American Culture: The Flies of a Summer (Part I)

“Civil war and the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln followed, freeing nearly four million slaves, many of whom hardly knew their right hand from the left.”—Fernando G. Cartland, Southern Heroes: The Friends in War Time (Cambridge, Riverside Press 1895).

“The Court was in the process of sowing a wind, with the whirlwind to be reaped years later.”—William H. Rehnquist, The Supreme Court 115 (rev. ed. 2002).

I wonder how many history teachers today—even at the university level—and all those others who would transmit our American cultural heritage and civilization to the next generation—would understand the literary tradition used here by Cartland and by Rehnquist? And if that heritage is not transmitted, then this generation may become “little better than the flies of a summer.” [In a better world, my using quotation marks here would not be necessary.]

FYI: Cartland’s book is a treat. You can find it on Internet Archive. It turns out that much of the “business” of the underground railroad, particularly after the Emancipation Proclamation, was helping Unionist whites escape secessionist drafts. It makes good sense, but it was news to me.

Seth

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SethBTillman  ( @SethBTillman )

PS: My prior post is: Seth Barrett Tillman, Why Punish Wrongdoing?, The New Reform Club (Sept. 26, 2015, 6:24 PM), http://reformclub.blogspot.ie/2015/09/why-punish-wrongdoing.html.

PPS: Seth Barrett Tillman, The Decline of American Martial Culture—Flies of a Summer (Part III), The New Reform Club (Oct. 23, 2015, 8:23 AM), http://reformclub.blogspot.ie/2015/10/the-decline-of-american-martial.html;

          and,

Seth Barrett Tillman, Teaching the History of the American Civil War: Flies of a Summer (Part II), The New Reform Club (Oct. 9, 2015, 4:01 AM), http://reformclub.blogspot.ie/2015/10/teaching-history-of-american-civil-war.html.