From the C.S.A. to the R.S.A.?

As you know, C.S.A. stands for the Confederate States of America, which was formed 160 years ago. Here I am raising the question of whether now in the 2020s the U.S.A. may be headed toward becoming the R.S.A., the Republican States of America.

The Forming of the C.S.A.

In February 1861, seven U.S. states formed a new “nation,” calling it the Confederate States of America. Those states were Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas. Four more states (Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia) joined the C.S.A. later.

Back in 2004, Kansas University professor Kevin Willmott was the director and writer of the movie C.S.A. It was a “mockumentary” that portrayed an alternate history wherein the Confederacy won the Civil War and the Union became the Confederate States of America. 

Although it is certainly not depicted in the same way as in Willmott’s movie, American historian Heather Cox Richardson has authored a book titled How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America (2020).

I have been on the waiting list for a library copy of Richardson’s book, so I have not read any of it yet—but I read her daily “Letters from an American,” which can be accessed here, and have learned much about U.S. history from her. (I highly recommend her daily “letter.”)

As depicted both in the creative movie and the historical book mentioned above, it is clear that the influence of the C.S.A. certainly did not end with its defeat at the end of the Civil War.

The Forming of the R.S.A.?

The influence of the C.S.A. seems to be “alive and well” in much of the Republican Party today. All the C.S.A. states of the 1860s voted for Trump in 2016 and all except Georgia did the same in 2020—although to this day Trump and a majority of Republicans believe the election there was “stolen.”

This article is not a condemnation of the Republican Party as such. The country needs a strong two-party system, with moderate Republicans who are willing to work with Democrats for the good of all who live in the nation—as well as for the good of the people of the world.

Oligarchy is “a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes” (Merriam-Webster). Sadly, this seems to be the direction the Republican Party has been moving, especially since 2016.

Thus, I am writing this in opposition to the Republican politicians who seem to be greedy for power and willing to do anything necessary to achieve or maintain political power, even if it means largely destroying democracy.

Even though I think they are mistaken, we have to acknowledge that on the other side there are many supporters of the Republican Party who sincerely believe that the Democrats are “enemies,” and that drastic means may be necessary to save the country from tyranny and/or from “socialism.”

The power-hungry Republicans, beginning with Donald J. Trump and Mitch McConnell, seem to have done a good job in selling their skewed views to the Republican base, with the considerable help they have received from Fox News and their “opinion-makers” such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.

Through voter suppression, gerrymandering, and voting results controlled by state legislatures, Republicans may well gain the majority in Congress in 2022 and the presidency in 2024. Those victories may be semi-permanent, leading to the forming of a de facto R.S.A., even if that name is not used.**

So, What Can Be Done?

If we want the USA to survive and not become the RSA, what can we do? Here are three succinct suggestions:

1) Keep advocating truth-telling, civilly opposing falsehoods and misleading statements, always championing peace and justice.

2) Keep voting for political leaders most concerned for the welfare of the populace, especially of those most oppressed by social or economic discrimination.

3) Keep being hopeful, firm in your belief that, in time, “The Wrong shall fail, / The Right prevail,” as expressed in Longfellow’s Christmas carol.

_____

** I hadn’t seen Republican States of America used anywhere until after I had finished writing this article, but here is what I then found in a 5/7/21 Washington Post piece: “Trump has emerged from his West Palm Beach hibernation — refashioning himself as the president of the Republican States of America.”

“The Tragedy at Buffalo”: Reflections on McKinley’s Assassination

William McKinley was the third U.S. President to be assassinated—in just 36 years (plus a few months). He was shot 120 years ago on September 6 and died eight days later. What was behind that tragic event?  

Pres. McKinley shot on 9/6/1901

The Making of Pres. McKinley

William McKinley, Jr., was born in Ohio in January 1843. When he was still 18, he enlisted as a private in the Civil War—and 36 years later became the last President to have fought in that horrendous war.

Mustered out of the army in 1865, McKinley was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives just eleven years later. After six terms in the House, he served as the Governor of Ohio for two two-year terms.

In the presidential election of 1896, Republican McKinley defeated Democrat / Populist William Jennings Bryan and became the 25^th POTUS. Four years later, he was re-elected by defeating Bryan for the second time with 51.6% of the popular vote, up slightly from 1896.

