We decided to have dinner in front of the TV the other night as the dining table was covered with computer parts and artwork. After about three minutes of news, pundits yelling at each other, totally depressed, I decided to fall back on my usual refuge, C-Span, creator of BookTV and History TV. Sure enough, we had stumbled on Jon Meacham giving a talk at the Civil War Museum's Library of Virginia entitled the "What We Can Learn from History." (Link .) It is excellent. It was poignant, enlightening, hopeful, insightful, and occasionally humorous.
I find history to be very calming; that many of the tribulations we bemoan are not new but reflect a divisiveness that has been faced before. There is a creed that all of us can agree upon, Meacham proposes, so magnificently articulated by Jefferson, "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...." That philosophy which both conservatives and progressive would hold as an ideal, can provide the structural basis for moving forward. (Even though this was from a man who took money from the public Treasury to fund a newspaper in opposition to his president.) Meacham, ultimately, is hopeful. As long as two or three of our five institutions, the presidency, legislature, judiciary, press, and people, push back, the republic will survive. (His comments on the ability to create fake history through technical manipulation are a bit frightening and warrant constant skepticism.)
He told a couple of funny stories. the stupidest things he said to governors. The first was in a conversation with George W. Bush. They were chatting about Sam Houston when Meecham said, "You know, governor, that I'm from Tennessee and were it not for Tennessee, Texas would still be part of Spain. Bush said he thought that was pretty funny, asshole." The second was with Chris Christie who had called him up to talk about Jefferson. During the conversation, Christie mentioned he was really more of a "Hamilton guy, i.e., an investment banker." Meecham, ever the dry wit, replied, "that's great Governor, but at least my guy didn't get shot in Jersey." Damned if then Meecham didn't have trouble crossing the bridge into New York.
The republic is a reflection of who we are and we only have ourselves to blame for what we have. "Our politicians mirror us, they don't mold us." The trend in presidents from Washington to the incumbent does seem to prove Darwin wrong, however. One of the problems we have was succinctly put by Walter Lippman in 1922: "Americans define and see rather than see and then define." That's the crux of it.
Meecham's most recent book, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels,
is about how Americans regroup and move toward that equality Jefferson spoke about. It's about the long struggle for civil rights, Meacham argues that it is “incumbent on us, from generation to generation, to create a sphere in which we can live, live freely, and pursue happiness to the best of our abilities. We cannot guarantee equal outcomes, but we must do all we can to ensure equal opportunity.” We must always have hope. He reminds us that in 1924, the Klan had a presence in all 48 states. In something we might consider today, Meacham notes that middle America saw the Klan under attack by eastern journalists and so figured it couldn't be all bad.
From the first part of his book, this quote from Lincoln's first inaugural address: "I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
Watch it.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?458243-1%2Fjon-meacham-civil-war&fbclid=IwAR0fKWlrFHppO46udGHDlCrZcGNrRM2kO0O5a6ioVWM2nSY6ohzbwpjjZ6A
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