Reflections from a Master Historian--C. Vann Woodward

 

I completed my reading of C. Vann Woodward’s marvelous book, Thinking Back:  The Perils of Writing History.  I’ve long been an admirer of Woodward.  He stands alongside David Potter, David Blight and David Brion Davis in my regard.  It’s an elegant book, a retrospective view of Woodward’s experiences as a historian.  He considers his own books and the critical dialogue they engendered and how the history of the South was viewed and written about during the early years of the century and how those views have changed over the decades.  He describes his university years at Emory and Chapel Hill, at Columbia and then, Yale.  He arrived on campus two years after I graduated.  How I would have loved to take courses from him.

 

There were many nuggets of wisdom in the book.  I’ll cite just a few:

 

Woodward tackles the controversy of history’s having a “purpose.”  He writes, “If the implied alternative be writing history without a purpose or an unacknowledged or unconscious purpose, then the indictment (that I write with a purpose) will have to stand.”  As one historian noted:  “Unless there is some emotional tie, some elective affinity linking the student to his subject, the results will be pedantic and perfunctory.”  And this, “The man who does not feel issues deeply cannot write great history about them.”

 I like what Carl Degler, one of my favorite historians, once wrote:  “All questions of continuity are relative.  All history is a combination of varying degrees of continuity and change.”  That has certainly been true of the history of Russia and China as I’ve experienced it over the last 30 years.  

 

 I identify closely with this from Woodward:  “If foresight had been enriched by hindsight (thinking of how he wrote history), I admit that I might have done it differently—and I am sure, more correctly.  But I am more disturbed to admit that if hindsight had preceded foresight, I might not have done it at all.  And that would have been to miss an experience, an adventure, that I perversely continue to cherish.”

 

I think about the Freedom Center.  If I had the foresight to see the financial challenges we have had, I’m sure we would not have built the building we did.  And, yet, looking back, it’s probably good that we did.

 

Or, if I had had the foresight to see what would happen in Russia, I probably would not have brought the degree of enthusiastic commitment to it which I did, persuaded as I was then that Russia was on the path to some form of democratization.  But seeing it the way I did, however incompletely and incorrectly it has turned out, underpinned our actions to become the clear-cut leader.  I am glad I had that perception.

 

In capturing a motivation that had animated my writing, I cite these words from Woodward:  “No matter how parochial its bounds, the historian is tempted to feel that his findings have meaning and value for a larger public than his fellow specialists and that he should share his arcane insights more widely.  It is a critical moment, a temptation best resisted, until wisdom ripens.”

 

Wise or not, these were my instincts as I’ve written the books which I have written.

 

It’s striking to read what characterized the attitude of Americans in the 1950s:  “Unified, confident, and powerful, Americans prided themselves on their military prowess, their economic productivity, their diplomatic triumphs, and their vindication of their high ideals.  In this mood, America presented herself to the world as a model for how democracy, power, opulence and virtue could be combined under one flag.”

 

We no longer carry such an unvarnished view of our exceptionalism or the inevitability of our winning.  The Vietnam War, Watergate, Afghanistan, Iraq, the polarization of the body politic, have put a dark cloud over any naïve view of life.  Yet, we cannot allow this to darken the appreciation and pursuit of those values which characterize us at our best.

 

Woodward rejected this notion that we had “unparalleled power and unprecedented wealth” which led to “unbridled self-righteousness and the illusion of national innocence.”

 

That risk no longer prevails.

 

Reinhold Niebuhr, my favorite philosopher, balances it right.  He understands that America’s ironic plight rests in the midst of seeming innocence.

 

In the 1960s and ‘70s, as a result of Vietnam and Watergate, Woodward writes, “It did seem as if history was at last about to catch up with Americans, and it was doubtful that they could much longer find refuge in their peculiar legends and myths.  A malaise seemed to sap national self-righteousness, self-confidence, and complacency.”

