Intermission: Mary Boykin Chesnut’s Diary, Part One

March 17, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

Mary Boykin Chesnut was a Southern lady in the purest tradition, born into South Carolina’s political nobility and educated at one of the finest boarding schools in Charleston. Her husband was the son of a successful plantation owner and an upwardly mobile politico himself.

Following Lincoln’s election in 1860, James Chesnut helped write South Carolina’s Declaration of Secession and during the subsequent war served as an aide to General Beauregard and President Davis, eventually rising to the rank of General.

Women in such circumstances were expected to be well-educated, but not given much opportunity to use their fancy brains. In retrospect, it might have been kinder to either keep them as ignorant as possible or let them do stuff – but such were the mores of the day. So she read, she observed, and she wrote.

Lots.

The diary of Mrs. Chesnut is one of the essential primary sources of the Civil War, and still readily available if you’re interested. It’s quite accessible to the casual reader – you won’t even know you’re learning history, I promise.

The best-known passages describe events in and around her household (a very active place even when wars weren’t being started nearby) as the tensions between North and South approach conflagration, thanks in large part to the stubbornness of Union Colonel Robert Anderson, in command of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

April 12th. – Anderson will not capitulate. Yesterday’s was the merriest, maddest dinner we have had yet. Men were audaciously wise and witty. We had an unspoken foreboding that it was to be our last pleasant meeting… Mrs. Henry King rushed in saying, “The news, I come for the latest news. All the men of the King family are on the Island,” of which fact she seemed proud.
While she was here our peace negotiator, or envoy, came in – that is, Mr. Chesnut returned. His interview with Colonel Anderson had been deeply interesting, but Mr. Chesnut was not inclined to be communicative. He wanted his dinner. He felt for Anderson and had telegraphed to President Davis for instructions – what answer to give Anderson, etc. He has now gone back to Fort Sumter with additional instructions.
When they were about to leave the wharf A. H. Boykin sprang into the boat in great excitement. He thought himself ill-used, with a likelihood of fighting and he to be left behind!

Never has a better case been made for teaching reading and writing, although her keen observations on human nature are perhaps harder to mandate.

Mrs. Chesnut’s observations of her husband are appropriately loving and respectful, always. Her subtle commentary on others, however, brings her writing to life. Her snapshots of Mrs. King and the young Boykin are sympathetic, certainly – but tinted with bewilderment over their enthusiasm for war.

The words themselves maintain perfectly plausible deniability, were posterity to challenge her tone – “Me? Oh, no no – I was just noting what I saw and heard… that’s all.” (*fans self with something lavishly decorative*)

“Men were audaciously wise and witty.” What a marvelous phrase. It sounds like the Mad Hatter’s tea party, but instead of pure chaos, her description is redolent of forced fearlessness and social gilding. F. Scott Fitzgerald has nothing on the wealthy belle when it comes to writing dinner parties.

I do not pretend to go to sleep. How can I? If Anderson does not accept terms at four, the orders are, he shall be fired upon. I count four, St. Michael’s bells chime out and I begin to hope. At half-past four the heavy booming of a cannon. I sprang out of bed, and on my knees prostrate I prayed as I never prayed before.
There was a sound of stir all over the house, pattering of feet in the corridors. All seemed hurrying one way. I put on my double-gown and a shawl and went, too. It was to the housetop. The shells were bursting. In the dark I heard a man say, “Waste of ammunition.”

I don’t know who the man in the dark may have been, but if this were a work of fiction rather than a primary source, I’d point him out as a brilliant bit of literary slight-of-hand.

While the rest of the city – and, by proxy, the South – celebrates the opening rounds of what will no doubt prove a majestic little melee, one anonymous voice just out of view notices that they’re firing land weapons at a fort designed to withstand attack by foreign navies.

Nothing tangible is being accomplished – it won’t work. There’s kerfuffle enough, but no substance. There’s a cost, but for what prize?

I’m no expert on Mary Boykin Chesnut, but if someone who WERE wished to persuade me she’s taken literary license with her account to say things she could not, as a wife and loyal secesh, say – well, I wouldn’t argue.

