Intermission: Mary Boykin Chesnut’s Diary, Part Two

March 17, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Mrs. Chesnut has been recording for posterity the events surrounding the so-called “Battle of Fort Sumter.” Except she’s mostly not.

Louisa Hamilton came here now. This is a sort of news center. Jack Hamilton, her handsome young husband, has all the credit of a famous battery, which is made of railroad iron. Mr. Petigru calls it the ‘boomerang,’ because it throws the balls back the way they came; so Lou Hamilton tells us.

The ‘boomerang’ bit is a brag by Mrs. Hamilton on her husband‘s artillery unit – they not only hold their ground when taking incoming fire, they gather the cannonballs fired at them and send them back. Boo-yah!

How much you wanna bet Mrs. H. works that into conversation one way or the other about every three minutes?

During her first marriage, she had no children; hence the value of this lately achieved baby.

Historical documents of a personal nature can be difficult – especially for students – because tone is everything. Miss a little flirting, or sarcasm, or other emoticon-deficient vibe, and you can misread a source completely.

Mrs. Chesnut is kind enough to write on both levels simultaneously – the obvious, smiling appreciation for a friend’s long-awaited offspring, and – unless I’m projecting – a little wry commentary on Louisa’s mothering as well.

It might even be cruel.

To divert Louisa from the glories of “the Battery,” of which she raves, we asked if the baby could talk yet. “No, not exactly, but he imitates the big gun when he hears that. He claps his hands and cries ‘Boom, boom.'”
Her mind is distinctly occupied by three things: Lieutenant Hamilton, whom she calls “Randolph,” the baby, and the big gun, and it refuses to hold more…

*snort*

I do not wonder at Louisa Hamilton’s baby; we hear nothing, can listen to nothing; boom, boom goes the cannon all the time. The nervous strain is awful, alone in this darkened room. “Richmond and Washington ablaze,” say the papers – blazing with excitement. Why not? To us these last days’ events seem frightfully great.

That Chesnut always returns to the sincere – the experience – anchors her prose in a way mere observation or fiction could not. Her ability to grab descriptive slices of people and events and weave them in so transparently makes this something more alive than most find mere history to be.

But that’s what makes this real history.

The war, the guns, the actions, the results – facts mattered, and always will. But people, having experiences, and making choices, and feeling feels… in the end, that‘s usually what produces the wars and drives the actions. Like Anne Frank in her attic or Bridget Jones navigating high society in London*, that rare opportunity to zoom in and inhabit the past through the eyes and experiences of another – that’s why we love history.

It gets even better.

April 13th. – Nobody has been hurt after all. How gay we were last night…

Yes, half of my students are 14-year old boys. This line is always a thing.

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.”

“A satisfying faith” – once again, understated layers of meaning. Chesnut doesn’t directly comment, she portrays – with precision. I think she’s aware of us, all these years later, reading her through this… ‘documentation’ of events. Do you feel her Mona Lisa smirk on us?

Not by one word or look can we detect any change in the demeanor of these negro servants. Lawrence sits at our door, sleepy and respectful, and profoundly indifferent. So are they all, but they carry it too far. You could not tell that they even heard the awful roar going on in the bay, though it has been dinning in their ears night and day. People talk before them as if they were chairs and tables. They make no sign. Are they stolidly stupid? or wiser than we are; silent and strong, biding their time?

Southern nobility lived with themselves as slave-owners largely by learning not to ‘see’ those they enslaved. Perhaps overseers or smaller property owners were all too aware of what they were doing to real live people, but the elite seem to have largely trained themselves to give wide berth to troubling thoughts.

Chesnut’s diary resonates, however, not only from her poignant word choices, but her willingness to watch, and listen, in the first place. She is fully present, and not afraid to see what she sees. We should do so well.

Anyone could have made this observation – it’s glaring, once noted. People have an amazing capacity, though, to see what we wish to see and discard the rest. Whether slaves, dust, quiet students, personal faults, or moonwalking bears, our filters are really something else. We know this, but usually do a pretty good job ignoring this about ourselves as well. Ironic, right?

