Yesterday in class Opal responded to my question about the problem Lincoln faced when delivering his two speeches (Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural) by pointing to the Civil War. I pushed a bit on the assertion in the hope of getting her to be more precise about what was the problem the Civil War presented. Then we were of on something else.
Nonetheless, I'm still interested in that question: why was the Civil War a problem for Lincoln? Was it so in different ways at those two moments? Is it still a problem for us? David Brooks' 2003 column suggests that the Civil War was a problem for Whitman. Why? Because Whitman "had believed that the Civil War would cleanse the nation of its most serious ills," but by 1871 he could see that this was not the result. The war had not healed the nation even if it had some how preserved the Union.
Is it still a problem for us for the same, or a similar, reason? On the one hand, when the war was over the Union was preserved and the slaves were freed, but on the other the people were still not unified and race is still a volatile, potentially divisive matter. So, perhaps the Civil War is a problem for us because it reveals that there are significant matters that the citizens of this nation have been unable to resolve through political processes or other means.
No comments:
Post a Comment