To Judge or Not to Judge?

November/December 2006 Historically Speaking 29 economy of die Adantic world depended upon enslaved Africans, and prior to 1820 five times more Africans than Europeans made the Atlantic transit. Had he gotten closer to the specifics of the text, he would have noticed that gender appears in chapters on the Civil War, empire, and Progressivism, though integrated—not separated—from the larger political diemes of those chapters, for recent scholarship has shown gender to be at play in these historical developments . The issue facing historians, wholly missed byJohnson, is how to bring together, on the one hand, die histories of groups that are smaller than the nation and, on the odier, those histories larger than die nation in writing an empirically sound and specifically national history. My "aim" has always been, "verisimilitude, no more, no less."4 Had he addressed die difficult questions embedded in diese aspirations , matters I may or may not have gotten right, we would have something useful to discuss. Had he read the book and on that basis posed specific questions of interpretation, a fruitful dialogue would have been possible. So I ask readers, especially teachers, whether in high school or college, to read the book and see if it opens up some new ways of thinking about American history. Of course, not every question in a national history has a transnational context, but some do; indeed, I think some of the most important events in American history do. If you want to explore these larger contexts and their consequences for American history, I hope the book provides a useful starting point for you. I hope, too, that it will help establish connections and comparisons between U.S. history and world history to the benefit of both courses and die students in diem. I ask my colleagues to examine the specific interpretations and evidence I offer, challenging those that are weak or wrong. Only then can the work of locating American history in its various transnational contexts proceed on the soundest and most rigorously empirical grounds. Presumably we all accept civic education as part of the historian's portfolio. I do not see how we can fulfill diat responsibility without acknowledging and bringing to light the specific ways in which die history of die United States is also part of a global history . How else can we adequately understand what is particular and significant in our history? And, yes, let us dare to educate die youdi of the nation as proud nationals and humble citizens of die world. Thomas Bender is University Professor of the Humanities andprofessor of history at New York University . Awardedthe Organisation of American Historians' FrederickJackson TurnerPri^e in 1975 ^rToward an Urban Vision: Ideas and Institutions in Nineteenth-Century America, he is editor ^Rethinking American History in a Global Age (University of California Press, 2002) and author ofA Nation among Nations: America's Place in World History (Hill <& Wang, 2006). 1 Thomas Bender, "No Borders Beyond the Nation State," Chronicle of HigherEducation, April 7, 2006, B8. ; See my "The New History—Then and Now," Reviews in American History 12 (1984): 612-622; "Making History Whole Again," New York Times Book Review, October 6, 1985, 1, 42-43; and "Wholes and Parts: The Need for Synthesis in American History ,"Journalof American History l'i (1986): 120-136. ' Thomas Bender, Colin Palmer, and Philip M. Katz, The Education of Historiansfor the Twenty-First Century (University of Illinois Press, 2004), 18. For the same point repeated in slightly different language, see Thomas Bender, "Expanding the Domain of History ," in Chris M. Golde and George E. Walker, eds., Envisioning the Future of DoctoralEducation: Preparing Stewards of the Discipline (Jossey-Bass, 2006), 301. 4 Thomas Bender, "Historians, the Nation, and the Plenitude of Narratives," in Thomas Bender, ed., RethinkingAmerican History in a GlobalEra (University of California Press, 2002), 12. Moral Judgment and the Practice of History: An Exchange Robert Tracy McKenzie, inspired by Harry S. Stout's Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War, hereprobes the intriguing relationship between moraljudgment and thepractice of history. Stout's responsefollows. To Judge or Not to Judge? Robert Tracy McKenzie For generations, historians have debated die proper place of moral judgment in dieir investigations of the human past. The boundaries of the debate were already in place at least 120 years ago, when the British historian Lord Acton scolded his fellow countryman Mandell Creighton for failing to censure the medieval popes in his multivolume history of the papacy. "The inflexible integrity of the moral code," Acton lectured the Cambridge professor, is "the se cret of the authority, the dignity, die utility of his tory." When the historian refuses to judge, he cautioned his correspondent, history ceases to be "an arbiter of controversy" and "a guide of die wanUpon the Altar of the Nation is rich with implicationsfor bothpast andpresent. This is no leftist diatribe orpacifistpolemic. derer." Creighton disagreed. The historian's task was not to approach the past "with any preconceived ideas," he contended, but rather to understand the individuals and institutions diat he studied "and leave the course of events to pronounce the verdict upon system and men alike."1 Although