It is said that at the negotiations at Appomattox Courthouse Lee and Grant were both frank and civil during the course of discussing the surrender of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Afterwards, Grant sent food to Lee to feed his (and, then, their) nation’s former enemy soldiers. Celebrations for Grant’s soldiers came only later not while Lee’s soldiers remained present. Again, in ending active hostilities, the first step towards national reconciliation was frank and civil discourse.
I do not think our present and future is or will be as difficult as was Grant and Lee’s. But we too have to think about national reconciliation. It seems to me that the first steps in that direction involve frank and civil discussion, absent hyperbole, and absent name calling. If federal judges, state judges, and legal academics are not up to that task, then that is just another institutional and cultural problem crying out for reform and renewal.
Likewise,
our domestic law schools are supported by taxes, tuition, and donations. If
universities and academics only further burden American society by casting
aside our free speech traditions and actively engage in just another front in
our culture wars, then wider society might very well choose to withhold
support. Perhaps this process has already begun?
---
An extract from the conclusion of: Seth Barrett Tillman, ‘Some Personal Reflections on the Recent Litigation involving Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment,’ 94(6) Miss. L.J. 1375, 1401–1402 (May 2025) (footnotes omitted), <http://ssrn.com/abstract=5241140>, <https://mississippilawjournal.org/journal-content/some-personal-reflections-on-the-recent-litigation-involving-section-three-of-the-fourteenth-amendment/>;
The passage above was written prior to May 2025.
Seth Barrett Tillman, ‘On Reconciliation,’ New Reform Club (Sept. 13, 2025, 4:35 PM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2025/09/on-reconciliation.html>;
8 comments:
The first step involved a major war. Then they reconciled.
and, reconciliation only began once one side had been thoroughly defeated on the battlefield…. Moreover, a significant proportion of the defeated remained ‘unreconstructed’ …outlasting the will-to-continue fighting of the victorious side and perpetuating the issues that led to the war for a century.
Reconciliation after surrender, you moron
"Reconciliation" was Charlie Kirk.
The Left assassinated him using the tactics of stochastic terrorism.
The good ship "Reconciliation" has sailed.
There was a rather coarse expression during the Vietnam war about reconciliation: "When you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow".
One side, or another, has to understand that maintaining the status quo will not be possible. When that condition is achieved, reconciliation becomes possible.
Tillman is not wrong, but his timing is wrong. First, defeat; then, reconciliation.
Seth is way ahead of the moment we are currently in. Before Lee and Grant could sit down and have "civil discourse", the Union had to completely subdue the Confederates. We aren't there yet. The Left still has a LOT of fight and rage that we must defeat completely.
Second, our reconciliation with be MUCH MORE DIFFICULT for the simple fact that though the North and the South shed much blood and many lives, they still held the same values. They prayed to the same God. They both believed in the value of human life.
Our enemies, the Left, has a different god and doesn't value human life one whit.
This is why we may need to exterminate many of them before our war is over.
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