There Is No Appomattox For America’s Present Battle

[ad_1] Earlier than Donald Trump shocked the legacy media by successful the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton reassured People that “the challenges we face right this moment don't strategy these of Lincoln’s time. Not even shut.”

Measured by bloodshed alone, she was proper. Nothing right this moment rivals the carnage of Antietam or Shiloh. But in a deeper sense — culturally, psychologically, and spiritually — the USA might now be extra divided than it was when People have been actually leveling rifles at one another.

The reason being profound: in 1861, either side nonetheless believed within the legitimacy of the American experiment itself.

Which will sound counterintuitive. How may the Confederacy — based on secession and slavery — have believed within the rules of 1776, the Structure, and the Invoice of Rights that adopted? The reply lies in what the Confederates themselves stated. Of their Declarations of the Causes of Secession, Southern states have been specific. Mississippi declared, “Our place is totally recognized with the establishment of slavery — the best materials curiosity of the world.” Throughout the declarations of South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia, preserving slavery seems greater than eighty occasions because the central justification for riot. Taxes seem as soon as. Tariffs by no means.

This readability explains a historic paradox: how the nation may struggle a conflict of extraordinary savagery and but reconcile with relative velocity as soon as it ended.

The South believed — wrongly and catastrophically — that it was defending the founding precept of self-governance. In its view, states retained sovereignty and thus the correct to secede if the federal authorities threatened their pursuits. That these pursuits included the enslavement of hundreds of thousands was morally rationalized or ignored. The North, in the meantime, more and more understood the conflict as a take a look at of whether or not the Declaration’s declare that “all males are created equal” had any binding which means in any respect.

As Abraham Lincoln acknowledged, either side couldn't be proper. However each believed they have been performing in service of America. The Civil Conflict resolved a single, defining query: whether or not self-government prolonged to the correct to enslave others with out due course of. The ruling was handed down with prejudice at Appomattox.

The defeated South accepted the decision — grudgingly, imperfectly, however decisively sufficient to forestall infinite insurgency. By the tip of the nineteenth century, former Accomplice states had turn into among the many most patriotic areas of the nation. Former Accomplice common James Longstreet captured that reconciliation when he wrote in 1899, “Barring a bit household misunderstanding of a technology again, the South has by no means been something however loyal.”

That sentence could be unimaginable right this moment.

Reunion after the Civil Conflict was attainable as a result of, as soon as slavery — the central concern — was settled, North and South nonetheless shared a reverence for the nation’s founding. They disagreed violently about its utility, however not about its legitimacy. They nonetheless liked and believed within the innate goodness of their nation.

Now take into account the current.

What comparable concern divides us right this moment — one which, as soon as resolved, would permit the nation to heal? What shared assumptions stay beneath our disputes?

The uncomfortable reply: only a few.

We now not merely disagree over coverage. We disagree over whether or not the USA itself is an ethical enterprise. People more and more don't share a typical origin story. When one seems at John Trumbull’s portray of the presentation of the Declaration of Independence, one facet sees flawed however brave males risking every thing to discovered a republic that, regardless of its contradictions, expanded human freedom. The opposite sees little greater than oppression: “racist, sexist, slave-owning hypocrites” whose phrases about liberty are dismissed as fraudulent from the outset.

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1041603" class="size-large wp-image-1041603" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-113494983-891x576.jpg" alt="John Trumbull's oil painting, 'Declaration of Independence', 1818, depicting the five-man drafting committee of the Declaration of Independence presenting their work to the Congress, 28th June 1776. The committee are (left to right) John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. They are presenting the draft to Charles Thomson (standing) and John Hancock (seated). (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)" width="891" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-113494983-891x576.jpg 891w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-113494983-300x194.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-113494983-768x497.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-113494983.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 891px) 100vw, 891px"/> Common Historical past Archive/Getty Photographs

These usually are not coverage disagreements; they're competing realities. They can't be resolved by elections or concluded by a give up ceremony. There is no such thing as a Appomattox for a battle this diffuse.

Right this moment’s divide just isn't organized round a single concern like slavery. It's cultural and perceptual. It performs out not on battlefields however throughout lecture rooms, workplaces, media, and every day life. Even our fiercest ethical debates — abortion, immigration, gender — are signs reasonably than causes. They replicate a society that now not agrees on reality, limits, and even fundamental definitions.

The Civil Conflict eliminated a localized ethical most cancers, and the physique politic survived. Right this moment’s divisions resemble one thing extra metastatic, dispersed all through your entire system. There are not any clear fronts, no decisive battles, no remaining phrases — solely infinite skirmishes.

Lincoln urged “charity towards all and malice towards none.” However charity requires reciprocity. It requires a shared perception that persuasion issues and that one’s opponent continues to be a fellow citizen.

Whether or not such an viewers nonetheless exists is the query that can outline the years forward.

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Brad Schaeffer is a commodities fund supervisor, creator, and columnist whose articles have appeared on the pages of The Wall Road Journal, NY Publish, NY Every day Information, The Every day Wire, Nationwide Evaluation, The Hill, The Federalist, Zerohedge, and different retailers. He's the creator of three books. You can too comply with him on Substack and X.