die debate has never entirely subsided, it is safe to say that Lord Acton inspired comparatively few disciples among academic historians in the United States. Until the "professionalization" of history— a process just under way in the U. S. when Acton and Creighton conducted their famous exchange—die gendemen of letters who wrote 30 Historically Speaking November/December 2006 about the past had few qualms about pronouncing moral lessons. History was, after all—in the words of Bolingbroke's famous maxim—"philosophy teaching by example."' By the close of the 19th century , however, scholars within the academy were coming to renounce moral judgments as inconsistent with the newly dominant scientific ideals of detachment and objectivity. One of the earliest presidents of the American Historical Association, Henry Charles Lea, gave voice to the emerging dogma in his 1903 presidential address. Because the profession's central mission was "to set forth the truth" with sober impartiality, Lea warned his colleagues not to inject ethical values into their writing; to do so would "introduce subjectivity into what should be purely objective."' During the intervening century, the vast majority of historians have claimed to be following Lea's advice, even while dismissing his scientific pretensions as naive. Certainly, one could list notable exceptions, yet it has been thirty years since an AHA president dared to question the prevailing dogma,4 and however frequendy individual historians may be influenced by moral commitments or allow moral conclusions to creep into their work, overt moral judgments still labor, on the whole, under the profession 's official disapproval. Crashing into this context comes Harry S. Stout's Upon theAltar of the Nation, a study that unabashedly proclaims itself "a moral history of the Civil War." The author , professor of American religious history at Yale University and editor of the works of Jonathan Edwards , never directly confronts the various arguments historians have raised against moral judgments in their work; indeed, he never even acknowledges them. Instead, Stout strives to make a case for the propriety of moral evaluation in the very quality of the study he has crafted—and it is a strong, if flawed, case diat he makes. Aldiough I disagree with his approach in some crucial respects and take issue with numerous particulars, I nevertheless admire the book on die whole. It is engagingly written , generally judicious, often persuasive, and unfailingly provocative. It casts new light on America's bloodiest trial—no mean feat, given the enormous literature on the conflict—while simultaneously posing large questions of enduring relevance to contemporary America. Finally, and perhaps most important, it has the potential to prompt a fruitful reexamination of the place of moral judgment in die historian's vocation. Appropriately, Stout begins by defining what he means by "moral" history: "professional history writing that raises moral issues of right and wrong as seen from the vantage points of both the participants and the historian, who, after painstaking study, applies normative judgments" (xi). He makes clear that he will draw his own conclusions, but a companion goal will be to "establish a narrative that frees the reader to make his or her own judgments" (xii). His motive is unapologetically present-minded— "the historian offers moral judgments in the hope that lessons for life today may ensue" (xii)—and die only explicit justification that he offers, postponed until die book's final page, is itself a passionate moral imperative. If we forget the lessons of the Civil War, Stout warns, "we do so at great peril to our own humanity " (461). Stout forms his assessment by measuring the war "against widely recognized, long established principles of just war" (xii). Traditionally, just war theory has offered two sets of guidelines for the moral evaluation of war, the first involving the circumstances that justify the initiation of war (jus ad Men of an Irish-American Massachusetts regiment and their chaplain pause before lng mass at Camp Cass, Virginia. Mathew Brady Studio, 1861 . Library of Congress, Photographs Division [reproduction number, LC-USZC4-4605]. bellum), the second concerning the manner in which war is waged once initiated (jus in bella). Stout focuses entirely on the latter, contending (in half a page) that there is no moral criterion for a definitive answer to whether the southern states had a right to secede, and thus no basis on which to determine conclusively whether either side was morally justified in going to war. He thus concentrates on two principles that just war theory prescribes with regard tojus in bello: the constraint of "proportionality," which stipulates that the means employed in wagingwar be proportionate to the ends desired, and the constraint of "discrimination," which requires a vigilant differentiation between soldiers and civilians. Employing a chronological narrative, Stout asks two main questions : (1) to what degree did the warfare waged by Union and Confederate armies conform to these principles, and (2) what role did civilians North and Soudi play in eidier upholding or undermining these precepts? Stout's answers are forceful and disturbing. High-ranking officers on both sides, he tells us, began the war as advocates of the "West Point Code," with its emphasis on