When they once again encounter their ancestors, which I believe they will, how will so many Americans account for their feeble treachery?
Maybe, like the Mississippi student, they will say: "We just wanted it to be over."
I wonder what some of those old heroes might say in reply.
What about:
And here you are, my spiritually impoverished progeny, 300 years after the first war in which we fought and died that you might be free from a tyrannical central government, and almost 200 years after another great and terrible war, the worst imaginable, in which we fought our brothers and died for the very same cause. You have now willingly disgraced not just this cause – which might have been understandable given the terrible complexity of the time – but you have also disgraced almost every vestige of our memory, corrupting even the flags on our graves.
The degree to which you are now indebted to, and dependent on, your federal government is a most bitter reminder of our failure. But you have failed in a deeper sense. You, like many Americans, have in your ignorance abetted in the practical destruction our founders' Constitution. Having surrendered liberty, you are no longer entitled to its blessings. So please do not speak of slavery. You have stripped yourself of your knowledge, pride and heritage. You have shamed and prostrated yourself, and, to no small degree, it is you who are now enslaved.
Pretty emotional stuff. A lot of people in the Civil War era probably would have sympathized with that Mississippi student who just wanted it to be over.
But is it really the case that we are all slaves now and the Confederacy was somehow better and freer than we are today? I doubt it. Most people now (and most people back then as well) would disagree.
Is it really the case that they had and fought for the Founders' values and we betrayed them? Isn't it more likely that every generation has had and betrayed those values to some degree?
I can't say that most of us (myself very much included) possess the martial virtues, the courage and endurance and dedication, of the Civil War generation (or the WWII generation for that matter), but politically I don't think we have anything to be ashamed of in comparison with Jefferson Davis or the secessionist fire-eaters and firebrands.
Franklin Raff is a Virginian. He lives in Mount Vernon, Va., and Jerusalem, Israel.
I don't know about the last part, but he was born in Quebec.
One way or the other, maybe he's not really writing about the American Civil War, guys.