So tea and toast came; also came Colonel Manning, red sash and sword, to announce that he had been under fire, and didn’t mind it. He said gaily: “It is one of those things a fellow never knows how he will come out until he has been tried. Now I know I am a worthy descendant of my old Irish hero of an ancestor, who held the British officer before him as a shield in the Revolution, and backed out of danger gracefully.” We talked of St. Valentine’s eve, or the maid of Perth, and the drop of the white doe’s blood that sometimes spoiled all…

The standard American History book will tell you the South was overconfident after First Bull Run, etc. I’d argue Colonel Manning and his ilk were way ahead of the crowd on this one.

It’s still all a play, a fantastic story, to those involved at this stage. This is not something you’ll hear from men a year or two later in this war. Some will look back and shake their heads with a dark chuckle that they’d ever thought such things.

Fort Sumter surrendered, and the war was officially begun. The next major action will be a bit better planned – although not by much. At First Bull Run, young men will actually be injured. Many will die. But not yet.

April 20, 1861. – Home again at Mulberry. In those last days of my stay in Charleston I did not find time to write a word… I have been sitting idly to-day looking out upon this beautiful lawn, wondering if this can be the same world I was in a few days ago. After the smoke and the din of the battle, a calm.

Indeed.

* Just seeing if you were paying attention.

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.

A Little Knowledge, Part Three – Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

February 24, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

“My client wasn’t even IN the bar the evening of the murder, and if he WAS there, he doesn’t even OWN a gun! If he DOES own a gun, he didn’t have it with him that evening, and if he DID have it with him, it wasn’t loaded – he’s not CRAZY! Even if it WERE loaded, he didn’t use it – why would he? He didn’t even KNOW the victim. If he DID know the victim, he liked him, and if he didn’t like him, he at least didn’t kill him. But if he DID kill him, it was self-defense. And if it wasn’t self-defense, he still had a very good reason. Otherwise, he’s crazy and can’t be held accountable. Come on, he was carrying around a loaded gun – who DOES that?!
I’ve told you that one way or the other he’s innocent – why do you doubt me? That’s so hurtful!”

It is difficult for those of you with the slightest shred of decency to appreciate how the law and politics work. They do not operate according to anything most of us consider reasonable, moral, or even explicable. In the past they didn’t have to (and in some systems today they still don’t). Those affected had little expectation of being fully informed and no real control of the outcome.

In modern America, politics still doesn’t have to make sense, but for different reasons. Most of us are too busy to try to keep up and sort it all out, or too quick to follow anyone confirming what we wish confirmed or feigning outrage over whatever we find outrageous. Or maybe we’re just too stupid and easily distracted.

Not criticizing here – just keeping an open mind about possible explanations.

It’s amazing to me how easily we roll our eyes or exclamate our declamations over things done in the past – successfully, for centuries – and yet find it inconceivable the same things may be happening today, because… well, that’s CRAZY!

What, exactly, is it you think has changed about either mankind or the nature of power? Please – I’ll wait.

…

Hello?

The South attempted to secede and lost. The war destroyed lives and property on both sides, but the South had the worst of it by far. Reconstruction began, things got weird again.

And then the South began writing the history of the war and the events which led to it. The war they’d lost. The one fought over a variety of issues, but in which slavery and its continuation were central and essential as defined by the South in the very documents they issued to justify their cause.

Only suddenly the war hadn’t been about slavery at all. In fact, the South was collectively rather wounded at the suggestion! Slavery?! You think – you think this was about SLAVERY?

No less an authority than Jefferson Davis began cranking out volumes on the REAL story of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. Others picked up the theme, and before long their United Daughters (still active today) were tea and cookie-ing this theme across the land.

Historians still argue about the war (they’re allowed to do that still, outside of Oklahoma and Texas) – that’s fine, it’s what they’re supposed to do.

What’s less tolerable is the fervent hurt and chagrin evidenced by the South’s defenders at the very suggestion that secession had ANYTHING to do with slavery. It’s not that they wish to lay out a reasoned argument, you understand – it’s that they’ve reshaped history and historiography solely through repetition and strong emotion.

“To suggest secession was about SUH-LAVERY, well it it it’s it’s just… *sniff* DISHONEST!”

The rest of the nation has cooperated, by the way – we don’t like acknowledging our role in making chattel of humans with souls any more than they do. Better to focus on tariffs and elections and economies and cultures – all persuasive alternatives, since all were involved.