McKinley’s election was due, in large part, to the financial support he received from the wealthy industrialists of the country. Bryan was the “commoner,” who had the support of the working class but with limited resources. The moneyed class won the elections for McKinley.

In his classic bestselling book, A People’s History of the United States (1980; rev. ed., 2003), Howard Zinn wrote that in 1896 “the corporations and the press mobilized” for McKinley “in the first massive use of money in an election campaign” (p. 295).

McKinley’s Presidency

McKinley’s support by the wealthy paid good returns for them. Early in the second year of his presidency, the U.S. went to war with Spain.

Three years before McKinley’s re-election in 1900 with Theodore Roosevelt as the Vice-President, the latter wrote to a friend, “I should welcome any war, for I think this country needs one.” And, indeed, that very next year (1898) the Spanish-American War began, and Roosevelt was a hero in it.

John Jay, McKinley’s Secretary of State, called it "a splendid little war," partly because it propelled the United States into a world power—with world markets. Indeed, under McKinley’s presidency in 1898, the American Empire emerged.*

Zinn quotes the (in)famous Emma Goldman writing a few years later that “the lives, blood, and money of the American people were used to protect the interests of the American capitalists” (p. 321).**

Indeed, the “military-industrial complex” was a reality far before Pres. Eisenhower used that term sixty years ago in January 1961.

Shortly after the brief war with Spain ended, the Philippine-American War started in February 1899 and was still in progress when McKinley was shot and killed.

McKinley’s Assassination

Leon Czolgosz was a Polish-American who, by the time he was 28 years old, believed, probably for good reason, that there was a great injustice in American society, an inequality that allowed the wealthy to enrich themselves by exploiting the poor.

Early in September 1901, Czolgosz traveled from Michigan to Buffalo, New York, where the President was attending the Pan-American Exposition (a World’s Fair). There he shot McKinley twice at point-blank range.

Czolgosz had clearly been influenced by the fiery, anarchist rhetoric of Goldman (1869~1940). But just as Nat Turner had misused the words of the Bible (see my 8/25 blog post), he misused the words of Goldman, who advocated dramatic social change, but not violence.

Even before McKinley died on Sept. 12, Goldman was arrested and charged with conspiracy. She denied any direct connection with the assassin and was released two weeks later. On Oct. 6 she wrote a powerful essay titled “The Tragedy at Buffalo.”

Goldman stated clearly, “I do not advocate violence,” but wrote in forceful opposition to “economic slavery, social superiority, inequality, exploitation, and war.” And she concluded that her heart went out to Czolgosz “in deep sympathy, and to all the victims of a system of inequality.”

At the end of October, Czolgosz was executed by electric chair—and Goldman continued advocating for the people Czolgosz cared about so deeply and sought to help in an extremely misguided manner.

_____

* “American Empire, 1898~2018,” my 1/15/18 blog post, elaborates this matter.

** Zinn wrote “Emma,” a play about Goldman that was first performed in 1977. I found Zinn’s play quite informative and of considerable interest. 

Thank God for Uncle Tom(s)!

It is probably apocryphal, but the story is told that when Pres. Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe near the beginning of the Civil War, he declared, “So this is the little lady who started this great war.”

Think with me now about this “little lady,” who was born 210 years ago (on June 14, 1811), and about Uncle Tom, her best known character.

The Power of the Beecher Family

The Beecher family was highly prominent in the U.S. during the nineteenth century. Lyman Beecher (1775~1863) was one of the best-known preachers in the country, and eight years after his death the still extant Lyman Beecher Lectureship on Preaching at Yale Divinity School was established.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813~87), the eighth of Lyman’s thirteen children, also became one of the premier preachers of the 19th century. In fact, Debby Applegate’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Henry is titled, The Most Famous Man in America (2006).

But neither her father nor her famous little brother exerted as much influence on American society as did Harriet Beecher (1811~96).

She married Lane Seminary professor Calvin Stowe in 1836, and because of one of the many books she authored, the name Harriet Beecher Stowe became a household name.

The Power of the Pen

“The pen is mightier than the sword” were words found in a 1839 play written by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and those words have been used innumerable times since then.