Last night, or this morning truly, up on the housetop I was so weak and weary I sat down on something that looked like a black stool. “Get up, you foolish woman. Your dress is on fire,” cried a man. And he put me out. I was on a chimney and the sparks had caught my clothes. Susan Preston and Mr. Venable then came up. But my fire had been extinguished before it burst out into a regular blaze.

I realize it’s not exactly gut-splitting to read in the 21st century, but this is funny. It’s the 19th century equivalent of zany slapstick humor.

If only the helpful man had said “nyuk nyuk!” and poked her in the eyes just after.

Do you know, after all that noise and our tears and prayers, nobody has been hurt; sound and fury signifying nothing – a delusion and a snare.

This sentence could be used as an example for about 43 different things in ELA, AND it’s a pleasure to read repeatedly. It’s like literary bruschetta.

And remember that ‘plausible deniability’ from a bit ago? It’s about to get pushed to the limits of of beau monde. That Chesnut is a real card.

Next time.

“Here’s Your Mule,” Part Three – That Sure Was Sumter

March 15, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

After Lincoln’s election in 1860, a number of Southern states – starting, of course, with South Carolina – began seceding from the Union. Or trying, at least – depending on who you asked.

Soldiers and others who happened to find themselves in the South but remained loyal to the Union began finding their way north in anticipation of the coming conflict. Those in the North who supported the Confederacy did the same in reverse. There seemed to be an unwritten understanding behind it, and no war had been declared yet, so they just kinda… went.

This meant by and large than any arms or other military property in the seceding states defaulted to the control of those siding with the South – them being the only ones left and all.

Except one.

Just off the shores of South Carolina stood Fort Sumter, one of several installations built to defend the coast from foreign attack by sea. It wasn’t quite finished, but it was already pretty intimidating to view. In command was Robert Anderson, with 85 men.

He missed the memo about slinking off home, there not actually being one and all. He’d sworn to defend the harbor and to serve the Union and all that, and figured that’s what he should do.

Problem is, he was now surrounded by Secesh – and he was running low on supplies.

President Buchanan made a few token efforts to resupply the fort, but otherwise followed his famous “stall until it’s Lincoln’s problem” strategy – pretty much his approach to everything between November 1860 and March 1861. Lincoln took office to discover he had less than six weeks to figure out what to do about Sumter.

There are no official documents to this effect, but I have to think at some point Lincoln sighed and wondered why the $#@% Anderson had to play the noble soldier right then and there. Of course the President would back him up, but he hadn’t planned on christening his administration this way.

He wasn’t alone – neither side wanted to be held responsible for actually starting the war, or look weak by making major concessions to prevent it. In the grandest high school tradition, both had prepared their “but he started it!” defenses for posterity, and weren’t about to let a little thing like facts on the ground mess it up.

Anderson exchanged notes with P.G.T. Beauregard, commander of the surrounding Confederate forces and a former colleague, feeling out the situation:

Anderson was under no illusion regarding his chances if not reinforced. His language indicates a recognition he’d eventually be leaving – but honor demanded a good show of standing his ground. This wasn’t vanity; it was simply the way things were properly done.

There were conditions under which he could bail with dignity, but they hadn’t arrived yet.

In the wee hours of April 12, 1861, Beauregard began firing on Sumter. Anderson fired back, but not as vigilantly, given his limited ammo and such. Northern ships in the area weren’t built for fighting, and stayed out of range, observing. The battle lasted something like 34 hours.

No one died.

Fort Sumter, as it turns out, was a very forty fort. It was designed to withstand and repulse way cray attacks by sea. The cannons available to the Confederacy, pulled into place by horses and firing balls capable of being loaded by men in a hurry, simply couldn’t do real damage to its walls.

The Rebels WERE able to light some of its internal structures on fire with “hot shots” – cannonballs heated to a glow before firing. These were aimed high to land within. Anderson, unwilling to sacrifice men for what he no doubt saw as a futile, if noble, effort, kept his men inside, on the lower levels. I mean, someone could have gotten hurt!

As for the Yankees, the really big guns at Sumter were intended to sink ships – the kind coming from the OTHER direction. The guns Anderson used were deadly enough at short range, which this wasn’t, and worse, were being fired from the lower levels of the fort.

