This interesting little piece on Jefferson Davis recently appeared in USA Today. It centers around the idea that most people do not know much about Davis prior to his election to the presidency of the Confederacy in 1861. Davis' great-great grandson, Bert Hayes-Davis, is interviewed extensively in the article, and his irritation at the fact that Davis gets no credit for his contributions to the United States prior to 1861 is sharp.Hayes-Davis is obviously not all that objective about his famous relative--which is perfectly understandable. My great-great-great grandfather was Brig. Gen. Thomas R. R. Cobb of Georgia. His brigade hurled back the main federal thrust six times at the sunken road at Fredericksburg, and he died a hero on the battlefield. His brother, my great-great-great uncle, was Howell Cobb--Speaker of the US House (1850-51), Governor of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury under Buchanan, President of the Provisional Confederate Congress, and Confederate Senator. Personally, I have always been proud of my family's heritage in service to state and country. I have been brought up in their long shadows all of my life. In particular, I learned much about them while on my beloved grandfather's knee. They are family. It is indeed hard to be objective, maybe impossible.
Still, I realize that my Cobb relatives were wrong about their views on slavery, dead wrong. Hayes-Davis said, "You can't judge yesterday's issues using today's standards." Really? This makes morality totally subjective to time and circumstance. Slavery was evil in the nineteenth century, just as it is evil in any time or location. To take a view on ethics in history such as the one Hayes-Davis articulates is gravely irresponsible.
Hayes-Davis went on to say, "(Slavery) was the standard of the day — it's the way the world was." These kinds of statements about history reflect a deep ignorance of its relevance and meaning. History is not merely a collection of interesting events that have no moral content. History is also not to be mined for those facts which are palatable to the individual or group, and the rest discarded. We must understand that the record of the past is there, warts and all. We must celebrate and continue those things that are noble and good, yes, all those things that demonstrate virtue and godly character. We must also be honest about the evils and immoral actions of people in the past--even those perpetrated by dear ones who have preceded us in our families whom we love and for whose truly noble accomplishments we are proud. To deny flaws and sins, to turn our attention away from them, to minimize them, does not do justice to the past, nor to ourselves and those we are trying to teach godly character, love for God, and love for neighbor.
For those of us who are Christians, the duty to know history, face it honestly, and teach it as comprehensively and responsibly as possible is incumbent. Furthermore, to show that history indeed contains transcendent moral examples and value is necessary if we are going to be true to the rest of our faith system.
I'm really enjoying the depth of understanding in which you present your commentary John.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Cros! That means a lot!
ReplyDeleteThis brings back good memories from Omnibus III, when we read Uncle Tom's Cabin and the like. Good post. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThoughtful response to a sad opinion. If "slavery was the standard of the day," were all the abolitionists anachronisms?
ReplyDeleteThanks, William--and you make an excellent point!
DeleteThis is an interesting article. I understand your point that slavery was wrong throughout history as it is now, however Hayes-Davis does have a point. I'm obviously not condoning slavery but it was the norm then and you can't blame Jeff Davis because this was his job, and the whole society should be blamed for the horrors of bondage instead of individual men.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Wes, for your comment! We need to be careful here. If the whole society should have been blamed, and Davis was a part of that society, then he was a part of the problem. You can't blame Davis' society without blaming Davis. He was, as a national figure, one of the makers of that society, and as a slaveowner, one of the perpetrators of the evil of slavery.
DeleteOn another note, if we exonerate people of the past for their immoral actions on the basis of the subjective standards of their own time, rather than on transcendent moral truths that are objective for all time, how are we not then moral relativists?
Davis' actions should be evaluated just as fairly as yours and mine. Exonerating him on the basis of the standards of his time is a form of the superior orders defense, which is invalid. Furthermore, the legal principle of ignorantia juris non excusat also applies here: "ignorance of the law excuses none".
Right but you can't just evaluate him on today's standards alone because the culture of his time was vastly different than today's. You can't judge a judge for executing a man by burning at the stake, which a long time ago was the standard execution practice, because in modern times its considered cruel and unusual punishment. The only person who can truly judge him and all of us is God who created us and lives in the past, present, and future all at once. I'm not saying that because slavery was legal that that excuses him for sinfully enslaving others, but I'm saying we can't judge someone entirely based on today's standards if they lived in the past.