There was a lot of might in Harriet Beecher’s pen as she wrote her powerful novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Before being issued as a complete book, it was published serially in National Era, an abolitionist newspaper published weekly from 1847 to 1860.  

The first chapter of what became the famous book of Harriet Beecher Stowe (HBS) was printed in National Era 170 years ago, on June 5, 1851. (Click here to read the first chapter of HBS’s story as printed in that issue.)

The entire book was published the following year and immediately became a bestseller. In fact, it became the best-selling novel and the second best-selling book of the 19^th century, following the Bible.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s, giving rise to the words attributed to Lincoln referring to HBS as the little lady who started the big war.

The Power of “Uncle Tom”

In HBS’s novel, Uncle Tom was a loyal Christian who died a martyr’s death. I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin about 25 years ago, and I remember how impressed I was with Uncle Tom. Indeed, his powerful personality as created by HBS helped forge the determination of many to rid the nation of slavery.

But sadly, Uncle Tom morphed first into a servile old man and then to a racial epithet hurled at African American men deemed, by other Black people, to have betrayed their race.

The story of that unfortunate transition is told by Canadian university professor Cheryl Thompson in her book, Uncle: Race, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Loyalty, published in March. She seeks to show how from martyr to insult, “Uncle Tom” has influenced two centuries of racial politics.

Black writers such as James Baldwin, among many others, came to use the name “Uncle Tom” to refer to Black men who were too submissive to Whites. Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Barack Obama have all been accused of being Uncle Toms.

What a shame that the name of the powerful Black man created by HBS was turned into a slur!

But just as the Uncle Tom of the “little lady’s” novel was an important instigator of freedom for Blacks in the 1850s, so have many men called Uncle Toms in modern times been powerful proponents for freedom and justice for all.

So, yes, thank God for Uncle Tom—and for Uncle Toms such as those noted above!

Celebrating Juneteenth

June 19 is a special day that, unfortunately, is overlooked and/or disregarded widely by the dominant culture in the U.S. But Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19 each year, is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the U.S.  

The Beginning of Juneteenth

The Civil War officially ended on June 2, 1865. But, much earlier, the Emancipation Proclamation became official on January 1, 1863, so the slaves in Texas were technically freed on that date.

It was not until June 19, 1865, however, that Major General Gordon Granger and his Union soldiers landed at Galveston, Texas, and announced that the Civil War had ended and that all enslaved persons were free.

Granger read “General Order Number 3” to his audience in Galveston. It began,

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.

That was the beginning of Juneteenth.

Large celebrations on June 19 began in 1866 and continued regularly into the early 20^th century. Throughout much of the 20^th century, though, there was a decline in the celebration of Juneteenth.

But then in 1980, Juneteenth became a legal state holiday in Texas. By 2000, only three other states had followed Texas’ example. But now Juneteenth is recognized as a state holiday or special day of observance in 47 of the 50 states and in D.C.

The Celebration of Juneteenth

One of the most meaningful events I attended last year was the local Juneteenth banquet, which I mentioned in this blog post. Unfortunately, because of the covid-19 pandemic, there will not be a local in-person gathering this year and few nationwide.

But I am wondering if the strong opposition to, and removal of, Confederate statues and other memorials cannot be seen as this year’s Juneteenth celebration.

Juneteenth is sometimes called Black Independence Day. Certainly, for the enslaved people in the U.S. before 1865, July 4 had little significance, for as Frederick Douglass asked in his famous July 5, 1852, speech, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"

It goes without saying that after the Revolutionary War there were no monuments or statues to King George III of the UK or any British monarch or military man in the U.S. There was no honoring of the opponents of freedom.

Since Juneteenth is the celebration of freedom for the formerly enslaved people of the U.S. and their descendants, why should statues and monuments honoring the military men who fought in opposition to their freedom be allowed on public property?

Ideally, those monuments should be removed in a legal and orderly manner, not by “lynching.” But they should be removed—and, yes, that is a way that Juneteenth can be meaningfully celebrated this year.

The Antithetical Celebration of Juneteenth

As the mainstream news media widely reported last week, DJT was scheduled to go to Tulsa, Oklahoma, for a political rally on June 19.