It was really rather pointless. Helluva show, though, by all accounts – and enough to keep local civilians in a tizzy:

Fort Sumter has been on fire. Anderson has not yet silenced any of our guns. So the aides, still with swords and red sashes by way of uniform, tell us. But the sound of those guns makes regular meals impossible. None of us go to table. Tea-trays pervade the corridors going everywhere.
Some of the anxious hearts lie on their beds and moan in solitary misery. Mrs. Wigfall and I solace ourselves with tea in my room. These women have all a satisfying faith. “God is on our side,” they say. When we are shut in Mrs. Wigfall and I ask “Why?” “Of course, He hates the Yankees, we are told. You’ll think that well of Him.” (Diary of Mary Chesnut, April 13, 1861)

Cannons fired from multiple locations, flames and smoke and explosions – good times. Anderson eventually had remaining munitions dumped to prevent them igniting and blowing up the whole place from the inside. The tides carried the barrels back to the fort walls, where incoming fire ignited them – adding to the fireworks and the distinct impression perhaps Mrs. Chestnut’s friends were correct regarding God’s opinion of the matter.

But no one died.

Perhaps it would have been better if they had. It might have demonstrated at the outset that real lives were at stake – real blood, real limbs, real suffering and death. Instead, the initial action of the war was sound and fury, pomp and circumstance, full of adrenaline and passionate devotion, but none of the true horrors of war – although those would arrive soon enough.

As it was, however, young Confederates engaged in the melee were vocal with their disappointment when Anderson slowed his firing from time to time. They mocked the northern vessels sitting out of range, sometimes rowing within shouting distance to chide them for being so ignoble as to allow their comrades to wage battle without their assistance. They cheered when firing from the fort resumed – perhaps partly from genuine appreciation of Anderson’s resilience, but largely out of the pure joy of video game war.

Which is what it was at this stage – a fantasy and frolic of boys in costume off to play soldier. A few of the older generals had fought Mexico over a decade before, but for most, this was a game.

Anderson surrendered around noon the next day. A cannon misfired during a final ceremonial salute to Old Gory and the resulting explosion killed two young soldiers.

They were the first fatalities of the Civil War – killed not in battle but in the kind of symbolic loyalty which had started this firefight to begin with.

Major ANDERSON stated that he surrendered his sword to Gen. BEAUREGARD as the representative of the Confederate Government. Gen. BEAUREGARD said he would not receive it from so brave a man. He says Major ANDERSON made a staunch fight, and elevated himself in the estimation of every true Carolinian.
During the fire, when Major ANDERSON’S flagstaff was shot away, a boat put off from Morris Island, carrying another American flag for him to fight under — a noteworthy instance of the honor and chivalry of South Carolina Seceders, and their admiration for a brave man.
The scene in the city after the raising of the-flag of truce and the surrender is indescribable; the people were perfectly wild. Men on horseback rode through the streets proclaiming the news, amid the greatest enthusiasm. On the arrival of the officers from the fort they were marched through the streets, followed by an immense crowd, hurrahing, shouting, and yelling with excitement…
Six vessels are reported off the bar, but the utmost indignation is expressed against them for not coming to the assistance of Major ANDERSON when he made signals of distress.
(New York Times, April 15, 1861)

I’m no expert on what makes it ‘war’, but I think they were doing it wrong. They were not enemies, but friends. Though passion may have strained, it had not yet broken their bonds of affection.

It would.

“Here’s Your Mule,” Part Two – Slavery and Sinners

March 12, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

One of the most bizarre mischaracterizations of history is the idea that in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the Lord made the North free, and just, without prejudice or malice. He saw the North, and declared that it was ‘good’.

He then made the South, full of slavery and slave-owners, dark of heart and reeking of cheap gin. They were twisted and evil, taking time out of beating slaves and raping children only to drink lemonade on the veranda dressed as Colonel Sanders… rubbing their hands together, cackling maniacally.

In reality, by the dawn of the 19th century there was slavery pretty much everywhere in the United States. More in some places than others, but it was a thing all over. There were abolitionists as well – pretty much everywhere – carrying on about the evil of the peculiar institution and making everyone unhappy.

It was an onerous institution, even for those not actually slaves. It was expensive and high maintenance and morally suspect, and after a bit the Northern states began realizing they just didn’t need it that badly. Gradually, the practice was phased out and eventually banned – and everyone seemed better off.

