of its opponents. The Democrats, for their part, have shown all to many times that they are totally willing to compromise, even the most sacred of principles, if it means gaining political points from the fat cats who bankroll their campaigns.