Opening of the Civil War Book

Once upon a time, while driving to Chicago to meet some Goodreaders in the real-life, honest-to-goodness, corporeal flesh for the very first time, I happened upon Diane Rehm's interview with George McGovern on NPR (regarding this, his slender biography of Abraham Lincoln). As you might well imagine, any exchange of ideas between Rehm and octogenarian McGovern was destined for the lowest form of comedy -- not with respect to the content, of course, but in that the encounter sounded roughly like Jimmy Stewart (of the canine poetry writing era) being questioned by the Crypt Keeper's bride. Had the pacing of their speech been accelerated to normal levels and the haltingness been goosed into urgency, the half-hour interview may have lasted all of four-and-a-half minutes. But on the bright side, it was a dialogue invested with... ... ... suspense. (Would Rehm, in other words, ever arrive at the end of her sentence, or would her participial phrase drift off into the infinite wilderness of nothingness?)

That's awfully mean-spirited, I know, especially considering that McGovern is old and Rehm has some kind of 'problem,' but please trust that my meanness is considerably less mean than it appears in your rear-view mirror. Why? Because it is couched in the warmest of affection. After all, McGovern is and was a die-hard lefty (after my own heart), and Rehm reminds me of my grandmother. Not that either of my grandmothers spoke like that (or were as liberal as Rehm, to be sure), but Rehm is the idealized, hypothetical third grandmother, tossing softball, mutual-admiration-society questions to her like-minded libby guests. (Question: Why didn't my grandmother have a radio show? Answer: She was too busy making kifli.)

Have I digressed far enough? Is it time to reel this baby back in?

The point is that hearing this interview made me want to read McGovern's book, so I stored it away in my mental filing system -- which is already hopelessly cluttered with porn site passwords and Brady Bunch trivia -- and I finally retrieved it now that I am embarking upon my American presidents reading project.

This is the second book in that project (the first being Roy Jenkins' execrable Franklin Delano Roosevelt from the same New York Times-published presidential biography series as this one), and it is a dramatic improvement in writing ability. I know that some will accuse McGovern of being a tad too worshipful, but this is a mistake. Abraham Lincoln, despite his faults, is the very best that the executive branch of the U.S. government could ever hope for, and McGovern does not let Lincoln completely off the hook. He certainly addresses (and problematizes) Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War, his censorship of the press, and his exceptional use of wartime powers, but this does little to diminish the overall portrait of Lincoln, a man whose perseverance, intellect, and (yes) wisdom ensured that the U.S. would survive its most difficult challenge thus far (and, it is hoped, for all time).

All in all, McGovern's style is generally elegant and very approachable for a general readership. Meanwhile, I desperately want to bitch-slap those GR reviewers who (idiotically) criticize these Times presidential series books because of their brevity and their alleged superficiality. Any halfway intelligent person who picks up a hundred-fifty-page book on Lincoln will understand that it is intended to be a brief overview, addressing the highlights (and lowlights) of the presidency, and not a thorough-going treatment of the man and his times. Consider these books a sample, or a tasting -- designed either to lure you into reading more (McGovern suggests several other in-depth books, including Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin) or into concluding that you know enough, or as much as you want to.

This book, I must confess, refortified my admittedly problematic contempt of the American South. I am not sure how there is any defensible rationale for 'celebrating' the Confederate legacy, as so many southerners still, even to this 'enlightened' day, believe is appropriate. They attempt to obscure the essential meaning of the war by clutching for slogans, flimsy rationalizations, and other red herrings. How about the 'War of Northern Aggression,' for example? Or a mitigated defense of the Confederate South on the basis that the Civil War was a (continuing) struggle for states rights and an attack on the Southern way of life? Yes, but the states right in question, let's never forget, was the right to maintain the legality of slavery (which was not even threatened at the time). And also... on the basis of a disagreement with the federal government, the South decided to divorce itself from the offending government -- not a terribly smart precedent to set for its own fledgling Southern 'government.' What basis is there for any government of any kind when the dissenters are free to fragment and to revolt at any cause? In short, the South favored backwoods regionalism and a repudiation of the spirit of the Declaration of Independence to a unified, stable, federal maintenance of law, order, and civil rights. That doesn't win the South any points on my scorecard, any way you skew the numbers. Anyway, we all know that states rights are often just a legal smokescreen for backwards states to curtail civil rights. To anyone who cites gay marriage as a counterpoint (i.e., some states are using states rights progressively, to allow gay marriage in advance of the consensus of public opinion), I would still argue, holding fast to my embarrassing idealism, that the spirit of this nation and its founding promises equal rights to everyone, even the smallest minority, so therefore the federal government should maintain and enforce these rights -- even against the mob's opinion -- and kick the ass, proverbially, of any state which drags its feet and presumes to ensconce its regional, folksy bigotry as a higher value than our rights as Americans, or what should be our rights anyway.