The best deceptions are mostly true, after all – or true but for omissions. That’s how laws are made and history written – so be it.

Why does it matter if the South wishes to save a little face? What’s so wrong with simply focusing on the good parts in our collective history? I mean, the naysayers won their little war and got their way, didn’t they?

Can we at least keep the damn flag without everyone having a hurt-feelings-fit every time?

My favorite hockey team captain after a tough loss and horrible officiating: “There were some tough calls, but the real problem is that we didn’t take care of business in our own end. We let too many pucks get past us and didn’t take advantage of our opportunities.”

I hated the poor play, and the poor officiating even more – but my decisive and lingering memory is how much I love the class of my team.

Also, he’s pretty.

More importantly, the team is able to go into practice the next day aware of the things they CAN control, and which led to problems. By acknowledging what they did wrong, instead of merely casting blame, they can improve – or at least that’s the goal.

You may remember the contrast between how Kanye and Beyonce handled this situation:

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The lingering perception is that Kanye is a nut, Beyoncé is a class act, and that apparently Taylor Swift is a country artist (as she mentioned in the full version of her pre-interrupted speech). Reality may differ, but what we remember is what shapes events going forward.

It matters what happened and how it’s remembered because we can’t learn from mistakes we don’t think we made. Left uncriticized, Kanye is just a fighter for justice and Swift a bewildered blonde. Without her subsequent efforts to make things right, Beyoncé could just as easily seem a sore loser, despite winning bigger better things that same night.

If the war was about slavery, and slavery is evil, and the South lost, then the reasonable thing to do is to start trying to repair some of the damage done by slavery. If the war was about a race-based chattel system, then we have some serious introspection to do about ourselves as a people and the extent to which we’ve failed to live up to our own ideals.

Of course, if the real issues were states’ rights-ish, that’s not as bad. Federalism is about balance, after all, and if perhaps the South got out of balance, that’s clearly rectified now. If anything, the central government is much stronger than originally intended as a result!

We can spend some time trying to Reconstruct the South and push for some reforms, but at some point we’re going to need to get back to being a country again. We’ve made our point – let’s let them rebuild and trust whatever gradual progress can be made in terms of race and society.

If the war was about slavery, then both Lincoln and John Brown were right – we’ve paid for our national sin with national bloodshed. Time for a new birth of freedom.

If the war was about different understandings of the Constitution, then might makes right and we won by decimating our enemies by any means necessary. Next time the meaning of our founding documents may swing back a bit the other direction.

If the war was about slavery, then Black America may well need time and support to recover from a sort of collective PTSD. There would be imbalances to correct and scars which may never be quite healed. If we’re willing to go to war with ourselves to keep an entire race of people in degradation and servitude, what must we confess and how might we repent to set a better future course?

If 620,000 men died over tariffs or electoral procedures, then our nation is charted by whichever political and popular mechanizations produce the desired result. If the war was about anything other than slavery, maybe Black people need to just get over it and be less, you know… ‘Black’ about everything.

If our ideals are as flawless and their realizations as consistent throughout our history as current legislation insists, then inequity and suffering are primarily a result of personal or cultural failures. If America is ‘exceptional’ in the way they demand we acknowledge, whatever failures have occurred within it are individual and not national. Potential solutions or cures must, logically, come from the same.

We can’t repent of sins we can’t confess, or repair that we are unable to see as broken. This applies across any number of historical and national issues. If we build our actions and beliefs on a foundation of national amazing-ness, the ramifications are much, much larger than which textbooks we adapt or which tests we take to graduate. Conversely, if we believe the human heart – even the American heart – is desperately wicked, and deceitful above all things… who can know it? Well, that leads to humility and grace as we push forward, aware of what we are capable, for good or ill.

I’ll close with a little Bible talkin’, since that seems to be such a motivator for those pushing a better whitewashing for our lil’uns. Whatever we may disagree on, I wholeheartedly concur that we’ve lost much in our upbringing if we feel the need to run from the wisdom found in small red print:

“And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
(Luke 18:9-14, KJV)

If there’s an argument to be had, let’s have it. But let’s base it on our best understanding of the truth and the wisest possible course consistent with our proclaimed ideals – not on what best covers our collective behinds and casts the remaining blame on those least able to carry the burden.

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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