Plans for a racist President, who a WaPo columnist recently said “might go down in history as the last president of the Confederacy,” to hold a rally on Juneteenth in a city marking the 99^th anniversary of terrible white-on-black violence raised the hackles of many.

Consequently, late last Friday night DJT tweeted that the MAGA rally would be postponed a day and be held on June 20. Yet, that also happens to be the day of many Juneteenth celebrations since it is a Saturday—and even downtown Tulsa (see here) is planning its Juneteenth celebration from 11 a.m. on the 19^th to midnight on the 20^th.

No, holding a political rally in Tulsa on June 19 or 20 is NOT a proper way to celebrate Juneteenth.

But, seeking/supporting the removal of statues and/or monuments that honor those who fought against the freedom, equality, and dignity of enslaved people—or the removal of names of blatant racists on public facilities—is one excellent way to celebrate Juneteenth this year.

The Election of 1868 (and 2018)

Since my hometown is Grant City (Mo.), I have long had an interest in, but not much knowledge of, Ulysses S. Grant. My recent reading about him, though, has convinced me that he is a man who should not be taken for granted and that his election in 1868 was one of great importance.

The Election of 1868

Even though my Oct. 30, 2016, blog article was about the presidential election of 1868 (see here), I didn’t write much about Grant, who was the winner of that election and thus became the 18^th POTUS.

For whatever reason, during most of my lifetime Grant seems not to have received the attention and the accolades he has deserved. But he and his accomplishments as President should not be taken lightly.

In one of the most important elections in U.S. history, 150 years ago on November 3, 1868, Grant won a decisive victory that was of great significance to the nation.

His election was especially significant for the American Indians and for the “freedmen,” the former enslaved persons who had a new birth of freedom because of the Civil War.

The Background of the 1868 Election

Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Ohio in 1822, the son of a tanner—and a fervent abolitionist. When he was 16, Ulysses, the name by which he was called, was nominated to West Point by the district’s U.S. Representative—but his name was mistakenly given as Ulysses S., and the name stuck.

After graduation, Grant distinguished himself as a daring and competent soldier during the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. He left the army in 1854 but joined again in 1861, the beginning year of the Civil War.

Grant distinguished himself as a war hero, and after being elevated to the rank of lieutenant general in 1864, he forced and then received Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender in April 1865.

Results of the 1868 Election

Because of his great popularity across the nation—and it has been said that he was more popular in the 19^th century then Lincoln—Grant was nominated unanimously as the Republican candidate for the presidency in 1868.

In spite of his political opponents calling Grant a drunk and accusing him of trying to “Africanize” the South, he won the 1868 election decisively: 214 to 80 electoral votes.

Among the premier accomplishments of Grant’s presidency are these:

** Organized (in April 1869) the Board of Indian Commissioners; this was Grant’s attempt to formulate a new humane policy towards Native American tribes. While not without problems, this “Peace Policy” was a great advancement in the way American Indians had been treated in the U.S. up to this time.

** Ratification (in February 1870) of the 15^th Amendment giving the freed slaves the right to vote.

** Passage of the “Ku Klux Klan” Act (in April 1871) that curtailed the activities of the KKK and other white supremacy organizations; this bill is also called the Civil Rights Act of 1871.  

(Actual 1868 campaign poster with an explanation added)

And What about the Election of 2018?

While not a presidential election, U.S. voters will go to the polls tomorrow (Nov. 6) to determine whether the racist, xenophobic, pro-white supremacy policies and rhetoric of the current administration are going to remain unchecked by a supportive Congress or whether there will be a better balance of power in the U.S. government.

The election of 1868 proved greatly beneficial for people of color then, and I fervently hope and pray that tomorrow’s election will similarly turn out well for people of color, immigrants, Jews, and the poor in contemporary society.

For further reading:

Two recommended books for further study of Grant (and the election of 1868):
** Grant (2002) by Jean Edward Smith, which presents Grant much more positively than most biographies up to that time.
** Grant (2017) by Ron Chernow, the latest, highly-acclaimed, 1000-page tome about Grant.

Was DJT Right about “Both Sides”?

The President has been much criticized for his comments about “both sides” in his remarks about this month’s tragedy in Charlottesville. But let’s think a bit about his assertion that there were “some very fine people on both sides.” Was he perhaps right about that?

