This morning I received an email asking me to comment on the recent attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump, its consequences and whether we are now closer to a civil war.
I certainly understand the need for insight at a time like this. Many people are experiencing a profound sense of uncertainty and fear about the present and future.
Yes, I study and write about a very violent period in American history that ended with the assassination of a president, but I have nothing to offer that might help to better understand our current crisis.
I am not throwing up my hands to admit failure as much as I am admitting my limitations as a historian and student of history.
As much as I look forward to opportunities to talk and write—sometimes in great depth—about the Civil War era, I’ve tended to resist the urge to offer guidance or lessons for the present.
Writing history takes time. It requires a willingness and even eagerness to hit brick walls along the way. Questions are posed only to be revised based on the availability of evidence and a host of other factors. Even at the end of the process, historians can expect that their interpretation will almost certainly come under criticism and be revised at some point by the next generation of scholars and writers.
This open-ended quality is what makes the study of history so exciting. Trying to attain a fixed interpretation of any aspect of the past is, as Peter Novick once suggested, kind of like “nailing jelly to the wall.”
In my mind, trying to apply the past to the present is even more difficult and fraught with problems.
I’ve grown weary of efforts to apply the lessons of the Civil War to our current political culture. There has been no shortage of op-eds predicting another Civil War over the past few years, but I tend to think that this commentary tells us more about the authors in question than anything helpful about the present or the past.
A number of historians that I deeply respect and have learned a great deal from over the years have attempted to compare the Lost Cause of the postwar South with Trump’s “Big Lie.” As I have said in previous posts, such comparisons make little sense to me.
Of course, historians have every right to comment on current politics or any other issue for that matter. We are, in the end like everyone else, citizens.
But keep in mind that such commentary is not necessarily informed by the methodology that goes into studying history.
Historians can provide context and remind us of what the nation has already experienced, but we have no privileged access to what we are currently going through or where this nation is headed.
To be honest, I am finding it very difficult to make sense of what has taken place over the past few days, weeks, months and even years. You might think that the solution is to soak up as much as possible from the many thoughtful writers and commentators that are out there, but I have moved in the opposite direction.
I am reading less across the board, especially on social media.
I don’t know what the consequences of this past weekend’s attempted assassination of Trump or of the outcome of the 2024 presidential election will be, regardless of who proves victorious. If history teaches us anything, perhaps it is that while we should remain vigilant, we should steer clear of the prediction game altogether.
Good luck and thanks for reading.
If history is an exercise in rhyming as Mark Twain remarked, then we historians need to become better poets, or else, tell our readers: I will answer your question when the poem's lines take shape. Who knew there would be another stanza just a week later?
It's Sunday evening and Katie Tur quoted Lenin a few hours ago: “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen."
We thought the kid with the gun in Pennsylvania had written the penultimate line. The despot gets an ear nicked and the Democrat gets...Covid. The events of this afternoon put some centuries to sleep, diminishing The Despot. Who this morning would have imagined today?
Surely the only month in US history comparing with Sunday might have a corollary in the Civil War that was also in July. In 1863 two Philadelphians led armies on opposite sides of our CW from distant points on the continent. Both of those armies were under desperate challenge.
With two days' notice Philadelphian Meade blunted Lee's attacks at Gettysburg on July 1-2-3. After over a month trapped inside Vicksburg, the other Philadelphian, Pemberton, surrendered to Grant on July 4. Later in July, there erupted the anti-draft//anti-Black riots in NYC, and the 54th MA Regt assaulted Fort Wagner. (I AM VERY EAGER to read KML's analysis of the issue: did Shaw need to volunteer his men to attack that fort?)
Today we witnessed the voluntary retirement of a brilliant president from PA in favor of his African American--Asian American--woman vice president. Democratic Party leadership lined up behind her in moments. (“I’m not a member of any organized political party" said Will Rogers about a century ago in a different poem.)
It's hard to know what culminates on Nov 5, but convoluted lines of American Karma (not yet a rhyme!) seem to converge and promise a neat resolution.
Democratic Leaders are converging in joyous relief. ActBlue reports over $50 mil in small donations in about 1/3 day. We are close to writing ourselves a new poem. Could be epic!!
(Disclosure: this writer is a member of the same political coalition in the same city that elected a district attorney 20 years ago who's now almost the party's nominee for president. There! Said without a rhyme. But I gotta make our own donations and there's just enough time.)
I'm kind of surprised to have seen historians who regularly comment on the news from a historical perspective omit all mention of the 1881 assassination of James Garfield by Charles Guiteau, a failed office seeker and supporter of Garfield during the 1880 election who is generally regarded as having retaliated when the appointment he had expected in return for his support in the campaign failed to eventuate. The pistol used was highly ornate and purchased specifically for the assassination attempt with the expectation that it would become a collector's item. Garfield was shot from behind at point blank range in the middle of Grand Central Station. The bullet lodged in Garfield's pancreas and he would likely have survived the attack if the doctors treating him had been less intent on removing the bullet. He was shot in mid-July and didn't die until mid-September six months into his term. Guiteau pleaded not guilty and his defense was that the bullet hadn't killed him and the culprit was medical malpractice. The jury returned a verdict in less than an hour and Guiteau was hanged the following morning. Johnny Cash recorded an album shortly after the JFK assassination called Mean As Hell which included a song simply titled Mr. Garfield. It was a folk song that was apparently quite popular during the two non-consecutive terms in office during which Grover Cleveland established the federal civil service as a remedy to reduce incentives for spoils system inspired retribution.