OPINION:
In a seemingly off-the-cuff remark, former President Donald Trump recently suggested that the Civil War might have been avoided through negotiation. As he put it: “There was something I think could have been negotiated, to be honest with you. I think you could have negotiated that.” It took mere minutes before the mainstream media and its allies went into full attack mode against the former president.
Mr. Trump’s remark was both castigated and recast. Academics rushed to call him ignorant. Instead of the statement that Mr. Trump actually made, the press unhesitatingly twisted his observation into a claim by Mr. Trump that he could have personally negotiated an outcome that would have prevented the Civil War and even suggested that his statement implies that he would have supported slavery.
This restatement is preposterous on its face. By altering Mr. Trump’s initial remark in this manner, the press has once again sought to make him appear to be a buffoon.
Mr. Trump’s remark may have been incorrect, but it surely merits more than the disdain that has been ascribed to it by his detractors.
First, it is important to note that Mr. Trump did not affirm that he could have negotiated a settlement of the disputes that led to our bloody Civil War. Rather, he indicated that he thought that it was possible that the Civil War could have been averted through a negotiation that did not take place and that leaders of the time could have done more to prevent the horrific bloodshed of the war. Despite insinuations to the contrary, he did not suggest that the United States should not have ended slavery.
While the former president is clearly not a Civil War scholar, Mr. Trump’s observation is hardly the first time that consideration has been given to whether the Civil War could have been avoided. His perception that Abraham Lincoln or another president could have negotiated a way out of the war seems erroneous to me, but it is not so far-fetched as to be implausible.
Indeed, Lincoln’s own perspective was that the conflict would be short and would be quickly resolved, suggesting that he also believed in an ultimately negotiated outcome. The proof of that proposition lies in his initial summoning of 75,000 volunteers for a mere 90 days. If he had thought that the secessionist South would fight to the death, he would not have assumed that the war would last only a few months.
Of course, it is not Lincoln who was in the best position to have negotiated an avoidance of the conflict. By the time Lincoln had assumed the presidency, many of the Southern states had already declared their secession from the Union. Conflict was by then, to some extent, inevitable.
When the Southern states began to secede, the White House was occupied by James Buchanan. He was the person who would have had to aggressively handle negotiations with the Southern states, but he demurred. He was evidently tired and especially tired of his role as president. Buchanan made only the most feeble efforts to persuade the secessionist states not to leave the Union. In any event, he did not have the personality or the energy to confront the crisis. Had Buchanan, and perhaps subsequently Lincoln, made a far greater effort to negotiate with the Southern states, it is possible that the conflict could have been avoided, or at least deferred.
We cannot know whether such an effort would have succeeded, but we do know that it was not really pursued and that the war cost our nation over 600,000 lives and enmities that endured for over 150 years. We also know that the end of slavery was inevitable, and simply deferring the conflict might have brought slavery to an end without a fratricidal war and its terrible consequences.
We know this because by 1888, slavery had been abolished in every developed nation and even in less-developed nations such as Brazil, which was the last nation in the Western Hemisphere to end slavery. It is simply implausible that the United States could have allowed slavery to continue when the rest of the world had demonstrated without equivocation that it was immoral and untenable.
Southerners had to be aware that their system of enslavement of fellow human beings was doomed. Fighting their brethren in the North was a desperate demonstration of irrepressible stubbornness and false and fatal pride.
The Civil War likely advanced the liberation of American slaves by about 30 years at most. This is not negligible, since every day of enslavement is an eternity of terror and injustice. But it does not mean that there should not be consideration of the possible alternative approaches that might have resolved the dispute between the North and the South and brought the reprehensible institution and abomination of slavery to an end without the bloodshed of the Civil War and the subsequent animosities.
Donald Trump’s off-the-cuff comment is actually a reflection of one of Mr. Trump’s attributes: He systematically questions so many of the things we take for granted. Anti-Trumpers may assume that this is a sign of Mr. Trump’s foolishness, but it is also possible to see it as one of his assets.
Although it is not clear that Mr. Trump has given much thought to his historical analysis, he should not be reproached for bringing a new perspective to a complex subject. After all, it is an instinctive unwillingness to accept things as they are that has resulted in Americans being so creative, in both tangible and intangible ways. New ways of viewing old problems must not be considered a sign of demented thinking. They are actually a door to progress.
• Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington office of a national law firm. He is the author of “Lobbying for Equality: Jacques Godard and the Struggle for Jewish Civil Rights During the French Revolution,” published by HUC Press.
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