I never would have thought that I would enjoy a 12-hour documentary series about the war. I figured that such things were for tobacco-stained gray-hairs who read spend their summers traipsing battlefields, who read schmaltzy novels about the war, and collect anecdotes about Lee. Rather, I found it to be a really moving film that addressed the root causes, strategy, and tactics of the war and its human cost and meaning.
Certain parts in which leaders stood out for moral vision and moderate temper struck me as the best of Americanness.
Take for instance Lincoln's second inaugural speech, with its declaration that
Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.'Or General Grant's statement to his men after Lee's surrender that the rebels are now their countrymen. He then made a peace offering of rations to the starving Confederate soldiers.
Sherman said of Lincoln, "Of all the men I ever met, he seemed to possess more of the elements of greatness, combined with goodness, than any other."
I should hope we elect a leader in 2008 with even a distant reflection of the humane feeling and vision of these men.
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