I am curious however about your opinion of Jefferson Davis’ fate. As I understand it, American officials were reluctant to put the man on trial for treason for two reasons:
1. The trial might require a Virginian jury, and we all know how THAT would go.
2. Treason requires a US citizen to give aid to an enemy nation; it was the policy of the Lincoln Administration that the Confederacy never actually existed as its own country. So therefore, putting the boring old history teacher on trial would reward him and his whole mad project with the thing all neo-Confederates crave: legitimacy.
So, my good doctor, what is your opinion more than a hundred fifty years later? Was Davis a traitor, and if so, what might realistically be done about it now? My understanding is that his grave is still accessible after midnight, and corpses retain their inflammability for a surprising number of years.
Jefferson Davis was certainly a traitor, and it was not expedient to prosecute him; that has been Dr. Boli’s opinion since the Civil War was brought to a successful conclusion.
When a few traitors commit crimes against the people, it is necessary to prosecute them in order that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. But when treason has been taken up by a large part of the population and flared up into open rebellion, and then the rebellion is defeated, it is necessary for the winning side to ask, “What now?”
There are several possible answers to that question. First, we can prosecute and possibly execute all the traitors. That raises logistical difficulties when there are millions of traitors. Second, we can prosecute the leaders of the rebellion; but we do have to remember that the leaders were leaders only because they had millions of followers, and anything that makes those followers desperate enough to take up arms again is undesirable. Third, we can make the leader of the traitors our own leader, but that would be too absurd even to consider.
The wisest policy would seem to be magnanimity. We remember that we are all brothers and sisters; and though we have had a family quarrel, we can forgive each other and be family again. We should not ignore the problems that magnanimity creates for us: if the losing side still believes it was in the right, then as soon as it has recovered it will do its best to make the world it dreamed of when it rebelled. That is what happened in the South, where almost all the progress of the years after the war was undone in the era of “Redemption.” But the alternative is to keep killing each other forever, until we are all dead. In the abstract, that is probably the best possible outcome, but from a sentimental point of view we wouldn’t like it.
Now, what should we do about Jefferson Davis today? Burning him at the stake as a heretic has its attractions, but as a matter of policy postmortem incineration is never effective. It only draws attention to the dead heretic long after he himself has ceased to preach. Furthermore, it makes the orthodox look foolish and desperate. And from the point of view of justice (which Dr. Boli thinks is a sadistic concept anyway), it cannot be effective. If Mr. Davis went where he deserved to go, then our puny flames would add nothing to the experience. If, on the other hand, the Lord is as merciful as we all in our secret hearts pray that he is, then the pyre would only provide a moment’s amusement for Mr. Davis as he rests in his semi-detached mansion in the lowest circle of heaven. The most effective and the most charitable thing to do is to show the world what Jefferson Davis really was, and let the world make its own decision. Exposing the dry pedantry and twisted logic of the man ought to be enough to exorcise him from our political discourse. On the other hand, the world may decide it quite likes the fellow, in which case we in the minority can only rejoice that we are citizens of heaven, and remind ourselves that this world has never been extraordinarily wise in its choice of princes (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11).
Addendum: A comment from our frequent correspondent Occasional Correspondent, left at the previous article on Jefferson Davis and his Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, got caught in the gears of our all-mechanical spam-suppression device and was only rescued this morning. Because it is relevant here, and to atone for the delay, we bring it to the front page:
I say, let Jefferson Davis rest in peace, not in pyrotechnics, and good riddance.
As U. S. Grant wrote:
[…]Mr. Davis had an exalted opinion of his own military genius […] On several occasions during the war he came to the relief of the Union army by means of his
superior military genius .Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, vol. 2, ch. 44 (seen online at Project Gutenberg)
Was Davis a Union mole? If so, he sure maintained his cover to the end.