By Edwin Cooney
First, a confession: I regard the popular admonition that if one ignores history, one is destined to repeat it as arguable at best. Despite popular presumptions, history isn't a judge. It is ultimately a record of people, places and events. Here's an example of what I mean. In the wake of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler in the late 1930s, our foreign policy leaders from John Foster Dulles through Henry Kissinger justified the war in Vietnam on the basis that history had taught us the lesson to never appease dictators whether fascist or communist. Because we listened to that version of history thereby ignoring other lessons, we subsequently frittered away the young and ultimately vulnerable lives of 58,000 plus Americans. The question today is what end did the Vietnamese War serve except to teach us a lesson we shouldn't have had to learn? (Note that we might have listened to another historical lesson — don't become entangled or allied with a foreign society you can't control — as Britain had in Palestine as well as in Greece, India, and Iran at the close of World War II.)
As a student of history, I've tried to follow the principle that to truly understand a prominent event or an historic individual, one must keep in mind the mores of the time and determine how relevant the mores of a past era fit into today’s. Abraham Lincoln's attitudes toward blacks might well be considered close to reactionary in 2020, but in his own day he was regarded by many as being pretty close to an abolitionist!
It's perfectly legitimate to look back on the events of 1776 and celebrate Independence Day, thus celebrating and endorsing the urgency of that time by applying its meaning to our own era. However, there are a lot of practices and mores regarded as vital to that era that would be unacceptable in 2020. These would include slavery, indentured servitude, debtor’s prison, dueling, state sponsored churches and state sponsored prayers, as well as newspapers funded out of the cabinet by men named Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. (Jefferson paid money out of the State Department's budget to fund the National Gazette published by Philip Freneau while Hamilton used funds from the Treasury Department to fund The Gazette of the United States published by John Fenno. These were perfectly legal political practices at the time but would be regarded as close to being corrupt and criminal today.)
What can be constructive, if we'll let it be so, is what effect celebrating something like the Confederacy or even Columbus Day can have on the outlook and the fortunes of others.
It's my conclusion that what's causing so much trouble about so many people's celebration of the old Confederacy is that such celebrations distort a reality that has been too often ignored. The establishment of the Confederate States of America was an act of treason, plain and simple. This is especially poignant in that so many Americans who express love for the Confederacy are so quick to label socialism and even liberalism as treasonous when both are merely ideologies. And, in case you've forgotten, capitalism isn't found in our constitution any more than any other political or economic “ism.”
Too often many of us have asserted what history will or won't proclaim about a particular event or individual. When Jimmy Carter lost the presidency to Ronald Reagan in 1980, I asserted that history would be much kinder to him than the present. I was wrong about that for two reasons. First, Jimmy Carter's post presidency has endeared him to many more people than his presidency, because the last time I checked, it’s the presidency and not the post presidency that is usually the topic of historic analysis. Second, the study of each presidency lasts an eternity. Hence it is quite possible that a future generation's history student might alter its evaluation of him once again. Keep in mind that at the close of the 19th Century, Ulysses S. Grant was still regarded as a great general and as a near great president. General Grant is still rightly regarded today as a great general, but his presidency is rated as pretty average. Therefore, here is what I've learned about history:
History neither teaches nor preaches. History, like America, is discovered. History is a powerful portal through which we can view more information and more perspective than you and I can even begin to comprehend!
History will only teach you what you want to hear or know. History possesses neither conscience nor wisdom.
Accordingly, wisdom is strictly the obligation and responsibility of its students as they seek to apply the historical record to present circumstances and conditions.
So, you ask, who are these students of history? That’s you and me.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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