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A nation divided: 150 years after Lee’s surrender, lessons still to be learned from Civil War
This week marks the 150th anniversary of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, the largest component of the Confederate Army, to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox, Va., on April 9, 1865. The remaining Confederate forces surrendered to Union authorities shortly afterward. The date is one that should be remembered by all Americans, as more than 900,000 of our ancestors died during battles and related causes during that four-year struggle.
Yet, the issues and causes of the war are rarely considered. Why? Because it is far easier and politically expedient to self-righteously portray white Southerners before 1861 as mean-spirited bigots hell-bent on perpetuating slavery than it is to honestly debate the constitutional issues that were at stake.
Since Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in November 1863, the war has been made into something it was not. He said, “Now we are engaged in a great civil war,” but it was never a civil war. Civil war is defined as a violent conflict fought between citizens of a country to seize power or to change government policies. Seizing political power or changing United States government policies were never goals of the Confederate States of America. Sovereign Southern states fought political battles within the framework of the U.S. Constitution from 1808 through 1860 to change government policies, and they failed. They felt there was no avenue left under the Constitution as a legal course of action except to secede from the Union.
For the deeper Southern states, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, the decision to secede came quickly following Lincoln’s election in 1860 (one county in Alabama never seceded). For the other Southern states, including Tennessee, a lengthy process involving statewide debates and voter referendums took place to determine the wisdom of secession.
It was a very divisive affair, splitting families and friends. During those critical months early in 1861, the new president, feeling pressure to act from powerful Northern politicians motivated not to free the slaves but by economic interests, acted rashly. Lincoln demanded that Southern governors supply 75,000 soldiers to help the U.S. Army “quell the rebellion in South Carolina.” Already in turmoil, his decision prompted the previously indecisive Southern states to respond to the tyrannical request by immediately joining the Confederate States and preparing for the Northern “invasion.” Overnight, Southern unionists became secessionists, and die-hard American patriots like Robert E. Lee cast their lots with their “countries,” which sovereign states at the time were often called. Lincoln’s actions were akin to throwing kerosene on a smoldering fire.
There was never an invasion of the North by the South to change political policies; hence, there was no civil war. Yet, because Lincoln and others like him used the term civil war to brand the Northern cause as righteous in response to what he perceived as Southern treachery and rebellion, he initiated a false perception that was perpetuated through the Northern victory and the horrors of reconstruction that wrecked the Southern states for generations afterwards. The myth continues through today by denying honest debate over the issues surrounding our bloodiest war.
Like many political causes today, the war against the South and reconstruction afterward were justified through the victors’ perceived righteousness of their cause. However, it is far more constructive to determine what is legal under our Constitution than it is to determine what is righteous.
Perhaps that is the lesson as we reflect on the war this week. Supporting a political cause should not be based on the “righteousness” of that cause, because mankind is not righteous. We are sinful creatures, and what one considers righteous, another considers demonic. Let God judge righteousness. Instead, let us learn from the tragedy by remembering and honestly debating the issues to make our nation stronger.
Roger Smith, a local author, is a frequent contributor to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.