 

But as history was quickly to show, that did not last.  The 1980s witnessed another shift in the national mood under President Reagan that assured Americans that they were making a miraculous recovery.  Not only were all American wars righteous, but they all ended in victory.  Yet, that attitude turned again with Iraq and Afghanistan and Donald Trump.

 

As always, we see reversion and retreat.  We’re seeing it now in the pushback against what is described as identity politics and a waning in some quarters in the commitment to DE&I training.

 

We have to keep the few most important values in front of us and not retreat:  Everyone counts, love trumps hate, continuous improvement is possible, but not inevitable.  We’ll always have to contest pushback and recognize the force of continuity in embedded cultures.

"There's Nothing New Under the Sun"...But There Can Be and Must Be

"There's nothing new under the sun:. It's a familiar bromide. 

It captures enormous truth, of course. I am reminded of this again this week as I see how the  words of ex-President Trump, angrily and contemptuously denouncing immigrants as "venomous poison",  mirror almost word for word assertions by George Wallace and the leader of the Second Klu Klux Klan decades ago. This reminds me-there have always been leaders and there will always be leaders who are willing to fuel and live off the inveterate human tendency of people to see ourselves as victims...to elevate their view of their self worth by comparing themselves to a declared undeserving "other". 

Yet, with determined and principled leadership it does not have to be this way. In fact, we cannot allow it to be this way. To be sure, we do have to understand the source of people's grievances. We need to understand what corrective action can and should be taken to address them. But we need to stand up for the best in human nature..the recognition we are all on this journey of life together and should recognize each other, indeed recognize all people as deserving our respect for their dignity and right to freedom. 

People did eventually stand up to reject the hateful rhetoric and views of George Wallace and the Klan. But not before they had gained broad public support. Wallace received almost 10 million votes and won five southern states in the 1968 Presidential election. The Second Klan claimed membership by numerous mayors of cities and state governors. But ultimately, their divisive rhetoric and unsubstantiated accusations and claims brought them down.

Sadly, we have not yet had  unified Republican and other political voices (including from men and women who know better) rejecting the hateful rhetoric and views of Trump as they ultimately did those of Wallace and the Klan and Senator Joe McCarthy. The day will come when I feel certain historians, social commentators and the public at large will look back almost with a sense of wonder at how circumstances arose which allowed the emergence of a man of  such feckless character and mean spirit as Donald Trump to capture the heart and mind of the Republican party. I hope we will learn from this experience. 

Stepping back, I am affirmed how much of the best in civilization has "been new under the sun". A reading from Exodus in my church today referred to "slaves" as a normal expected segment in society. In fact. as late as the beginning of the 18th Century slavery was legal in every country throughout the Americas. Median span of life has nearly doubled over this same period. At the turn of the 20th century, women did not have the right to vote in most western nations, including the US. As late as the 1970's and even beyond LGBQT members in this country were ostracized and had to live under cover. 

Yes, progress is possible--though there will always be push back which if we fail to confront will result in retreat. And yes, I have also come to recognize there are irreducible human instincts, instincts I share:  of fear and the elevation and preservation of our egos; a coveting for power and control which demand that we seek, always., to embrace and live through our actions and treatment of others the "better angels of our nature". That will never happen on "automatic pilot". It will take constant effort and commitment. At least that is what I have found 

"Freedom's Dominion:A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power" by Jefferson Cowie

 

My Review

John Pepper

31 reviews5 followers

February 13, 2024

I can't overstate my admiration for this outstanding history. It illuminates the tension, indeed the fight for the true meaning of "freedom" between the poles of ensuring and supporting the freedom of every person and the freedom claimed and that asserted by individuals to essentially do what they choose even as and if it deprives the rights of others. As Cowie writes, "By. recognizing discrimination, white supremacy, economic power, and the capacity for violence as dimensions of what 'freedom' has always meant, we gain a fresh perspective on central problems of American ideology and practice. A core dimension of freedom is an expression of power".

