Unreconsructed or, Who Won the Civil War?

 In my freshman or sophomore year of high school a classmate in my American History course asked an unusual question: "So, who WON the Civil War anyway?" Since then I've held this example as the peak of historical ignorance whenever sharing it with like-minded people; that was how I used it recently this past Wednesday. A colleague talked of a peer who chronologically misplaced iconic War of Independence and Civil War battles. I would not begrudge this person's ignorance but it is certainly an acceptable mistake for the average person; he assured me they were a student in an upper level undergraduate history course. Ouch. As I responded with my above-mentioned high school story I remembered my recent first visit to Washington, D.C. With my new found insight into the sights and scenes of our nation's capital and capitol, I realized my classmate's ignorance was simply confusion--and legitimately so.

 So who DID win the Civil War?

Unquestionably the Union won militarily. Although the eastern theater was hardly decisive until Antietam and Gettysburg in 1862 and 1863, Union forces closed most Secessionist ports, occupied strategic islands and cities like the Sea Islands of the Carolinas and New Orleans, controlled the Mississippi, and pushed the Confederate Army from the American Southwest. The Confederacy was reintegrated successfully and no sectional conflict has since divided the nation so thoroughly.

Unquestionably the Union won the argument. Then, as it is today, secession is a panicked, fanciful notion whenever states believe national power is encroaching on their rights and privileges. South Carolina seceded following a legitimate election of a man who favored only maintaining slavery in states it existed and a Congress and Supreme Court that likely would never let him restrict the interstate slave trade. South Carolina, the least democratic state in the union, which applied a similar 3/5ths rule to its own state representation and used that said legislature to vote for President of the United States, saw the writing on the wall seceded first. As someone who takes history internally with food and a glass of water this secessionist attitude offends me to my core. My favorite original argument, which I am sure scholars have seized upon or discredited, is that even if the Constitution is a revocable compact (a word foreign to the document) one can unilaterally dissolve a contract with a provision indicating such or if the other party violates it; the secessionists would have stronger legs to stand on if Lincoln or Congress violated the compact and the Supreme Court backed them up.

Unquestionably the war was about slavery. The primary source evidence is too numerous for description. My preference is to simply refer to the declarations of causes for secession by Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas. Although economic issues like protective tariffs are common, the overwhelming focus as to the causes of secession is slavery. Texas does a fair job outlining nullification and interposition on the part of free states to counteract the Fugitive Slave Law; I would argue however that these free state and local officers of the law would also feel violated since blacks were provided slave-style justice in court even while demonstrating their innocence.

 But whatever...

Another interesting source regarding the motives of the Confederacy is Charles B. Dew's book Apostles of Disunion, which examines the records and propaganda of secessionist agents campaigning across the south following Lincoln's election. SPOILER ALERT: They mostly talked about issues related to slavery. Unquestionably the Confederacy started the war. The fact that Fort Sumpter was bombarded before any kind of negotiated peace or political trade was established is evidence enough. For an examination of pre-Sumpter incidents such as seizing federal munitions, and the particularly memorable collusion to capture U.S. soldiers marching out of Texas at the request of the governor, read Edward S. Cooper's book Traitors: The Secession Period: November 1860-July 1861.

How are these facts represented in our united nation's capital/ol? How, despite all this evidence to the contrary, is the history of this failed experiment styled as the Confederate States of America so mottled? As I talked with my co-worker I realized our capital must represent all peoples, synthesizing our differences into a shared history and narrative; it was the perfect place to examine this synthesis.

In The Crypt in the Capitol is a compass rose, which divides Washington into quadrants. The home of the strongest branch of government, in a room intended to entomb George Washington, splits the capital into four distinctive and recognizable regions. The capitol is not centrally located so these regions vary in size. After clearing Capitol security, visitors enter Emancipation Hall; this may well be the largest room of the Capitol Visitors Center. Between Emancipation Hall and the exhibit hall is a reproduction of the cast used for the statue Liberty, which stands atop the Capitol dome.
There, on a display, two other proposed versions of Liberty are shown. Although I very much enjoy the third and current version, I preferred the second. In the latter's description it claimed this version wore a "liberty cap," a hat worn by freed Roman slaves and a symbol of the American Revolution. The display subtly explained that then Secretary of War Jefferson Davis objected to this design because it may offend free born persons; he probably also did not want slaves to have another cause celebre. The exhibition hall's exhibit A More Perfect Union: Compromise and Conflict was something of a surprise.

