By Edwin Cooney
Usually a reckoning has to do with money. However, one must inevitably reckon with the results of human behavior.
For the last 10 days or so, politicians, civil rights leaders and historians, who know a lot more about history than does this observer, have been quarreling with John F. Kelly, President Trump’s chief of staff’s assertion that the Civil War was the result of the North’s and South’s failure to compromise.
Although for the most part I agree with the historians, there is one aspect of Chief Kelly’s assertion that hasn’t been adequately addressed insofar as I’m aware.
As the historians point out, there were at least seven occasions in history when the North sought to compromise with the South:
(1.) The Founding Fathers deleted Thomas Jefferson’s condemnation of slavery in the Declaration of Independence;
(2.) In Article II of the Constitution there are two provisions that appease Southern slavery. One allows the value of Blacks and Indians to be devalued to three-fifths of a free white citizen. In addition, the African slave trade is legitimized for 20 years following passage of the Constitution;
(3.) The expansion of slavery was permitted under the Missouri Compromise of 1820 up to the 36°30′ latitude and also provided that for every free state admitted into the Union, a slave state must be simultaneously admitted;
(4.) The California Compromise of 1850 that admitted California, the Territory of Utah and the Territory of New Mexico into the Union also instituted the Fugitive Slave Law that allowed Southern slave owners to legally pursue run-away slaves into Northern territory with the support of the federal government. Note: Strange wasn’t it and isn’t it how welcome federal intervention into state affairs is when it’s for the convenience of a “sovereign” state’s more prominent and powerful establishment figures!;
(5.) The 1854 Kansas Nebraska Act permitted the expansion of slavery under the provision of what was called popular sovereignty thus bringing about what was termed “Bleeding Kansas”;
(6.) Even after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, Congress sought to pass what was called the Crittenden Compromise, one prevision of which was the permanent right to own slaves;
(7.) Even during the Civil War, President Lincoln, right up until late 1864 when he supported passage of the 13th amendment to the Constitution, insisted that the war was about the restoration of the Union rather than being about slavery. Remember that Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which was made public in September of 1862, asserted that states who agreed to rejoin the Union by January 1st, 1863, could keep its slaves. After that date, slavery in states remaining in the Confederacy could not keep their slaves once the war was complete.
As for General Robert Edward Lee’s decision to resign his lifelong federal army service to support his native state of Virginia’s decision to secede from the Union, as honorable or noble as it may have then seemed, under today’s “conservative” standards, it would constitute treason. (Note: Ah, but treason can only be committed by the left!) Of course, insurrection isn’t treasonous, it’s merely disloyal - what’s wrong with that - it’s only principle writ large! Build that man lots of monuments. Actually, it’s likely that General Lee would have been embarrassed by all those monuments as he was a very dignified, private and principled man. Besides, they weren’t constructed for him, they were constructed in prideful defiance of the North.
Therein lies the aspect of Chief Kelly’s assertion that neither he nor his critics adequately address.
From the very establishment of our federal union, Southerners have insisted that our states are sovereign. Sadly, Jefferson and Madison launched that idea in 1798 with what was called the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. (The issue at the time of the adoption of those resolutions wasn’t slavery, but passage of the Alien and Sedition acts in 1798 making it unlawful to criticize the government during our then quarrel with France.)
The fact is that when all states adopted the Constitution, they surrendered their sovereignty thus becoming a union rather than a confederacy. That’s why separate conventions were established to consider the proposed constitution rather than simply using the existing state legislatures to do the ratifying. Thus, adoption of the Constitution was a compact between the people and their freely constituted government. Even more to the point, if states are sovereign, for what purposes ought they be sovereign?
John F. Kelly is absolutely right about only one thing. The North and South couldn’t compromise over the bottom line issue which was the morality and long term workability of chattel slavery. Historian James MacPherson points out in his 1988 book “Battle Cry of Freedom” how differently the North and the South perceived themselves and each other.
Northerners saw slavery as absolutely immoral and many believed it ought to be abolished. For Northerners morality was about hard work in exchange for remuneration. They saw Southerners as violators of human liberty.
Southerners on the other-hand saw Northern society as largely materialistic - enslaved by the almighty dollar. Southerners saw themselves as noble minded to the extent that they took care of poor blacks, offering them cradle to grave security regardless of what it cost slave owners. They believed that their society was equivalent to Medieval European society at its best. Even worse, both sides considered themselves as morally superior to the other side. Moral issues are usually regarded as being beyond compromise. How many times have you heard people insist that rules aren’t necessarily sacred, but principles are?
President Trump and his chief of staff appear to believe that property rights, law and order, and capital profit “trump” human rights. General Kelly’s over simplification of the causes of the Civil War and his lack of ability to put his finger on the real cause of America’s greatest tragedy may for some reason in the not too distant future call for some kind of a reckoning.
Nearly 90 years ago America suffered its most serious economic depression. That depression was ultimately curable. Reckless pronouncements about climate change, chronic campaigning against those with different beliefs and agenda priorities, ongoing threats against other nations, and the continuous criticism of the freest system of government ever created may well bring about a psychological depression that may take generations to overcome.
Now, if you ask me, that would be one hell-of-a reckoning.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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