Cowie develops this timeless history while never failing to engage the reader with fluent and often inspiring prose and individual stories capturing broadly applicable themes thorough the lens one area of the country--southeastern Alabaman, Barbour County over the course of two centuries. He frames the history in the context of America's being born at "a unique confluence of two streams of global history: settler colonialism and chattel slavery". He describes our experience as being even more unique because our nation was founded "on a premise so deeply wedded to the combined ancient republican values of freedom and democratic governance".

Cowie shows how the oppression of individual rights, beginning with the Creek Indians, to African Americans has been waged at the local level and contested and thwarted only by Federal Action which has all too often proved insufficient and temporary and indeed used by its opponents as a further reason to demand a locally imposed definition of "freedom" which entitles the denial of "freedom" to others. Again, Cowie writes: "we learn that federal power has proven itself, quite consistently, by design and practice, to be inadequate to the basic claims of citizenship by the people" Cowie goes on to lament that "one of the great ironies of American history is that federal power has a far better record of breeding anti-statists than it does disciplining them.

This commitment to "anti-statism" has too often been a cover for discrimination against blacks, immigrants and other minorities. It has been turned into "anti-elites" as well by politicians from Governor George Wallace to Nixon to Trump.

It is striking to read how Wallace's platform and very words mirror those followed by Trump. It fed off "victimization" at the hands of the Federal government and intellectual elites and indulged in outlandish untruths and the aura employed by "strongmen" through all time.

As Cowie cogently writes, "Freedom has always been a contested, messy, and ill defined concept..but it is crucial to recognize that the anti-statist, white power version of it is not an aberration but a virulent part of the American idiom".

He concludes, To confront this saga of freedom is to confront the fundamentals of the American narrative. "We ought not embrace the cruelty of the past, but neither should we continue the malignant idea that this story of oppression was never the 'real' American story. The solution is to commit to a bright, sharp, militant defense of the one single, unambiguous thing that the federal government should do defend. the civil and political rights on the local level for all people--cries of freedom to the contrary be damned".

Shades From US History on What Israel Has Perpetrated on the Palestinians

 

Shades of What Israel Has Perpetrated on the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank over a Period of More than 70 Years

 

In the spring of 1832, the United States War Department gave a difficult task to the United States Marshall Robert L. Crawford to remove white settlers who had illegally encroached on land that had been given to the Creek people under the Treaty of Cusseta, which had been signed just weeks before Crawford received his orders as part of President Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830.  That act allowed the government to exchange land west of the Mississippi for native lands in the east.  The terms of the Treaty of Cusseta essentially privatized five million acres located in southeast Alabama, premised on giving individual plots of land to the Creek people.  It provided Federal protection for the Native American rights for a period of five years. The hope in Washington was that the Creeks would sell their lands during this period and move west of the Mississippi. Yet, for the indigenous population, this was not the “opportunity” to move west but the right, which the government pledged to enforce for five years, to hold their land. 

 

Again and again, the Indians and Marshall Crawford turned to the federal government, Secretary of War Cass and the President for help.  And they received some, but in the end not nearly enough to deter the white intruders who “refused to tolerate the federal government’s curtailing of what they militantly regarded as their rights and freedom.”

 

I can’t read this history without being soberly reminded that this in so many ways is exactly what we have seen as Israeli settlers have moved into land granted by the United Nations to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.  They have had fingers wagged at them from time to time by the Israel government, but not decisively, and indeed there are members of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cabinet who openly advocate displacing Palestinians to other countries to make room for Israelis, just as U.S. leaders almost a century ago looked to displace the Native American population to the west to make room for white settlers east of the Mississippi.    And, of course, those treaties establishing defined land for Native Americans west of the Mississippi were also soon to be abrogated, making way for the expansion of white settlers.

