Gettysburg - 150 Years Later

This July 4^th, Independence Day, celebrates America’s 237^th birthday.  It also marks an equally momentous event in our nation’s history…the 150^th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg fought July 1-3, 1863.  The sleepy town of 7,800 people located in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania is being inundated with hundreds of thousands of Civil War aficionados who will re-enact several of the battles capped with a guided walk across the field where the failed Pickett’s Charge sounded what is widely believed to have been the death knell at Southern efforts at cessation.   

It was the bloodiest battle in American history with upward of 51,000 casualties, north and south, consecrating the most sacred of American ground.  This in turn gave rise to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address which many view as the third most important statement of American principles after the Declaration and Constitution… this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.   

The Civil War is an American event that reaches through the ages. More people died in the Civil War than all other American wars put together.  It is THE seminal event in American history.  Its effects are still very much alive and the center of American political discourse today including race relations, voting rights, states' rights, and the role of the Federal government in our lives.   This past week the Supreme Court declared the renewal of parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for an additional 25 years unconstitutional.  The act subjected southern states’ election procedures and redistricting to federal control.  The Court stated that times have changed and what were to be temporary safeguards are no longer needed or minimally be based on updated criteria.

Part of modern America’s fascination with the Civil War includes why it was fought and did it need to be fought.  Ask any American why the war was fought and they will answer to end slavery.  That isn’t true notwithstanding how morally objectionable the slave trade was.  It was rooted in the expansion of slavery to the western states which in turn morphed into the role of the Federal government telling states what they can and can’t do. 

The country was divided into two segments; the industrial north and the agricultural south.  Slavery suited the south but was ill suited to the north.  The notion of being a Virginian first and an American second worked well after the Revolution but not so well in a rapidly industrializing society which needed a strong central government to thrive.  The north was benefiting while the plantation south was languishing behind although extremely wealthy.  The largest single asset class in the United States prior to the Civil War was slaves.   And it just wasn’t a southern scourge.  The slave trade was operated out of such anti-slave bastions as Boston and New York, financed by northern banks with paper held by northern companies.

Whether civil war was inevitable is another fascinating question.  America stumbled into it by inept leadership and hyper partisanship. Abraham Lincoln’s name did not appear on most southern state ballots. He won the election with only 39% of the popular vote.  The anomaly happened because of a split in the Democratic Party which supported slavery…the difference being the degree of support.  It was the Perfect Storm of American politics.  Anything that could go wrong did go wrong in trying to resolve the slavery issue…America’s original sin.

Those were the serious issues then, and its successor issues are just as serious now.  Had Lincoln not been assassinated, perhaps America would have had a different history post 1865.  But history is history. The Civil War was fought over the power of the Federal government.  Slavery was the flashpoint and thankfully was ended in a rare moment of American righteousness.  But the primary issue still persists.  What are the limits of power of the Federal government?  Where do our rights come from?  Is tyranny just around the corner as the Federal government tries to control every aspect of our lives from what we eat, to limiting how we cool and heat our homes, to the kinds of toilets we must use, to monitoring every single telephone call, email, text, and financial transaction we make…in the name of national security.

This Independence Day, perhaps it is time for Americans to take stock and do some soul searching.  The Battle of Gettysburg helped end one man being owned by another.  But what happens when all men are owned by the government?