In the Shadow of Our Founders: Part Three

that even the most determined scholar of that day could barely dream about) and the tremendous benefit of hindsight, to draw conclusions about who was right and who was wrong. It is with that hindsight and evidence that this author believes Abraham Lincoln held the superior position on both moral and legal grounds. But we must not be so naïve and so zealous as to forget that the human beings of that day did not know the many things we know now. Few southerners, for example, ever heard or saw Lincoln in person. All they knew about him was what they read in their local newspapers and that he had sent federal troops into their states and their neighborhoods.

If we are to truly heed the wisdom of the Founders, we must not condemn or hate our fellow Americans of the past because they embraced certain aspects of the defeated Confederacy. In fact, many of the concepts they trumpeted did and do have merit, including the idea that there is a level of accountability to the states on the part of the federal government.

Moreover, we should not strike out at Americans today who seek to honor the memory of their ancestors and who cherish pieces of their southern heritage. We can learn from our past. We can benefit from it and never forget it, but we mustn't live in it or be obsessed by it.

Southerners too have a moral obligation to recognize that the Civil War is over, and that the issue of secession has been settled. While it is certainly appropriate to recognize the heroes of the South who wore gray, it is more important to take hold of those things that unite us and not divide us. As that great southern orator Patrick Henry said toward the end of his life, "United we stand, divided we fall!"

There were good and honorable people on both sides of the Civil War and heroes in both blue and gray uniforms. The same was true with the American Revolution and later the political fight to ratify our Constitution.

In the end, we must all turn to the words of our greatest President who declared in his Farewell Address: "The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations."

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Sources for this article:

Davis, Jefferson, The Rise

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