 

This is a fair reminder of what the Palestinians are up against and what those in the world, like me, who believe they have every right to their own state need to do to force upon the Israeli government the commitment to do what is right to recognize and support what Palestinians deserve—dignity and freedom—just as Israeli citizens do.

 

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An Historic Decision That SCOTUS Dare Not Duck

We will hear oral arguments on Thursday, February 8, on one of the most important cases ever brought before the Supreme Court of the United States as it rules on the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to exclude former President Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot. 

 

I have read two of the amicus briefs on this case, including one joined by historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat among others and another joined by historians David Blight, Jill Lepore and Drew Gilpin Faust among others.  These briefs summarily and persuasively dismiss the objections which have been made to the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision. They make it clear that Section III of the 14^th Amendment was indeed written looking not only back to the Civil War but forward to other efforts that might be undertaken in the future to overthrow our democracy.  They also convincingly debunk the argument that Trump is not an “officer” of the United States and the other argument that what he was involved in was not an “insurrection.” 

 I AM  convinced that an honest review of what the writers of Article 14 intended will result in Trump’s being disqualified.

  This will admittedly be a hugely controversial decision; it will be said by some to be too political for the Court to decide and therefore should be decided by Congress. Yet, as Conservative Judge Brett Ludwig has argued in his amicus brief, this is clearly a Constitutional matter that should be decided by our Courts. 

The reality that this decision will be politically controversial should not lead the Court to "duck..to try to find a way out" or "kick the can down the road" Disqualifying Trump will be acting in accord with the intent of the authors of the 14th  Amendment to protect our nation from a leader who sought to overturn it. It will be a decision marked forever as a stand for integrity, for doing the right thing. It will also, incidentally, save the Republican Party from not only a grievous threat to our democracy but it will stop its being co-opted by an individual who does not stand for what the Republican Party has stood for at its best.

 

 

Make Haste to Be Kind--A Story Carrying a Message to Guide Our Lives

 Friends, 

You may have read this story before. I read it for the first time yesterday. I will return to it often. It is too important not to share.

John

As she stood in front of her 5th-grade class on the very first day of school, she told the children an untruth. Like most teachers, she looked at her students and said that she loved them all the same. However, that was impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard.

Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he did not play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy, and that he constantly needed a bath. In addition, Teddy could be unpleasant.

It got to the point where Mrs. Thompson would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold X's, and then putting a big "F" at the top of his papers.

At the school where Mrs. Thompson taught, she was required to review each child's past records and she put Teddy's off until last. However, when she reviewed his file, she was in for a surprise.

Teddy's first-grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is a bright child with a ready laugh. He does his work neatly and has good manners... he is a joy to be around.."

His second-grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is an excellent student, well-liked by his classmates, but he is troubled because his mother has a terminal illness, and life at home must be a struggle."

His third-grade teacher wrote, "His mother's death has been hard on him. He tries to do his best, but his father doesn't show much interest and his home life will soon affect him if some steps aren't taken."

Teddy's fourth-grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is withdrawn and doesn't show much interest in school. He doesn't have many friends and he sometimes sleeps in class."

By now, Mrs. Thompson realized the problem and she was ashamed of herself. She felt even worse when her students brought her Christmas presents, wrapped in beautiful ribbons and bright paper, except for Teddy's. His present was clumsily wrapped in the heavy, brown paper That he got from a grocery bag Mrs. Thompson took pains to open it in the middle of the other presents. Some of the children started to laugh when she found a rhinestone bracelet with some of the stones missing and a bottle that was one-quarter full of perfume.. But she stifled the children's laughter when she exclaimed how pretty the bracelet was, putting it on, and dabbing some of the perfume on her wrist. Teddy Stoddard stayed after school that day just long enough to say, "Mrs. Thompson, today you smelled just like my Mom used to." After the children left, she cried for at least an hour.

