Ever been to the Lincoln Memorial?
Ever tried to look away from his gaze, from those stone eyes?
When you get close to him......
He speaks to those who listen....
He sits there, very much in the way Zeus sat in his now destroyed temple......
He never flinches.....
Or moves.....
But he does move you.....
Some "historians" call him the real father of the so called "United States"......
He was one of our "Presidents", during the worst of times....
When "Americans" did not know they were "Americans"......
Not yet......
There were plenty of people, especially in the "South" who did not like the idea of linking up with the rest of the people.
They asked why.
The felt ripped off.
Used.
Taken advantage of.
They took great umbrage at the way people in the "North" described them....
Thought of them..........
They did not like being called "immoral"......
Even as the "Northern" accusers took "Southern" cotton.......
And turned it into products......
And made great gobs of money......
All with a straight faced morality.......
In the "South", the anger of this percieved hypocrisy infuriated certain men....
While in the "North", people from Europe poured into the cities......
Often, they recieved treatment worse than black men in the "South".....
They called it, "being chained to the lathe"......
Much like slaves......
But there is that word.....
That hideous word.......
The shame of a people......
The "Southern" crime......
That word cut deeply into ideas, and hearts, and into the land itself......
But it did not keep the "North" from making a living off the slaves.....
In the "North", or the "South", for that matter....
They were not like a white man.......
Right?
Years before, when the so called "United States" began, a great debate ensued over the status and identity of "niggers"......black men....black people......
Who were they......?
What were they?
Of what political or societal value did they hold?
Who cares????
I do not...
That is water under the bridge....
Right?
Well....maybe....
We will see.....
How much do I pay for the sin of my land???
For the sin of Europe?
For the sin of us all???
Sorry, but I have payed all of my life.....
And I am tired of viewing the American Civil War as a neo-political shuttlecock.......
All that I want you to do is to listen to one of Lincoln's personal secretaries.....
And to think of the "American Experience" in a bit of a different way....
So, for a moment, let us think of John Hay....
He was eighteen......
A child....
Yet his "American" history began as personal assistant to Lincoln.....it ended as the Secretary of State to the first Roosevelt.....
Quite a man, dont you think?
Think about his vantage point.....
Think about historical scope...
Think about historical range....
In his diaries, he recounts Lincoln walking to the War Department (consider that for a minute....the freaking "War Department".....my God!!!!, a "war" against whom????).......
It was a building across the dirt road seperating the White House from the rest of the then bifurcated "United States Government"......
It was the day of Antietam........
It was the beginning of the spilling of the grestest amount of "American" blood....
It was the beginning of Lincoln's final madness....
In those days, there was no telegraph in the White House.....
The "President" had to walk across a dirt street to hear the news......
So Lincoln, his Secretary of War (there is that name again..."War"....), William Stanton, so recently the survivor of a beloved child....so recently less than an admirer of this so called "President", so recently misunderstanding of the magnitude of the click clack of his telegraph....
Sat mute ......waiting for news from the battlefield....
As it told the story of how badly men can inflict a hurting upon themselves......
Lincoln sprawled upon a couch....
Stanton sat like a corpse at his desk.....
The Secretary of State, William Seward,the "Boss of New York", later known as the "idiot" who bought what is now known as Alaska.("Sewards Folly")...sat close to the "President".....
The news came slowly....
In drips.....
And it was not that good.....
The boys were dying....
And not that far away....
They were dying in piles.....
The "North", and the "South" had decided to duke it out this time.......once and for all.....
This time, the greatest, most potentially powerful "nation" on the planet decided to settle so many things, so many issues, so many ghosts.......so very much resentment....all, if possible, at one time....
Upon a tiny space of land........with a creek running through it....
In ten hours more....
That creek would run red with the blood of so very many......
The reports trickled in....
The "Northern Army" became a victim of superior defensive positions by the "Southern Army".......
The figures of the dead landed slowly upon Stanton's desk.......
When Lincoln heard of the mounting slaughter.....
Of both "Armies".....
He leapt from the couch.......
And followed a path around the walls of Stanton's office....
Blindly, with huge hands running up and down the walls, he wailed and moaned.... seeking distance from the clattering of the telegraph......
There was a distinct sense of alarm from those who witnessed his behavior.....
From the numbers of the dead and dying.....
From voices he could hear, only in his mind.....
John Hay did something about it.....
Suddenly, he said, it was almost a shout...
"Mr President!"......
The room became silent.....
Except for the click and clack of the mechanical messenger.....
Taking the "President" by the arm....
Hay gently led him from the room...and across the street....
To the White House.....
To solace.....
To his soon to be half mad wife and children.....
To a place where no telegraph haunted him...
There is an awful price to pay for our decisions.....
Do you not agree?
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