"The past is never dead. It's not even past," -- William Faulkner
Two hundred and forty-four years have passed since 1776. In one way, that seems like a long time. In another, it's not. If you measure a lifetime at 70 years, then just a little more than three and a half lifetimes have passed since the Declaration.
In the weeks ahead, we shall talk about the Civil War, which cast a shadow well into the 20th century. A CMC professor named Orme Phelps was the son of a Civil War veteran. I knew him when he was an emeritus professor.
In 1938, FDR addressed veterans of Gettysburg. (Do the math: there were still people alive who fought in the battle.) Notice his words in the context of contemporary debates about Confederate monuments.
A 1956 TV quiz show featured a purported eyewitness to the Lincoln assassination:
1 comment:
I wonder if the way FDR wrote his speech at the Gettysburg Memorial reflects the state of the Democratic Party in 1938. The election of 1940, 2 years after this speech was given, shows a solid blue south, which is something we definitely would not see in recent election maps. FDR's attempt to create a sense of unity with the South and the North was probably important to winning over voters in Southern states, especially since the memory of the Civil war was still prevalent.
Post a Comment