Besides, they already had an entirely different class of not-quite-people to exploit and dehumanize. In the elite world of historiography, we call them the “Irish.”

The South, on the other hand, was going the opposite direction. In the late 18th century a clever fellow named Eli Whitney had invented (or at least improved and marketed) the cotton gin!

See, cotton was CRAZY useful, but a nightmare to pick. The picker had to stoop over 94 hours a day, pulling about 1/zillionth of an ounce of cotton from each boll – which the good Lord had seen fit to make POINTY of all things. You got poked a lot, which hurt – and if you bled, even a little, the #$%&ing cotton stuck to your finger. But, you shook it off into the bag and moved on to the next one. If you did this successfully 480 billion times, you had about one handful of cotton.

So people wore a lot of animal skins and weird scratchy things. It was easier.

Whitney’s little machine made this process much less onerous. Basically you threw everything into the machine and spun a handle until hoodies and socks came out the other side. With the deluxe model you could add an Eskimo Joe’s logo and do t-shirts.

The cotton gin, as every middle school history teacher can tell you, made cotton production what we historians call ‘way cray’ more profitable – thus cementing slavery as an ‘essential’ institution for decades past its anticipated life span. Unintended consequences suck.

But that’s not what caused the war – at least not entirely.

See, within a generation or so of the last Northern slave passing on, if you asked the average New Yorker or Pennsylvanian why they didn’t have slavery, they would be unlikely to give you a history or geography lesson. Most would let you know – with conviction – that slavery was bad.

To be fair, slavery WAS bad, but that hadn’t stopped their father’s generation from tolerating or even embracing it. Now it was suddenly primitive, backwards – even sinful. Why, then, did their Southern brethren remain so vested in this peculiar institution?

Well, obviously the south is full of sinners. Not like us – we’re good people. That’s why we abolished it.

Moral superiority. MUCH cooler than a geography or economics lesson.

The North began looking down on the South in newer, uglier ways, and abolition quickly evolved to attack not only the institution but those willingly participating in it as well. The South gave back as well as they received, condemning the ‘wage slavery’ and general self-righteous hypocrisy of the North.

It became personal – much more personal than before.

The abolitionists may have been the ‘good guys’, but their paths weren’t always clear. Some had long, tortured debates regarding the most effective approach to ending slavery without ignoring social, economic, and political realities. Others abhorred compromise, believing righteousness required inflexibility – results coming from divine necessity, not temporal strategy.

They argued over the inclusion of women, and even over how much voice to give to free blacks. Some of this had to do with their lingering biases, but much of it was calculated based on effectiveness – a professionally dressed, traditionally educated, bespectacled white male had a better chance of changing minds when facing entrenched power and culture.

It was ‘right’ to let women speak on behalf of the enslaved. It was more ‘right’ to let freed blacks speak for themselves. But it was sometimes more effective – based solely on the realities of the day – to not.

You see the dilemma?

At least most abolitionists were aware of the inherent murkiness in their cause and their methods. Lincoln himself famously wrestled with exactly how one limited or ended slavery without creating as many problems as were solved – at least on the white side of things.

I mean, come on… Liberia?

But it was when murkiness vanished and conviction reigned that real sparks flew.

I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD. (William Lloyd Garrison, 1831)
Wages [referring to ‘free’ factory labor in the North] is a cunning device of the devil, for the benefit of tender consciences who would retain all the advantages of the slave system without the expense, trouble, and odium of being slaveholders. (Orestes A. Brownson, 1840)

One might suspect the Universe had a cruel sense of humor: Whitney’s little machine and the diverging development of two interdependent regions based primarily on geography and human nature. Two such different cultures with such similar values, unable to recognize themselves in one another.

Conflict and confusion among the well-intentioned, most of whose names we’ve largely forgotten – was it more important to be effective or to be just? A largely white population coming to violence over a black population rarely consulted as to their views or desires. An unforgiveable sin in our history becoming almost secondary to the vitriol with which it was debated.

The plot had more holes than Battlestar Galactica, and nearly as many characters we still can’t quite figure out whether to love or despise. (Say what you like about the Cylons, they at least had moral clarity.)

