The Civil War Ended Slavery and Saved the Union, But Many of Its Battles Are Still Being Fought
A black soldier guards artillery pieces
at City Point, Va., in 1865. Photographs
by Civil War Photograph Collection (Library
of Congress)
“We cannot escape history,” Abraham Lincoln famously declared in a message sent to Congress in 1862. He firmly believed that the Civil War generation would be “remembered in spite of ourselves.”
A century and a half later, the nation-changing saga of slavery, secession, rebellion, emancipation and reunification, and the people caught up in the bloody struggle to redefine America, remain as vivid and compelling as ever—perhaps even more so. And in some cases, the issues over which they fought so bitterly remain unresolved.
In early 2010, as a case in point, Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia heralded the approach of the Civil War sesquicentennial as an opportunity to celebrate states’ rights. As governor of a state long identified with the Confederacy, he ignited a firestorm of criticism for ignoring not only the terrible impact of slavery on U.S. history but also the millions of living African-Americans who trace their roots to enslaved ancestors. McDonnell promptly apologized and rededicated the anniversary to slavery’s millions of victims, and to an honest exploration of the issue that broke the country apart.
But that has not stopped “Southern heritage” bloggers from insisting that what the Civil War really accomplished was not freedom but abuse of presidential power, global adventurism, subjugation of white voters and nationalism run amok. More than sevenscore years after the last of the war’s 600,000 dead breathed their last, the divisiveness that boiled over into conflict remains for many Americans an unresolved part of our culture.
Read all the articles in our special report:
- An Inescapable Conflict
- Lincoln and Davis: A Friendship That Made History
- Secession: How the South Nearly Won
- Lincoln’s War Powers: Part Constitution, Part Trust
- The Dawn of a Republican Court: Lincoln’s Justices
- The End of War and Slavery Yields a New Racial Order
- The Conspirators: Tried by Military Commission
- Gallery: Civil War-Era Legal Figures
The Civil War centennial, observed in 1961-65 by a nation struggling over how—and in some cases whether—to complete Lincoln’s “unfinished work,” failed to address many of these complex issues. Instead, the centennial highlighted battlefield re-enactments and hollow rhetoric. Many Southerners resisted exploring the slavery issue, arguing that it would encourage the growing civil rights revolution. History took a backseat to politics.
Today’s generation of legal scholars and historians—many of them boys and girls during that 100th anniversary, have an opportunity to address honestly and thoroughly the issues that still exacerbate wounds that have never really healed. The issues of presidential power, states’ rights, constitutional safeguards, civil rights and civil liberties have never seemed more relevant.
Addressing these issues now vivifies the history we cannot, and must not, escape. Words spoken by Lincoln still hold true: “The struggle of today is not altogether for today. It is for a vast future also.”
Click to read the rest of “An Inescapable Conflict” from the April issue of the ABA Journal.
