Flipping channels, I just landed on HLN which claims to be America’s first TV network for the social media generation. The show was The Daily Share, rapid fire “infotainment” for folks with attention deficit disorder highlighting “what people are watching, searching, playing, sharing, shopping and creating in every aspect of their social media lives.” The hosts are young, attractive, sharp, funny and entertaining. And representative of their generation, they know and care little about American History, something about as relevant to them as a rotary dial phone.
Trending today on the internet… the 150th anniversary of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant and the official end of the Civil War… is “Appomattox Court House” and that really threw host Ali Nejad for a loop. He described it as that Civil War “battle over that courthouse.”
Ouch. Appomattox Court House was the name of a Virginia town that contained a courthouse and is remembered because, on April 9, 1865, in the parlor of a private home, Lee met Grant to execute the end of the war. The courthouse did not figure in the battle and it was not an issue. But the Battle of Appomattox Court House did force Lee to finally accept he was cut off and out of options.
Union soldiers at the courthouse in April 1865
Okay, in a subsequent segment the show flashed a photo and took a few seconds to clarify what “Appomattox Court House” really refers to. Ali Nejad is obviously a nice and talented guy. No big deal, right?
But it is a big deal. Our country is in a lot of trouble if future generations are clueless about our History. The Civil War was America’s costliest war because – think about it – both sides were Americans. An unspeakable tragedy… 360,000 Union soldiers and 258,000 Confederates killed and countless wounded. We need to remember it and learn from it.
The issues surrounding the conflict still affect our daily lives today. Take it from me, someone who was once pulled over by police in rural South Carolina who did not appreciate my New York license plates. Now there’s a white cop in North Charleston gunning down a black man in cold blood… thankfully caught on video. Question: Who can watch that and not understand that we are still living with the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow? Answer: Someone who never learned about the horrors of the South’s “peculiar institution” and has not even heard of Jim Crow.
Democrats today have History on our side. Contemporary Republican calls for states to have the right to nullify laws passed by the federal government mirror what the antebellum Southern states tried to pull off in regard to slavery. Cut out of the body politic by the bayonets of the Civil War, the cancer of nullification entered into a long period of remission. Sadly, thanks to the tea partiers, it is growing again.
There are far too many Americans (young and old alike) who are more familiar with the name Kardashian than the name Lincoln. Come on Democrats… we shouldn't let that slide. Let's throw ourselves totally into the fight to support public education and the teaching of History. And we should tell everyone who will listen that the specter of nullification once again tears at the very foundations of our Union.