A Timely Quote

When I was still in college I remember hearing, and quoting, the following statement by American historian J.T. Adams (1878-1949), although it has also been attributed to various people, including Robert Louis Stevenson:  

I thought that statement was true in the 1950s—and I still do.

Adams’s pithy words are important for us especially in our relationships with the people closest to us—at home, school, church, and community.

But are they also applicable to all people, perhaps without exception.

A Time to Reflect

We are all beset by the tendency to condemn those we disagree with—and we often do that from a position of moral superiority or self-righteousness. Further, the stronger a fundamentalist (on the right or the left) one is, the stronger their certainty becomes.

Consider just one example from the far right. “The Wilkow Majority” is a regular program on the Patriot channel of Sirius XM satellite radio. It has been hosted by Andrew Wilkow since 2006.

At the end of each segment of his provocative program, Wilkow (b. 1972) proclaims, “We’re right! They’re wrong! End of story!”

What arrogance!

But, to be fair, there are some on the political/theological left who are similarly arrogant, even though they might not express that arrogance so blatantly.

Regardless of our theological or political position on issues, each of us needs to take time to reflect upon our own culpability. It is important to acknowledge the bad we find within ourselves as well as upon the good we see in others—even in those with whom we strongly disagree.

A Time to Resist

So DJT was probably right when he said that there were “some very fine people on both sides.” That was probably true in Charlottesville earlier this month as well as in the Civil War—and also in the Second World War.

General Robert E. Lee was a good and honorable man in many ways—but so were many of the men who fought for Germany or for Japan in WWII. Lee was not a demon, and neither were most of the Germans and Japanese who fought against the Allies.

There is good in the worst of us and bad in the best of us. But that certainly doesn’t mean that good people don’t sometimes do bad things, terribly bad things.

That was certainly the case with Lee, who was the leading general of the Confederate States Army that killed over 400,000 Union soldiers.

Those killed on both sides may have been Americans, but some were citizens of the United States of America and others had become citizens of the Confederate States of America—an alt-nation with its own constitution and president.

The CSA fought against and sought to defeat the USA as much as the Germans and Japanese did in the 1940s.

The basic problem is what people do, not whether or not they are “good people.” Whenever people, good or not, do bad things, they need to be opposed. Thus, there was ample reason for people, good and bad, to fight against Lee and his soldiers during the Civil War.

Accordingly, even if there were some “very fine people” among the alt-right white supremacists and KKK members who marched in Charlottesville, there was/is ample reason to resist them resolutely and to denounce them soundly for fanning the flames of racism.

Monumental Decisions

“A 121-year-old Confederate monument came down. This Kentucky town put it back up.” That was the title of the top story on the front page of the Aug. 21 Washington Post. I read that article with great interest, for I used to live near that Kentucky town.

Controversy over Confederate Monuments

The violent incidents in Charlottesville, Vir., on Aug. 11-12 at the Unite the Right rally have greatly heightened the debate concerning Confederate monuments and statues in the U.S.

That rally, as most of you know, was held in opposition to the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. It was erected in 1924 in a Charlottesville city park, which was subsequently named Lee Park.

In the first week of June this year, Lee Park’s name was changed to Emancipation Park. The rally in Charlottesville was in protest against the announced plan to remove the statue of Lee from the park.

The drama in that Virginia city is linked to the strong movement across the U.S. to remove Confederate flags, statues, and monuments from public places. That movement gained considerable strength following the tragic June 2015 shooting in the African-American church in Charleston, S.C.

Moving the Louisville Monument

The Confederate Monument in Louisville was a 70-foot-tall monument that was erected in 1895 on the campus of the University of Louisville. It was designed to commemorate the sacrifice of Confederate veterans who died in the Civil War.

During the last two months of 2016, the Louisville monument was moved to Brandenburg, Ky., an Ohio River town about 45 miles west of Louisville. Some 400 people attended the rededication ceremony, held on Memorial Day this year.

Brandenburg is the seat of Meade County, a small county of just over 28,000 people, predominantly white. Slightly over 4% were African-American according to the 2010 census. Meade Co. is also Trump country: nearly 71% voted for him in 2016.