It should have been no surprise that the resulting war would make even less sense. It will set men free, almost accidentally, and without giving them real freedom. It changed everything, which –

(Oh gosh, I’m getting a bit trite and predictable here, aren’t I? My apologies to The Sphinx.)

It changed everything, which of course stayed way too much the same.

“Here’s Your Mule,” Part One – North vs. South

March 11, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I am often amused at how clear cut so many things are for my students. Not always their ‘real lives’ – although many of them quickly turn indignant when people or events don’t fall in line with their wishes and assumptions – but in confronting history, and politics, and people… everyone else’s ‘real lives’.

Reality is quite inconvenient, it seems.

Given how unpredictable they themselves are, I can’t fathom where they’ve gained such convictions regarding how other people and events were supposed to have behaved. Nothing is that simple, is it? We love the wrong people, fight questionable wars, focus on the strangest issues, and feel such uncertain feels.

It keeps things interesting.

The American Civil War is one of the most written about, discussed, reenacted, and debated events in all of human history. It was important, of course – major battles and nation-changing outcomes and all – but I’m not sure that’s its primary fascination for us.

Part of its twisted appeal comes from how rarely it made any sense or followed any reasonable course. It was glorious and awful, and probably never should have happened – despite being inevitable.

I mean, look at how much the North and the South had in common:

They’d declared independence together less than a century before and fought the British together – twice. Both extolled the same form of government (even after the South attempted to secede, the ‘nation’ they created for themselves was essentially the same in structure as the one they’d left). They quoted the same Declaration of Independence and revered the same Constitution.

They were almost all Protestants. Whether devout or merely subscribed to the trappings doesn’t really matter – they were of the same basic belief system. They were largely capitalists, they practically worshipped land ownership, and they celebrated the same heroes and events in their history and the history of the world.

Both regions spoke primarily English and couldn’t conceive of doing otherwise.

In every region of the country, the dominant social, political, and economic class was composed almost entirely of straight white educated land-owning males. Most of them looked down on pretty much everyone else.

They relied on one another economically – the South purchased most of its manufactured goods from the North, which in turn procured cotton and a few other cash crops from the South. The so-called ‘triangle trade’ (molasses, rum, slaves, repeat) was no longer extant, but only the particulars of their fiscal relationship had changed, not the substance.

And, most fundamentally, they were attached. You couldn’t physically separate one from the other. At the very least they were close neighbors. In reality, they were interconnected, intermarried, interbred, and interwound in every conceivable way.

These are not the makings of an inevitable war.

Of course, there were some pretty important differences as well – starting with geography.

The relatively short growing seasons and more challenging topography of the North meant large scale cash crops weren’t a viable option. On the other hand, readily available water and other resources supported industrialization in a way which would have been impractical in the South.

It’s a mischaracterization, however, to imagine the North was mostly industrialized by 1860. The majority of Northerners lived and worked on small farms or in small businesses, growing food for themselves and their families and perhaps trading or selling surplus for other goods. Most factories were in the North, but most of the North wasn’t factories.

This is going to matter when war breaks out because the North will be able to provide boom sticks AND corn dogs, while the South will struggle to provide either. Just foreshadowing a bit – pardon me.

Southern geography meant agriculture on an entirely different scale. Long growing seasons, flatter lands, different soil – this was God’s way of promoting sugar, tobacco, and most of all, cotton. It was the Elvis of cash crops.

You could only really do one thing with cotton – sell it, to the North or to Europe, who would make it into stuff. You couldn’t eat it (well, I guess you could, but it wasn’t very tasty and didn’t provide much nutrition) or shoot it at people (again, I suppose you could, but…). If it couldn’t be sold, it was essentially worthless.

This will be a problem for the South. That’s more foreshadowing – I hope I don’t ruin the ending for anyone.

Because of the different economies, the North tended to have more cities, and people in general were closer together, geographically speaking. This meant more conflict, more disease, more crime, more everything bad that comes from cities. In turn, this meant more reform, more collective action, more humility, more everything good that comes from collective problem-solving.

Most immigrants poured in up North – that’s where the jobs were, after all, what with the factories and other variety in their economy. They weren’t exactly welcome – racism was rampant back then, unlike today when we love everyone the same regardless of race, creed, or background – but they were there.

