Three times today I began lectures with an apology. It is not the usual professorial apology for health or logistic reasons. What I say is that in this lecture, more than others, I will get my “We” and “They” mixed up. Like many Americans, the civil war is a period of conflicting loyalties, emotions and opinions. In one sense, I am an officer of the Army of the United States. There is no limitation to my oath of allegiance. I have that flag in my classroom, on the front of my house and in my heart. I take my hat off and salute when in its presence. The United States must always be a “we.” In any real sense, without any excuse that matters, Southerners in control of many of the slave states became traitors and rebels on April 12, 1861 when they fired on the flag of my country. They became illegal custodians of states months before when they attempted withdraw from our government. There is no escape clause in the Constitution nor in the Treaty of Cooperation, which we moderns call the Articles of Confederation. When we left Britain we did so as a group, not as individual states. Then on the other hand my grandfather was born in 1850 in Washington County, Alabama amongst intertwined families of large land holdings and many, many slaves. By 1860 most Hollingers and their cousins had moved to Mobile where they spent the war. Hollingers from Washington County fought on both sides – some for the Confederacy and several, as escaped slaves for the USCT. My southern brethren served their home bravely and well. The USCT Hollinger was mentioned in dispatches. Robert E. Lee is a personal hero of mine and his portrait is in my home and office. Because of who I am, I have sympathy for the Southern forces if not for their cause. The “Cause” that was lost was Slavery and Southern Independence which was about slavery. There is no doubt about that – but the impact of 1619 to 1865 of what developed into Race Based Slavery and a group of people kept in the “Animals in the shape of people” status still affects us all. Defeated Confederates terrorized the South during the attempts to allow Blacks a role in their own government or just the simple fact of being American citizens. So here I am trying to present the crucial turning point in the Modernist democratic industrial society inside the framework of heroic slaughter. Much like trying to present Gen Monk as Roundhead and Cavalier, I am trying to present the old, new and the conflict between these two great and successful societies … when most care more about what is on the test. The film clip is very emotional and, frankly, other than the two spots of the W&L campus, the best part of a very bad movie. youtube/watch?v=8XtNTJhyEYo
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 19:35:51 +0000
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