justice, honor, and the ideal of "limited war" in which "gendemen" officers "protect the innocents and minimize destruction to achieve desired ends" (21). Foremost among the champions of this ideal, according to Stout, was Union general George McClellan, who unfortunately was unable to deliver the victories for which the North clamored. By the second year of the war, political and military leaders alike were coming to the conclusion that victory required a new kind of warfare , and Abraham Lincoln began to turn to commanders who, unlike McClellan, were both less scrupulous about protecting noncombatants and more willing to press the enemy armies unrelentingly, risking horrific losses in the hope of inflicting the same. Escalation on one side evoked escalation on the other, and soon Union and Confederate forces were locked in a "total war," both sustaining and inflicting heretofore unimaginable losses on the batdefield as well as wreaking inexpressible suffering on the homefront. The evolution to total war was complete by the deadly summer of 1864, a process underscored by the carnage at Cold Harbor—where Union casualties averaged 116 per minute—and by widespread starvation and homelessness in places like Adanta, Chambersburg , and the Shenandoah Valley. As Stout describes it, one of the most striking features of this awful transformation was how very few voices were ever raised against it. While both sides expended rivers of ink to prove that they hadgone to war justly, neither side questioned seriously whether it was wagingwar jusdy. The battle at Fort Sumter prompted an outpouring of patriotism in both North and South, and "the moral certitude of patriotism" (54), in turn, all but precluded the possibility of serious self-criticism. Moral dogmatism abounded, substantive moral reflection vanished, and almost everyone was complicit in what Stout labels a "conspiracy of silence over just conduct" (396). Leading intellectuals "participated freely in the patriotic frenzy" (35). Art, music, and literature romanticized the war and exhibited an unrelenting "moral avoidance" (116). Above all, die church abandoned its independent role as salt and light in the culture, becoming almost wholly co-opted by the governments in Richmond and Washington. Northern and soudiern clergymen rushed to enlist God on their side, insisting that "guilt and innocence were absolute and mutually exclusive" (53) and, more than any other element in society, helped to transform a political conflict into a moral crusade. Thus, when casualties soared in die summer of 1 864, no moralists raised questions of scale or proportionality—"to the contrary, the people cried for more" (332). When Rebel soldiers burned Chambersburg, Pennsylvania to the ground, few soudiern civilians questioned die actwhile die Charleston Courierurged die army to continue to "burn, devastate and destroy" (376). When William Sherman "embraced 'terror' as a war aim" (400), northern civilians dirilled to his rhetoric. For Americans bodi North and Soudi, Stout concludes, an unshakable conviction in die moral righteousness of "the cause" had helped to erode all moral limits to die war. Upon theAltar of the Nation is rich with implicacelebrat - , Prints and November/December 2006 Historically Speaking 31 tions for both past and present. This is no leftist diatribe or pacifist polemic. Echoing Abraham Lincoln , Stout ends the book with a moving statement of faith in America as "the world's last best hope," and he credits die outcome of the Civil War with ensuring the preservation of "a nation where people's ideas count" (458). That said, the book's conclusions nevertheless directly challenge the sanitized and comforting way in which Americans prefer to remember this defining moment in our history. We like to recall the soldiers' common courage and devotion ; Stout acknowledges these but stresses instead the war's "wanton destruction," "inhuman suffering ," and "raw and cynical persecution of innocents" (457). We acknowledge the staggering deadi toll but justify it as die price for ending slavery; Stout maintains that Lincoln ended slavery only to justify the staggering death toll, embracing emancipation to further "the draconian military course he had already set" (168). We are wont to discern in the war "the origins of our better selves";- Stout finds as well the seedbed of an "American-led Christian imperialism that was not without costs in later American history" (189). This is a cautionary tale, and I believe diat die author is right: we ignore it "at great peril." So does diis mean diat the book succeeds as a "moral history"? Absolutely—up to a point. With eloquence and passion Stout forthrighdy raises questions of right and wrong—in the process reminding us of the power of history as a vehicle for moral reflection —and in diis respect he succeeds marvelously . And yet to proceed from hard moral questions to persuasive moral judgments requires at least three things more: an accurate understanding of whathappened in die past, a plausible explanation of why it happened, and a compelling moral framework for evaluating the what and the why. On the whole, Stout's description of the general trend toward total war is persuasive (if, as I would maintain, overstated), as is his testimony to the "conspiracy of silence" in both North and South as this trend unfolded . When he shifts his focus to the