The Monument at Brandenburg

From 1959 to 1963 June and I, along with our small children, lived in Ekron, a very small town less than seven miles from Brandenburg. We fairly often had picnics on the bank of the Ohio River, not far from where the Confederate monument is now located.

That was long before the bridge was built across the river, which you can see in the lower right corner of the following picture of the relocated monument. 

Debra Masterson, an assistant at the Meade County Chamber of Commerce, was one who worked to get the monument moved to Brandenburg. When her “boss” began to express misgivings, Masterson said. “You’re thinking, ‘What if people are talking about Brandenburg as KKK, as racists?’ Well, I don’t know any racists!”

Well, I don’t know much about Meade County now and have little remaining contact with the dear people we were so close to 55 years ago. But I know there were racists in Meade County, and in Ekron Baptist Church of which I was pastor, back then.

In another article (see here) I have given specific examples regarding the racism I experienced there. Suffice it to say here that while the schools were integrated then, there was strong de facto segregation in the local communities and sometimes expressions overt racism, perhaps especially in the churches.

States, cities, schools, etc. now have monumental decisions to make about what to do with existing Confederate monuments and memorials of all sorts. 

Moving such monuments/statues from cities with a sizeable percentage of African-Americans (such as Louisville) to predominantly white towns (such as Brandenburg) is probably not a helpful solution to the problem.

Maybe the time has come just to make decisions that will rid our nation of monuments honoring the racism of the past.

Should Stone Mountain be Defaced?

Ten days ago I wrote about the rebirth of the KKK, which took place on top of Stone Mountain on Thanksgiving Day in 1915. The very next year, the owners of the mountain deeded its north face to the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Soon plans were underway to carve an impressive Confederate monument into that side of the massive mountain. 

A magnificent carving

The Stone Mountain Monumental Association was formed in 1916 and soon designated Gutzon Borglum, a member of the KKK, as the carving sculptor of the envisioned memorial.

However, after years of work on Stone Mountain, in 1925 Borglum left the project because of a dispute with the Association. Two years later he began carving Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, continuing that work until his death in 1941.

Another sculptor was employed for Stone Mountain, but work was suspended in 1928. Thirty years later the state of Georgia purchased the mountain and work on the monument was once again resumed in 1964. 

The dedication ceremony for the mostly-finished Confederate Memorial Carving was held in May 1970 and the finishing touches were finally completed in 1972.

As you see in the picture, three Confederate heroes--Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson on their horses--are magnificently depicted in the sculpture.

A malevolent shooting

As is widely known and sadly remembered, about a year and a half ago Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white man shot and killed nine people, including the senior pastor, at an African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina.

After it became evident that Roof was a white supremacist and pictures of him with the Confederate flag were made public, there began to be calls for that flag to be removed from the South Carolina Statehouse.

On July 9, 2015, Gov. Nikki Haley, who may be the next U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., signed the bill to remove the Confederate flag. She then approvingly watched it being lowered the following day.

In response to the Charleston shooting, however, some anti-racists, especially the NAACP of Georgia, called for a much more dramatic counter-measure: sandblasting the Confederate Memorial off Stone Mountain. (See this news story.)

An imperative defacing? 

What is a fitting response to the proposal to deface Stone Mountain?

On the one hand, as indicated above, the carving on Stone Mountain is magnificent. It is a work of art. It honors three important men in the history of the Southern states. Destroying such a monument might be seen by some as equivalent to ISIS deliberately destroying the cultural heritage of Iraq and Syria—such as is summarized here.

On the other hand, the men depicted in the monument were leaders in a war to preserve slavery. That horrendous war took the lives of more than 620,000 combatants—at least 360,000 in the Union and 260,000 in the Confederacy. An unspeakable tragedy!

It is men and women, not stone monuments and skillful sculptures, that are sacred and of inestimable worth. So why should men who were so central in causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of human beings continue to be glorified by the preservation of one splendid work of art?

True, destroying the Confederate Memorial Carving will not restore the precious lives those whose were killed in the Civil War. 

Think, though, what defacing such a magnificent work of art would say: war and slavery are evils and the primary leaders in the vile war to preserve slavery will no longer be honored!

LINK TO A NOTEWORTHY ARTICLE

Here is the link to “On Cross Burnings and Stone Mountain,” a 2014 blog article (with pictures) by Civil War historian Brooks D. Simpson.