On that very day, she quit teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. Instead, she began to teach children. Mrs. Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy. As she worked with him, his mind seemed to come alive. The more she encouraged him, the faster he responded. By the end of the year, Teddy had become one of the smartest children in the class and, despite her lie that she would love all the children the same, Teddy became one of her "teacher's pets.."

A year later, she found a note under her door, from Teddy, telling* her that she was still the best teacher he ever had in his whole life.

Six years went by before she got another note from Teddy. He then wrote that he had finished high school, third in his class, and she was still the best teacher he ever had in life.

Four years after that, she got another letter, saying that while things had been tough at times, he'd stayed in school, had stuck with it, and would soon graduate from college with the highest of honors. He assured Mrs. Thompson that she was still the best and favorite teacher he had ever had in his whole life.

Then four more years passed and yet another letter came. This time he explained that after he got his bachelor's degree, he decided to go a little further. The letter explained that she was still the best and favorite teacher he ever had. But now his name was a little longer.... The letter was signed, Theodore F. Stoddard, MD.

The story does not end there. You see, there was yet another letter that spring. Teddy said he had met this girl and was going to be married. He explained that his father had died a couple of years ago and he was wondering if Mrs. Thompson might agree to sit at the wedding in the place that was usually reserved for the mother of the groom.

Of course, Mrs. Thompson did. And guess what? She wore that bracelet, the one with several rhinestones missing. Moreover, she made sure she was wearing the perfume that Teddy remembered his mother wearing on their last Christmas together.

They hugged each other, and Dr. Stoddard whispered in Mrs. Thompson's ear, "Thank you Mrs. Thompson for* believing in me. Thank you so much for making me feel important and showing me that I could make a difference."

Mrs. Thompson, with tears in her eyes, whispered back. She said, "Teddy, you have it all wrong. You were the one who taught me that I could make a difference. I didn't know how to teach until I met you."

(For you that don't know, Teddy Stoddard is the Dr. at Iowa Methodist Hospital in Des Moines that has the Stoddard Cancer Wing.)

Warm someone's heart today. . . pass this along. I love this story so very much, I cry every time I read it. Just try to make a difference in someone's life today? tomorrow? Just "do it".

Random acts of kindness, I think they call it?

"Believe in Angels, then return the favor." Sent from my iPhone

A Clear and Present Danger--Former President Trump

• It is all too easy to view Trump’s campaign to regain the presidency as political theatre.  Outlandish.  So exaggerated, so filled with hyperbole to be almost humorous.  But it’s much more than that I see at this moment.  It’s a clear and present danger to the future of our nation and to the future of the world.

   

  I write this today as I would not have even a week or two weeks ago.  I believe Trump has crossed a line mentally. He is no longer rational.  His comments leap all over the place, disconnected.  The latest on Saturday had him asserting that the Civil War could have been negotiated, did not need to have been fought.  He has described the people who pled guilty, some of whom are in jail, for participating in the uprising of January 6, 2021 as “hostages” who should be released. 

   

  Former Vice-President Pence came out yesterday recommending to fellow Republicans that they support Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis for President, not Donald Trump.  If only a phalanx of fellow Republicans would stand up in unison publicly to say the same thing. 

   

  I move to the Supreme Court decision which is pending on the question of whether the State of Colorado (or any other state) can bar Trump from the primary or general election because of the article in the 14^th Amendment barring the election of any person who has participated in or supported an insurrection.  Trump clearly has done that. 

  
  

  As has been pointed out, the Supreme Court has several avenues they could pursue to overturn Colorado’s decision and, as they would say, let the voters decide.  And it is my belief that even with the electoral challenges Biden faces, Trump will be rejected.  But the brave decision on the part of the Supreme Court will be to accept the political outcry that would accompany its supporting the State of Colorado, a decision which I believe would be judicially correct. Doing this would also have the enormous benefit of eliminating even the possibility of the clear and present danger which Trump represents to our Nation and the world.

  
  
  

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