Why, you might ask, would anyone write a review of a book that was first published in 1956? Why, indeed.
The reason is because historian’s Kenneth W. Stampp’s seminal treatise, The Peculiar Institution, not only completely revised how the most important event in American history (other than the Revolutionary War) — the Civil War — was thought of, but his handling of that period of extreme strife in our national experience sheds an amazing amount of light on the strife we are currently experiencing in our beloved country today. The mendacity, the doublespeak, the rending of the social garment that should bind us together as a nation — it’s all there, and written with a lucidness and clarity that, since it’s removed from current events by the passage of 62 years, makes the work all the more compelling, enlightening and accurate.
In 1860, as the nation stood on the brink of one of the deadliest wars the world had known to that point, the clash of ideas and ideals — of basic thoughts about macro issues and core values, about right and wrong, freedom or slavery, that had been in conflict for decades prior — was about to be settled once and for all. But were they settled?
Stampp’s work, for me, gave shape and form to a notion that had been playing around the edges of my intellect for a number of years: That everything is history. Everything. Not to wax too metaphysically, but the few minutes ago, when you first began reading this piece, they’re gone, never to come back or be relived (unless, of course, you believe that we come back to Earth as another creature, in another form) and all of history is behind us, but tied together in a seamless tapestry, a continuum that creates the present moment, the time we exist in right here, right now. And how we got here is as critically important as being here, perhaps even more so.
“The rise of slavery in the South was inevitable only in the sense that every event in history seems inevitable after it has occurred,” writes Stampp. Will we be reciting this profound statement (inserting “bigotry” in the place of “slavery” and “all of America” in place of “the South”) in some distant — or perhaps not too distant — future as we, or our progeny, look back on the ash heap that once was our great nation?
Since Stampp’s book was written 90 years after the Civil War, he had the benefit hindsight; the dust had by then settled, providing a clearer lens through which to view that conflict, and most importantly, what led up to it. He was able to see things that should have been obvious ominous portends to those who lived through that era, but were overlooked by proximity to the events.
It’s difficult to accurately view history as it unfolds before our very eyes. However, as 62 years have passed since he recorded his assessments of what caused that catastrophic conflict, the reader of 2019 can somewhat similarly gain a clearer view of our current situation absent the stridency of today’s media, a view that might allow us to obviate the risk of disunity we now stand on the precipice of.
The greatest risk we run is to think that because we always were, we always will be a unified, great nation. The fact is, before the Civil War we WERE the United States; it was only after that conflict that we collectively said: “We ARE the United States.”
And, in fact, there are some still in certain dark corners of our national psyche that don’t believe we are — either great or unified.
Some of our greatest current-day political thinkers and writers — historians all — are publishing weighty tomes that explain where we are as a country and somewhat fearfully predicting where we might be headed if we are not exceedingly mindful. These are not strident media talking heads eagerly vying for attention via sensationalized sound bites; these are thoughtful, learned men and women that we should be paying much more attention to.
Reading Kenneth Stampp has awakened me to that reality.
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.