The Significance of the Pony Express

As a boy growing up in rural northwest Missouri, St. Joseph was the nearest big city and a place of fascination to me. As a schoolboy I no doubt learned that the Pony Express started in St. Joseph, which we usually called St. Joe. For some reason, however, I grew up not knowing much about the Pony Express.

Learning about the Pony Express

Not long after moving to Liberty in 2005, June and I visited the Pony Express Museum in St. Joe and learned a lot about it then. That is certainly a place worth visiting, and you can check it out online here.

Ms. Kathy Ridge (May 2016)

I learned the most about the Pony Express, though, from hearing Ms. Kathy Ridge give a talk about it on May 29 this year at the Memorial Day gathering at my father’s (long-closed) home church in rural Worth County, Mo. 

Ms. Ridge, a retired elementary school teacher who works as a volunteer at the Pony Express Museum, told not only interesting details about those who rode for the Pony Express but also shared something of its historical significance.

The Pony Express began operation on April 3, 1860, and was a response to the need for faster communication with people who lived in California. After the discovery of gold there in 1848, the population of Calif. grew rapidly and it became a state in 1850.

The Pony Express was made obsolete, though, with the completion of the transcontinental telegraph on October 24, 1861, and it ceased operation two days after. (The transcontinental railroad was then completed in May 1869, only 7½ years later.)

The Pony Express and the Civil War

Because of the Pony Express, people in California received news of the beginning of the Civil War just 12 days after it began, rather than weeks later as would have been the case earlier. The Pony Express helped keep California aligned with the North in spite of many Confederate sympathizers living in the state.

In addition, partly because of the Pony Express, California’s gold was secured for funding the Union forces rather than the soldiers of the South.

The Civil War threatened the operation of the Pony Express in several ways.

For example, the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, the first railroad to cross Missouri, was completed in February 1859, making St. Joe the westernmost point in the U.S. accessible by rail. It is said to have carried the first letter to the Pony Express on April 3, 1860. During the Civil War, the first assignment of Col. Ulysses S. Grant was protecting that railroad and Pony Express mail.

Grant was re-assigned in August 1861, and the Platte Bridge Railroad Tragedy occurred shortly thereafter, on Sept. 3. The bushwhackers caused the bridge over the Platte River a few miles east of St. Joe to collapse, and the train from Hannibal, which included a mail car, plunged into the river, killing about 20 people and injuring 100.

The St. Joseph Newspaper

The St. Joseph News-Press, the main newspaper of northwest Missouri, traces its roots to the St. Joseph Gazette, which was first published in 1845 shortly after St. Joe was founded just two years earlier. The Gazette was the only newspaper to be sent west on the first ride of the Pony Express.

Earlier this month the News-Press became only the second newspaper in the country to endorse Donald Trump for President.

That is not too surprising, though, as most of its readers across rural northwest Missouri are strong Republicans and will most likely vote for Trump anyway—even though for a great many of them that would be against their own best self-interest.

Selected Resources

“The Story of the Pony Express” (1992) by Nancy Pope, accessible online here.

The Story of the Pony Express (1960), edited by Waddell F. Smith, grandson of William B. Waddell, one of the founders of the Pony Express

Sin: Doing What Seems Good

People don’t talk or think much about sin anymore, it seems—except for the notable exception of many evangelical Christians. Even more than forty years ago the noted psychiatrist Karl Menninger wrote a book titled Whatever Became of Sin? (1973). 

That is also the title of a subsection in my book The Limits of Liberalism (2010), just before a longer section on the widely misunderstood and misinterpreted doctrine of “original sin.” In “polite company” the word “sin” is seldom mentioned—and “original sin” is usually mentioned only in derision.  

What has been called the doctrine of original sin was based, of course, on the third chapter of Genesis. In that theological/mythical story, the serpent said the following to Eve about the forbidden fruit: “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Genesis 3:6 goes on to report, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.”

Note that Eve didn’t take the forbidden fruit because she thought it was bad or sinful or wrong to do so. She took and ate it because she thought it was good, delightful, desirable.

That is the way most sin is. We commit sin because at the time such actions seem desirable, delightful, and good—at least for us (and who else do we usually think about?).