Not liking someone, not hiring them, or even not wanting to live next to them, didn’t mean you didn’t have to deal with them at all. The variety of cultures, languages, foods, beliefs, etc., forced a sort of tolerance and accommodation foreign to the South. At the same time, capitalist ideals and an early sort of ‘Social Darwinism’ largely prevented that accommodation from becoming too ‘kumbaya’.

That whole ‘melting pot’ we’re so fond of referencing? That was in the North.

The South, in contrast, had essentially three social classes – rich white, poor white, and slave. The slaves didn’t get much of a voice, and the poor whites wanted to be rich whites. That meant one small demographic slice pretty much set the tone for everyone – completely unlike today, of course.

Hard to even imagine.

The South’s concept of honor meant that a traveler could safely expect lodging and food from anyone of comparable social class throughout the region. Slaves with the appropriate permissions could stay with other slaves, anyone else was treated to dinner, drinks, and conversation as a matter of course – however unexpected their arrival. A proper Southerner recoiled with some justification when the North – a cesspool of crass and selfish behavior – openly looked down on THEM!

The North had more people overall, meaning they controlled more of Congress – at least in the House of Representatives. For generations it was a given that any new state in one half of the country would be offset by the admission of a state in the other to maintain balance in the Senate.

The North had more money. More stuff. More focus on business and progress and change and profit and – in the eyes of the South – telling everyone else what to do. They looked westward and forward.

The South had tradition. Honor. They held on to duels as a way to address an offense far longer than their Northern brethren, and had nannies enough without the state filling that role. They looked westward and to tradition, and stability.

All of this stemming largely and logically from geography.

Oh – there was one other little thing that caused a bit of contention. Seems they didn’t see eye-to-eye regarding slavery. That’s next time.

A Little Knowledge, Part Two – Forever Unfit

February 22, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 4 Comments

In Part One, I waxed eloquent about secession and the South’s stated reasons for attempting to leave. Among their many complaints – most of which involved perceived threats to slavery – was the North’s tolerance of those who snuck in and taught slaves stuff.

A little knowledge, it turns out, is a dangerous thing.

Frederick Douglass, in his first autobiography (1845), describes his epiphany regarding education:

My new mistress proved to be all she appeared when I first met her at the door,—a woman of the kindest heart and finest feelings. She had never had a slave under her control previously to myself, and prior to her marriage she had been dependent upon her own industry for a living. She… had been in a good degree preserved from the blighting and dehumanizing effects of slavery…

One thing Douglass’s account shares with those of Solomon Northup, Harriet Jacobs, and others, is their insistence that not all slave-owners were naturally cruel and evil people. They avoid neatly dividing people into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and instead focus on the system, and its effect on those involved – slave or free, black or white.

Rather than letting a few slaveholders off the moral hook, it puts the rest of us on it. When the problem is bad people, we’re safe because we’re not them. When the real problem is something larger, tolerated by us all…

Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters…
Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. To use his own words, further, he said… “A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world.”

Mr. Auld was no fool. He knew that control – whether of populations or individuals – begins through the information to which they have access. Whoever controls knowledge controls everything else – especially when it comes to maintaining a system based on privilege and inheritance.

You know, like the one we pretend we don’t have today.

”Now,” said he, “if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.”

Mr. Auld is at least honest. Rather than claim young Frederick CAN’T learn, the problem is very much that he CAN – and as things stand, that helps no one. Raised expectations are a curse both ways.

These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought…

Isn’t that what the best learning does? Challenge everything, and force you to sort the assured from the assumed?

I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty—to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man… From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I the least expected it…

If your room under the stairs is all you’ve ever known, you may not be happy, but you can hardly fathom more. Once you’ve gone to a museum or zoo, your horizons are forever altered – there are things out there of which you didn’t know. And Hogwarts… still full of limits, but compared to the room under the stairs…?

There’s nothing wrong with learning to be content with what you have, but that’s a choice we can only make if we have some glimpse of the alternatives. I may wish I were rich, but as I endure Kardashians and Trumps, there are trade-offs I’m not willing to take to get there.

