There is no activity more thought-provoking than reading. I’ve recently read Erik Larsen’s The Demon of Unrest. It is a marvelous account of 1861 and the days preceding the Civil War. This history crisply tells the tale of the people of Charleston, S.C., who were at the core of the secessionist movement with Fort Sumpter sitting in their harbor. In this telling, Larsen dissects the pre-Civil War south and Washington, D.C. much as he did 1941 England in his work, The Splendid and the Vile.
This got me thinking about the relative nature of victory, of success. I had most often assigned success as, at worst, a semi-permanent status. Somewhat like a high school diploma or an athletic letter. I’ve earned it, I’ve got it and no one can take it from me. The more I read, the more I realized success can be a most transient entity.
In the United States of 1861, there were Secessionist, Unionist, Abolitionist and the Fire-eaters who advocated for a new nation formed of slaveholding states. All judged themselves to be in the right.
It was South Carolina, its very soul buried in a life of chivalry, a societal structure that valued honor above all else, yet felt no dissonance in holding slaves. They gave a literal interpretation to such works as Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. They conducted their own fairs including jousting tournaments. They placed honor above all else.
Abolitionist movements centered in the north were perceived as uninformed, naïve annoyances until they gained political power, finally forming a viable political party, the Republican Party.
A core of “Plantation Politicians” had long lobbied for secession. As the Presidential election of 1860 approached, the Fire-eaters, using exaggerations and fabrications, effectively presented the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, as a threat to the entirety of the Plantation culture.
I read the words coming from diaries, letters and newspapers as secession approached. I kept looking for an indication that some group realized they were going to lose. In fact, many did. But many expanded the lies. Most remained silent. They did nothing.
The large majority of Southerners did not own plantations nor slaves. Those that did sold untruths to those that didn’t. And those that didn’t, embraced the lies. The fabrications created an unfounded optimism.
Based on fact or fiction, optimism is most seductive. It can blind us.
Within months, South Carolina withdrew from the Union. The Secessionist succeeded. The Fire-eaters were soon to have their Confederacy. They celebrated.
But success is a most transient entity.
Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable. Voltaire