particular decisions of key civil and military figures, however, his explanations often lack complexity and nuance. Stout's treatment of Abraham Lincoln is particularly problematic. In explaining the evolution toward total war, Stout sets up a false dichotomy between Lincoln and George McClellan, pitting the general's commitment to "taking the moral high ground" against the president's "taste for blood" (136-37). Although he acknowledges McClellan's well known "timidity" and even "pathological caution " (127, 151)—grounds for dismissal in and of themselves—he nevertheless explains Lincoln's removal of his slow-moving general from command as a clear-cut choice of victory over a "principled war" (138). Similarly, when Stout turns to emancipation , he ignores the myriad of personal, political, constitutional, and military factors that influenced Lincoln's decision—not to mention die radical assertiveness of the slaves diemselves—and sees only emancipation's potential to lend "unprecedented moral stature" (187) to a policy of unprecedented killing. The temptation to such stark oversimplification is not unique to an explicidy moral history, of course, but to the degree that its practitioners search for "lessons for life today," diat temptation is likely magnified. Simple lessons, not complex ones, promise the greater popular impact. For a self-proclaimed "moral history," Upon the Altar of the Country is also surprisingly short on systematic moral analysis. Readers will not find die kind of sustained, careful application of moral principles to particular occurrences that characterized Michael Waher'sJustand Unjust Wars, for example. This is not all bad, for it allows Stout to write a much more readable and engaging narrative, and I applaud his obvious efforts to reach as broad an audience as possible . That said, I would argue that one of die most important lessons that an overdy moral history can convey is to teach—by example as well as by precept —how one might go about applying a coherent moral framework to derive a reasoned moral assessment of a complicated past. To get from what was to what oughtto have been, die historian who would offer a logically coherent moral judgment must inevitably appeal to an underlying set of moral principles. Unfortunately, Stout's elaboration of just war doctrine is cursory in the extreme (comprising less than three pages) and gives readers little sense of the biblical principles and centuries of Christian reflection that undergird it. Furthermore , he fails to apply the doctrine methodically or consistendy. Hard questions go unasked. For example , the author laments that "no one protested" when die battle of Antietam "implicidy rewrote the rules for acceptable losses" (153), but he makes no effort to employ just war principles to estimate where the limits of morally defensible losses actually lay. At the same time, he makes moral pronouncements that just war principles, alone, cannot sustain, for instance his sweeping assertion that the issue of racial equality constituted "the one genuinely comprehensive moral question that could justify a war and reconstruction" (218). Coundess Federal soldiers thought otherwise, of course, and Stout offers no explanation as to why they were mistaken . Perhaps most troubling, Stout abandons just war doctrine completely when, in the book's afterword , he finally addresses the matter of why—not how—the war was fought. After nearly 500 pages of building die case diat both sides violated die principles of just war in dieir manner of waging war, Stout refuses to say that die war itself was unjust on the grounds that, for the most part, neither Union nor Confederate soldiers believed that it was. As a Christian historian, I applaud the general goal of revitalizing history's latent moral dimension. Upon the Altar of the Nation represents an important, albeit halting step in diat direction. Robert Tracy McKenzie is associateprofessor of history at the University of Washington. His most recent book is Lincolnites and Rebels: A Divided Town in the American Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2006). 1 Henry Steele Commager, "Should the Historian Make Moral Judgements?" American Heritage 17, no. 2 (February 1966), 88. : Henry St. John Bolingbroke, Historical Writings, ed. Isaac Kramnick (University of Chicago Press, 1 972), 9. ' Henry Charles Lea, "Ethical Values in History," AnnualReport of the American HistoricalAssociationfor the Year 1903, vol. I, 237. 1 Gordon Wright, "History as a Moral Science," American Historical RiWHi- 81 (1976): 1-11. ' Edward L. Ayers, "Worrying about the Civil War," in Karen Halttunen and Lewis Perry, eds., MoralProblems in American Ufe: New Perspectives on Cultural History (Cornell University Press, 1998), 156. "An Important, albeit Halting Step" Harry S. Stout I want to begin by thanking Robert McKenzie for his perceptive and engaging critique of my book. Nobody writes a book like mine without expecting criticism, and this review is no exception . But it is always refreshing to engage criticism within the bounds of collegiality and dialogue. It is important that historians "fight fair." The first question I ask of any review is does die reviewer "get it?" And McKenzie most certainly gets the methodology and argument of my book. He understands that this is not your typical Civil War narrative that focuses on the battles and "pa- ...