I had a thought prompted by an article in The American Spectator a couple of days ago. In it, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. observes about the American Civil War that,
… the monuments to only one side remain, and many of the ignoramuses who are tearing down monuments have their eyes too on Union leaders whose reputations they sully with the slander of racism. There was racism to be sure on both sides in times past, and there were other forms of intolerance: religious intolerance, ethnic intolerance, and intolerance of immigrants, for instance. Today, intolerance is still around, but it is being taught in the nation’s classrooms. There, intolerance is being taught under the guise of progressivism with perfumed words such as diversity, equity, and inclusion. Intolerance, apparently, you always have with you.
He’s referring, of course, to the grotesque specter of the wild, woke and irrational antifa and BLM fascists who rampaged across our nation a couple of years ago in the wake of George Floyd’s death. Shortly afterward I chronicled the number of statues and monuments that were torn down or defaced. Several of them were men from the Confederacy like Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis, but others were from the Union including Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.
After the initial spasms, several cities and counties permanently removed statues honoring heroes of South. According to a CNN article in 2022, “73 Confederate monuments were removed or renamed in 2021,” leaving 723 across the US.
Last year, a towering statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee was removed in Richmond, Virginia, and added to the growing list of Confederate symbols that had been taken down across the country. This week, Richmond began the process of removing the pedestals that once held the monuments to the Confederacy, which included Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Jefferson Davis and others, according to CNN affiliate WRIC.
Of course, the vandalism forced all of us to wrestle with a fair question: why do modern Americans tolerate monuments to men who were racists and who fought to keep the institution of slavery? Until then had it ever been seriously considered?
Here’s my thought: the answer is to be found in the final line of Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address.
“With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
After beating the Confederate army, Lincoln faced the task of healing a severely divided nation. He was extending an olive branch to the Confederate south, of which Lee would surrender his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865.
Healing the country, rather than vengeance, directed Grant’s and the Lincoln administration’s actions. There would be no mass imprisonments or executions, no parading of defeated enemies through Northern streets. Lincoln’s priority—shared by Grant—was “to bind up the nation’s wounds” and unite the country together again as a functioning democracy under the Constitution; extended retribution against the former Confederates would only slow down the process.
For Lincoln there would be no gloating, no shaming, no exulting in the defeat of his countrymen. He would not take out his anger and frustration on his kinsmen; he would allow them the dignity and respect due a noble foe. It started with Ulysses S. Grant allowing General Lee and his men to return to their homes and letting the officers, cavalrymen, and artillerymen keep their swords and horses if the men agreed to lay down their arms and abide by federal law.
It was as if two brothers had gotten into a fist fight and one finally gave up. The victor, rather than relishing his victory, hated that the fight had to be had, and extended a hand to help his brother up. Putting his arm around him, they walked into the house and got cleaned up. After all, they were members of the same family and would have to go on living together.
That’s why we allowed the memorials to be built. It was part of an extended act of forgiveness and respect for the members of our family who had made a principled, but misguided and ultimately, futile stand.
Our modern fascists, however, are determined to do what Lincoln refused to do: take vengeance. They are punishing in absentia those whom Lincoln refused to punish. They have withdrawn the offer of a “just and lasting peace” and instead have taken out their anger on both sides of the issue that had been settled nearly 160 years ago.
The South’s decision to defend slavery was indefensible. But they were Americans, our countrymen. We took them to the woodshed, but tended their wounds after breaking them of their poor habit.
If only we could still see it that way.
Have a good weekend.
