Taking the Benefits of the Civil War Issue Seriously: A Rejoinder to John S. Rosenberg

TAKING THE BENEFITS OF THE CIVIL WAR ISSUE SERIOUSLY: A Rejoinder to John S. Rosenberg Phillip S. Paludan "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals fighting in it," David Donald notes, "and of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent."1 Apparently it is given to John S. Rosenberg and myself to validate this observation. Yet, if possible, I would like to raise the discussion out of the arena of bitter conflict and into a more moderate realm. Surely there is little to edify readers of this journal in an exchange of insults between two presumably grown men. Let me observe at the beginning that I intended no offense to Rosenberg's character, ethics or even his alma mater. I am not after Rosenberg the man, Stanford alum, or Eli.2 I am after what I believed then and still believe is an position that is on the whole wrong and probably is so in this case because of the honestly admirable moral principles of an obviously humane man. What is at issue between us? Perhaps if we clarify that question we will have done with assertions about "sentimental tripe" and my "Stalinism." The problem that confronts us when we first try to clarify the question is that there is a distinction between Rosenberg's Paludan and mine. I do not "hold [myself] aloft as the very model of objective professionalism." In the essay he attacks I said, "Historians do not escape the events of their age. Neither do they erase from their writings the signs of their experiences. Rosenberg, like Dreiser's Sister Carrie, is 'one of us.' " Although he may have different aspirations for me, I do not now, nor did I then, exclude myself from the general noun "historians" nor the plural pronoun "us." It is common knowledge that we write our own histories of the past and not the true history of it. I submit, therefore, that so much of Rosenberg's defense as rests on demonstrating that I too am a "presentist" is beside the point. The real question is not bias versus objectivity (that cliche has been dead for a century or more).3 As Rosenberg correctly suggests, 1 David Donald, "Refighting the Civil War," Lincoln Reconsidered (New York, 1956), p. 82. 2 My sole reference to Stanford was to describe it as "one of the most militantly antiwar campuses in the nation." Apparently Rosenberg thinks that is an insult. 3 Samuel Eliot Morison, one of Rosenberg's straw "objectivists" pointed this out in the very essay that Rosenberg attacks. See "Faith of a Historian" American Historical Review, LXI (January, 1951), 263. I do not subscribe fully to Morison's position either, 254 a bias may inform historical analysis as well as obstruct it. The real issue is whether or not our biases help or hinder our understanding. It was my contention in the previous essay that Rosenberg had allowed his bias to blind, rather than enlighten, him. I regret to say I still believe this. Rosenberg also insists that I accuse him of "unfairly blaming the Civil War generation." The answer is I don't and I defy him to show that I did. Again, we agree that there is no point in blaming people for what history demonstrates they could not avoid doing. And we agree that the real measure of the benefits of the Civil War is its consequences , not its inception. Given the fact that no one in 1860-1 or before knew that there would be the Civil War and many doubted that there would be a civil war of any duration, or one at all, it is a phony issue to consider the consequences in terms of the causes of the war.4 In my original essay I said, "What is objectionable in Rosenberg's argument is the one sided nature of his thought, his failure to do more than raise some . . . questions, an unwillingness even to weigh the evidence of the gains which freedom brought to the Negro." I reaffirm this statement now. Rosenberg's answer is to repeat himself and to say the war wasn't worth it...