I started thinking again about this matter after reading Thinking Friend Fred Heeren’s recent comment: “How could we be honorable in our war killing unless these people deserved to die? . . . We need to know these were ‘bad’ people and be ‘glad they were killed’ in order to justify our wars.”

Yes, in war “the enemy” always has to be demonized, for how else would soldiers be able to kill them? Probably few Americans realize, though, that to those the U.S. engages in war, Americans are the enemy. 

While it is easy, and probably correct, to label Hitler or Tojo as evil or extremely sinful, what about those who fought under their command? Most of them were conscripted into service—or volunteered in response to the propaganda (brainwashing) they were subjected to. 

Also, Japan and Germany were both under severe economic pressures during the 1930s. In addition, Germans were still chafing under harsh treaties from the end of WWI and many Japanese were greatly irritated by what they considered racial and/or cultural affronts. 

And what about the people of the South in the U.S. in the 1860s? Most of the whites there were simply trying to maintain their way of life and economic stability. In resisting the demands of the North, they were mostly doing what they thought was good, right, necessary. 

What most of us call the Civil War has long been called something different in the South. For example, in 2012, the year before he became president of the NRA, Jim Porter referred to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression.`

In the book I introduced in my previous blog article, Bartoletti states that The Clansman (1905), a novel by Baptist minister Thomas Dixon, portrayed the Klan as noble white-robed knights who saved white civilization from racial violence in the South (p. 147).

Yes, all who are “sinners” do things that they think are good, right, and necessary. So maybe we should act with “malice toward none, with charity for all.”

Lincoln’s Greatest Speech/Sermon

Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated for his second term as POTUS on March 4, 1865. The brief inaugural address he gave that day has been called “Lincoln’s greatest speech.”

That evaluation of Lincoln’s 1865 address has been made often. It is also the title of a book by Ronald C. White, Jr., who was professor of American Religious History at San Francisco Theological Seminary when his impressive book was published in 2002.

Remarkably, White takes more than 180 pages to examine, to explain, and to evaluate Lincoln’s 703-word speech delivered 150 years ago. (To give you some sense of how short that inaugural address was, my blog articles are generally around 600 words.)

I greatly enjoyed reading White’s book this month and highly recommend it.

Remarkably, Lincoln’s inaugural speech is also the first chapter of the book The Greatest Sermons Ever Preached (2005), compiled by Tracey D. Lawrence. That book includes sermons by John Wesley, Dwight L. Moody, and Billy Graham—and also Tony Campolo’s sermon “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s Comin’” that I recently mentioned (here).

For a President’s inaugural speech to be included in a book of only 19 of the greatest sermons ever preached is quite amazing. But calling it a sermon is not something new. On the day he heard it, African-American statesman Frederick Douglass remarked, “The address sounded more like a sermon than a state paper.”

Since the Civil War was drawing to a close and the Union victory close at hand, many thought Lincoln would talk about the triumph of the North over the South, or even the triumph of good over evil. But the President sought to be conciliatory rather than divisive and to be compassionate rather than vindictive.

Lincoln talked about what the people of the country had in common, not about their differences. According to White, Lincoln “spoke out against a tribal God, on the side of the North, and spoke instead of an inclusive God—inclusive, as Lincoln would explain, in both judgment and reconciliation” (p. 113).

White writes (in 2002), “No president, before or since, has so courageously pointed to a malady that resides at the very center of the American national family” (p 150). And, “While the audience wanted to hear words of self-congratulation, Lincoln continued to explain the implications of the judgment of God” (p. 203).

In reading these statements, I couldn’t help but think how the current President resembles Lincoln in many ways. And just as in the present day there are some who have nothing good to say about President Obama, most of Lincoln’s critics responded only negatively to his inaugural address.

One of the most positive appraisals was by The Spectator, the venerable British magazine:

Mr. Lincoln has persevered through all without ever giving way to anger, or despondency, or exultation, or popular arrogance, or sectarian fanaticism, or caste prejudice, visibly growing in force of character, in self-possession, and in magnanimity.

Lincoln’s closing paragraph is especially powerful. It begins with those oft-quoted words,

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 a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

Powerful words! And words our national leaders badly need to hear and to heed today. May they do so! 

Excerpt from Manuscript of Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address