Celebrate Secession? Just Say No

Some in the American South are planning, in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, to celebrate secession. What a horrible idea!

The very principle of states' rights that the secessionists of the mid-19th Century (and the nullificationists a few decades before them) is foreign to the ultimate success of a federal government, as was proved quite convincingly by the failure of the Articles of Confederation. And yet we have now, as we did then, people who are standing up in public and celebrating the idea that the much smaller state (or even a larger confederation of states) is (or are) better off without the umbrella of the federal government.

Surely this kind of thinking went out the window along about Appomattox Court House time!

First and foremost is the necessity of a united armed forces, as World War I and World War II proved. Had what is now the United States been two or more countries during either of these worldwide conflicts, the outcome could have been quite different, at the very least the same result achieved in a much longer timeframe and with a much higher death toll. It was precisely America's ability to marshal great amounts of manpower, womanpower, and dollar-power and apply all of it to the war effort that turned the tide in 1918 and again in 1945.

And, as was seen in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, the nation was able to as a whole pay off its debts after the wars and, further, after World War II, offer vast sums of money to European countries to help rebuild the devastation wrought across the continent.

The economic powerhouse that the U.S. still is would be nigh on impossible if the country had been parceled up into two or more entities. The states that resulted from such a divorce would have been far less enlightened than the countries that currently make up the European Union; and communication, trade, and taxation between the various state-level entities would have been far more contentious than they are now, in the U.S. or in the EU.

Politically, the continent would be a much weaker force as well, with the presidents of the various countries vying for supremacy in their own back yard before they ever got out of the gate and onto the world stage. It is doubtful in the extreme that had the country been split in two, the president of either North or South would now be viewed as the "leader of the free world."

The one thing that binds all people who live in the United States of America is the idea of being American — whatever each person views that to be. The idea of being an American means different things to different people, but the overriding identity that Americans feel toward their country, their flag, their freedom, and their rights under the laws of the land unite them in a way that living in cities, states, commonwealths, townships, and counties can't approach.

Such honoring of the idea of splitting off from the American way of life and rejecting all of the benefits and protection that federalism allows is to remember a failed idea in the positive — a dangerous practice indeed.

Civil War Re-examination Years in the Making ... and Doing

A full 150 years ago, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. That election, and its result, set the nation on the course to civil war, changing the fate of the nation in ways that are still being felt and explored.

To commemorate the sesquicentennial, the National Park Service is planning a large series of commemorative events, beginning with a re-enactment of the election and running right through to a re-enactment of the end of the war, five years later.

Re-enactment events are planned for the major battles of the war, including Gettysburg, Antietam, and the First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas). It's probably not too much of a stretch to anticipate a re-enactment of the Gettysburg Address.

It's not just the battles, however. Shortly after the election re-enactment, the presidential train will get revved up and ready to go, replicating Lincoln's journey from his home state of Illinois to the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. Other similar nonviolent events are planned in many states affected by the Civil War. In all, more than 75 different battlefields and historic sites will have events. And that's not covering the various museums and privately operated sites planning events as well.

The District of Columbia tourism bureau will open an exhibit titled "Civil War to Civil Rights." Also getting into the act will be the National Archives, which will open its vaults to allow viewings of rarely seen gems from history, including an original draft of the 13th Amendment (banning slavery) that didn't get past the draft stage.

It's entirely fitting and proper for the NPS, the National Archives, and other entities to take a good, hard look at these momentous events, especially at a time when the nation as its stands now is (or should be) doing a lot of soul-searching over its direction forward. By examining the past, we can divine not only what happened but also what should have happened (depending on your point of view), not only what might have been but also but still could be.

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Rare Baseball Card a Home Run for Nuns

No swing and a miss here. These nuns have knocked one out of the park.

The School Sisters of Notre Dame, a Baltimore-based order of nuns, is today $220,000 richer, thanks entirely to the sale of a baseball card.

This wasn't just any baseball card, though. It was a rare one. The card in question was a Honus Wagner T206, of which only about 60 are known to exist.

The card, produced by the American Tobacco Company between 1909 and 1911, was discontinued soon after because the player wanted it gone. Wagner, one of the game's all-time greats (and, some say, the greatest shortstop ever to play the game), didn't want to encourage smoking by children, the natural audience for baseball cards. However, some sources say that Wagner demanded more money than ATC was willing to pay and that it was perhaps the tobacco company that pulled the plug on the Wagner card. Whatever the motivation, the card was no more.

The actual sale price was $262,000 and was rung up at an auction run by Heritage Auction Galleries, an outfit based in Dallas. The card will now be in the possession of Doug Walton, a collector and card shop owner from Knoxville, Tenn.

The nuns, who had to part with a buyer's premium off the top of the sale price, had the card in the first place because they inherited it from the brother of a nun. Virginia Muller, the sister in charge, says the money will go entirely to more than 30 countries around the world.

For more details, see this post.