From
“Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst:
September 16
‘The reason the Lost Cause actually lost was not because the
Confederate leadership wasn't prepared to pay the price; it wasn't because they
failed to see themselves, or behave, as men of honor; it wasn't because they
lacked the kind of talent, the sheer brain power, to pull it off; it wasn't
because they used up all the men, money and resources needed to get the job
done; it wasn't even because God was punishing a society based on the monstrous
evil of slavery. The real reason had to do with the logic behind the idea of
secession itself. Only a few short weeks before secession actually took root,
they thought they saw a new president [Abraham Lincoln] of a thing larger than
their precious individual states show signs that he was going to be a
state-eating ogre; that mind-set had quickly become set in concrete. Soon
Jefferson Davis was warning that the Confederacy’s only hope of final victory
over what eventually proved to be a vastly-determined foe was in unity and the
[temporary] surrender of states' rights to a different president [namely,
himself] of a thing larger than a state. Davis’s warning largely fell on deaf
ears. He was told, in effect, ‘we already endured that kind of presidential
tyranny; we'll not put up with it again.’ In their heart of hearts they knew
Davis was right; in his heart of hearts Davis knew they were right. Bottom
line: although each side ended up making significant accommodations to the
other side, there was simply no accommodation here. The problem was that
Southern leaders continually ended up tripping over a mind-set that leads to
secession – a mind-set, they discovered to their cost, that has no internal
check.’
- Arnold Kunst
‘Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the
discomfort of thought.’
- John F. Kennedy
No comments:
Post a Comment