Did the American Civil War Dead Die in Vain?

There was a time when every school child could recite the Gettysburg Address from memory, especially its famous peroration: “we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation 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." But exactly what did the Civil War accomplish?

Most certainly, it preserved the union and abolished slavery—two noteworthy things. But the slaves who were freed, rather than being benefited by their freedom, were left in the lurch, and the prejudicial attitudes of Confederate whites were most likely harden; they most certainly were not softened. So although the war united the nation, it failed to unite its peoples, and that division is still evident today.

This past Saturday, August 6, 2005, The Dallas Morning News ran a feature about this division entitled Beyond the Red and Blue. Using the red states that went to President Bush and the blue states that went to Senator Kerry, it pointed out how red and blue states ranked in various categories.

People in red states are less healthy than those in blue states.

People in red states earn less than those in blue states.

People in red states are less educated than those in blue states.

More people in red states live in mobile homes than those in blue states.

The red states have higher birth rates among teens than the blue states.

More people are killed by guns in the red states than in the blue states.

And the Dallas Morning News missed a number of other inferior attributes of the red states.

The red states have higher rates of poverty, both generally and among the elderly, higher rates of crime, both general and violent, have higher rates of infant mortality and divorce, and have fewer physicians per unit of population than do the blue states.

These statistics do not paint a pretty picture. And since the red states are commonly referred to as the conservative heartland, one would think that the people who live in these states would vote against conservative candidates merely on the basis of their own rational self interests. But they don’t.

And there’s an obvious clash here, for the red states are the home of that group that calls itself “moral America.” But how can a moral viewpoint countenance poverty, crime, and infant mortality? What kind of morality is it that doesn’t care for the welfare of people? Just what moral maxim guides the lives of these people? Certainly not the Golden Rule or the Second Commandment of Jesus. From what I have been able to gather, moral America lacks a moral code. It is, to use a word the members of this group dislike, relative.

So what motivates the conservative nature of the people in the red states? Let’s look at some history.

For a century after the Civil War, the south voted Democratic. Not because the people shared any values in common with the rest of the nation’s Democrats. (They even distinguished themselves from other Democrats by calling themselves “Dixiecrats.”) These people were Democrats merely because the political party of the war and reconstruction was Republican.  And when, in the mid-twentieth century, the Democratic Party championed an end racial discrimination, these life-long Democrats quickly became Republicans, because the Republican party had in the intervening years become reactionary. So what motivates these people even today, though most likely they don’t recognize it, is an unwillingness to accept the results of the Civil War.

So what did the Civil War really accomplish? It united a nation without uniting its people. The United States of America became one nation indivisible made up of two disunited peoples.

And there is a lesson for all nations to be learned from this. By the force of arms, you can compel outward conformity to political institutions and their laws, but you cannot change the antagonistic attitudes of people, which can remain unchanged for decades and longer waiting for an opportunity to express themselves.

Any astute reader can apply this lesson to the present day’s activities in the Middle East.

Force cannot win the hearts of people. And those who die in an attempt to change a people’s values always die in vain.

©2005 John Kozy, Jr.