How many Hobbits, Starfighters, Wizards, or Divergents have begun their journeys only upon recognizing the nature of their limitations? Bilbo may wish to retire to the Shire in peace, but true contentment is only possible after gaining the freedom and perspective to make an honest choice.

Until then, you’re just… stuck.

Douglass started tasting something bigger than he’d known, and for the first time found himself able to give form and meaning to his sense of bondage.

I was now about twelve years old, and the thought of being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart. Just about this time, I got hold of a book entitled “The Columbian Orator.” Every opportunity I got, I used to read this book. Among much of other interesting matter, I found in it a dialogue between a master and his slave.
The slave was represented as having run away from his master three times. The dialogue represented the conversation which took place between them, when the slave was retaken the third time. In this dialogue, the whole argument in behalf of slavery was brought forward by the master, all of which was disposed of by the slave. The slave was made to say some very smart as well as impressive things in reply to his master—things which had the desired though unexpected effect; for the conversation resulted in the voluntary emancipation of the slave on the part of the master…

Slavery is bad, and running away was illegal. Talking back to one’s master was dangerous and not to be advised – it was unlikely to lead to your emancipation. All this book lacked to be utterly perverse were zombies and a gay shower scene. And yet, Douglass discovered benefit in reading this work of subversive fiction.

Douglass connected with a character who was in some ways like himself – not in wise words or holy determination, but in the ways his life sucked, like being a slave. This fictional character, however, was able to demonstrate at least one possible way to endure or even flourish in the ugly, imperfect situation in which he was mired. He resonated far more than an idealized hero-figure of some sort could have, belching platitudes while fighting off the darkness with patriotic pluck.

Douglass became who he was partly because of a banned book.

The reading of these documents enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery; but while they relieved me of one difficulty, they brought on another even more painful than the one of which I was relieved. The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men.

Here’s the number one reason governments and religions and parents and schools ban whatever they ban. It’s nearly impossible to maintain the illusion you’re doing someone a huge favor by keeping them locked under the staircase once they’ve visited Hogwarts – even by proxy. The power to question is the power to overcome.

As I read and contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out.
In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Anything, no matter what, to get rid of thinking!

Finally, something our elected representatives could support.

Douglass went on to become one of the most powerful speakers and important writers of the 19th century. He also turned out to be a pretty good American, despite his dissent regarding any number of issues.

Turns out you can do that.

Learning is dangerous, but not to the person doing the learning. It can hurt along the way, but you usually end up better off for it.

Learning is dangerous to men whose ideas lack sufficient merit or whose systems lack sufficient substance to maintain their influence over those with other options.

Schoolhouse Rock intoned in the 1970’s that “It’s great to learn – because Knowledge is Power!” A few thousand years before, Jesus of Nazareth had promised his followers that “you will know the truth, and the truth will set your free.” He was speaking most directly of Himself and salvation, but the principle echoes past the specifics.

In a time of strict codes and limited freedom, He offended the churchiest of them with his associations, the liberties he took with the law designed to protect them from damnation, and his words suggesting we might not need the holy arbiters any longer to find our way.

At the risk of getting preachy, the curtain tore long before Martin Luther nailed his complaints to the door.

Perhaps the Scribes and Pharisees had underlying good intentions, being naturally rooted in the ways of Old Testament law. They did grow up under a God who’d kill you for touching his ark, even if it was to prevent it falling to the ground. We’ll cut them some slack.

The Inquisitions and Puritans and Assigners of Scarlet Letters in New Testament times have no such excuse. If their faith is what they claim, it’s a faith based on light and truth and – above all – informed choice. Jesus and Paul may not have had much in common, but there’s no record either ever lied or hid anything they didn’t want the world to see. They didn’t want to capture anyone who didn’t wish to be won.

You don’t make better citizens or better Christians by more effectively blinding them to the things you don’t wish them to know. You can’t strengthen faith by torturing those who violate social norms, or even sin. You can’t narrow the gap between young people and American ideals by doing a better job bullsh*tting them.

It’s wrong, of course, but it also just doesn’t work.

Let’s have a little faith in our spiritual ideals as well as our values as a nation. Let’s offer enough light and live enough of an example that we can risk letting those we love have a little freedom. If they come back – well, you know the rest.

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