Apart from exhibits pertinent to the construction and aesthetics of the Capitol, most displays concerned slavery. Lincoln, John Quincy Adams and the gag rule, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, and Benjamin Butler were featured and slavery was interwoven with the legislative history of the United States.

 The section "Common Defense" displayed documents regarding the Mexican War, which exacerbated sectional differences. "Unity" displayed documents of compromise between free and slave states that stalled the war.. "Freedom" connected women's suffrage and slave emancipation/suffrage, even "General Welfare" explained the Homestead Act 's passage was only possible when southerners (and therefore many Democrats) retreated to their upstart governments. During my early education in a state that never had slavery its blight seemed regionalized. Slavery was something the South had and we fought a war that ended it. Done and done. These exhibits emphasized the champions of anti-slavery and handled the pro-slavery side abstractly without over-emphasizing popular villains like John C. Calhoun and Preston Brooks. Consequently, slavery felt like a national problem rather than a sectional one. The imagery of the Civil War continued into the capitol and the District of Columbia. I was pleased to finally see The Apotheosis of Washington by Constantino Brumidi.

A fresco painted in 1865, it mixes mythological allegories for war, science, water, commerce, mechanics, and agriculture with contemporary triumphs of the United States; the laying of the transatlantic telegraph cable, ironclad warships, and the McCormick Mechanical reaper to name only a few examples. Seated alongside Washington are thirteen maidens representing the original colonies; I’ve heard that several maidens are depicted with their backs turned, representing the seceded states that abandoning the country Washington created, but I counted only three such maidens whereas there would be four if it were true. I was most disappointed however when the tour continued into the old House of Representatives Chamber, which serves as a central exhibit area of the National Statuary Hall Collection. There, in the western edge of the room, stood Jefferson Davis.

Many years ago I was offended to see a map of Virginia and spot Jefferson Davis Highway; across the river from our nation’s capital was a principal road named for a traitor. I even loathed sitting in an airport shuttle that drove on it! And here, in the very building his volunteers and conscripts attempted to capture in a war he started in the name of slavery, stood Mr. Davis; my blood boiled. Ironically cast in the color of the people he enslaved, President Davis was donated to the gallery in 1931. In my shot glass collection sits an item reading: “Lee Surrendered—I didn’t.” This statue is a subtler manner of expressing the same unreconstructed sentiment.

Generally, states choose two types of persons for their allotted statues: An influential state leader who is little known outside their state or a nationally prominent figure who made the state their permanent home. Maria Sanford of Minnesota, an educator and orator, fits the former whereas Ethan Allen of Vermont suits the latter. Many figures in early United States history were important to states and the national scene, especially in New England and the mid-Atlantic, but the aforementioned pattern holds true. Jefferson Davis was a Congressman and Representative who never completed a whole term and a soldier who did not earn a rank comparable to statues representing men with the names Jackson, Grant, Eisenhower, and even Garfield. With such an unsatisfactory record relative to other greats in state history who fill Statuary Hall, this leaves his nationally prominent activities; namely his career as Secretary of War and, you know, his treasonous years as the head of a foreign government actively levying war against the United States.

That person in my high school history course did not know all these facts about the Capitol, Statuary Hall, the highway, or other specific things about Washington, D.C. and neither did I. These conflicted and contradictory actions exacerbate an ignorance of the consequences from the war and thus the war itself; a contradiction also manifested in the house of government. People continue to debate the legitimacy and causes of the war, a cottage industry of revisionists paint this rebellion as the Second American Revolution, and generations of whites see Army of Northern Virginia’s battle flag affectionately; the rag is an identifier of their southern heritage at best or a symbol defying a government that puts down white men in favor of blacks and, as is often the case, Jews, Catholics, foreigners, and other non-whites at worst. Perhaps I’m the one who is unreconstructed. The country has mostly moved on from the war; a reconstruction of history and the mind. From the exhibit in the Capitol, to the highway in northern Virginia, no one appears to wish harm to the memory and legacy of Mr. Davis. Am I the only person left who wishes we indeed hanged Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree? Alas, I must take solace in knowing that Abraham Lincoln remains one of the most revered men in our history and the Battle Hymn of the Republic is adapted from John Brown’s Body.

E pluribus unum