DeleteBut Wes, you are saying we can't evaluate him on today's standards. But at the end of your statement, that is exactly what you did. On the one hand, you said that "you can't just evaluate him on today's standards. . ." and then you said later "I'm not saying that because slavery was legal that that excuses him for sinfully enslaving others. . ."
DeleteWes, you are saying here that Jefferson Davis is not to be excused from doing something that was sinful.
Is slavery a sin only because our contemporary culture says it is? Or is it really a sin, no matter what? If it's really a sin no matter what, then we must evaluate the actions of people who advocated for slavery in the appropriate way.
If we follow through with your methods, then perhaps we shouldn't evaluate the Nazis' behavior in the concentration camps, because they were just following orders. You see what happens when truth becomes a cultural construct, instead of being absolute?
John, this deals with psychology as well. Jeff Davis was raised in a world that condoned slavery so he thought that slavery was justifiable. You see people a huge majority of the time act as they were raised. Preachers, wrongly of course, would say that slavery was approved of in the Bible, which obviously would made Davis and the rest for thinking that God is ok with it. The Nazis were wrong for killing Jews but they didn't see it that way because you either obey orders or die and the human instinct is to protect yourself. It's easy to look back and judge people in the past when they didn't see the light that evolved our thinking in the future. Also maybe Jeff Davis changed his heart like George Wallace did for segregation, only God can know and judge. Besides this doesn't have anything to do with him being a patriot, Robert E. Lee, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and many more weren't then be considered patriots according to this.
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ReplyDeleteWesley, I appreciate your comments. Look, I'm not judging Jefferson Davis. I have said nothing to condemn the man. I am evaluating Davis' moral value system on the basis of his advocacy and justification for slavery. I have said--and you have also said--that slavery is wrong, it does not comport with biblical instruction on how persons are supposed to relate to one another. He was wrong. Does that mean he went to hell? Does that mean he was not a Christian? I have no idea. Maybe. Maybe not. I'm not judging him.
ReplyDeleteWesley, there were many, many people who were anti-slavery who were contemporaries of Davis. Many were Southerners. Anti-slavery movements were gaining traction in the US right after independence. It is incorrect to suggest that Davis had no other options in his cultural milieu with regard to slavery except to be in favor of it.
And my post has everything to do with Davis being a patriot. Wesley: he resigned as US Senator from Mississippi, turning his back on his oath to defend the Constitution, and separating himself from the United States. You cannot defend the indefensible. He may have been a patriot for his state, but he was emphatically not for the US. To his dying day, he defended the South's right to secede. That does not represent loyalty to the United States.
Let me reiterate: moral standards do not change. Right and wrong are right and wrong in every situation. You are defending a moral relativist position in your defense of Davis by excusing him from error based on his cultural/historical milieu. If that is your position that's fine. You are welcome to hold to a relativistic view. I don't hold to that view. There is no point in us continuing this as long as that is your view.
I appreciate your willingness to comment, but Wesley, I think you have some work to do in thinking through the ethical ramifications, the historical facts, and the philosophical justifications for what you are saying.
We agree that slavery's wrong and that it has always been wrong, I'm just defending Dixie from today's attacks. I very well understand ethics and history, of course there's more learning to do but that goes for everyone. And he could be seen as a patriot for the Confederacy for instance, patriotism doesn't just mean for the U.S. After all you could argue that George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson weren't patriots because they seceded from the British Empire. But it's always good to have debates and discussions like these.
ReplyDeleteI hear you, brother. Like I said in the post, my family has a strong and noble Southern heritage, stronger than most people who are from the South. But we have to acknowledge that our forebears weren't always right. Offering that acknowledgement does not equate to disloyalty. It's being honest with the facts. I have enormous problems with my Southern brethren who have the attitude that the Confederacy was morally pure in seceding. It's not honest. Read the historical literature, read the primary sources from the 1830s to the outbreak of hostilities. Then contrast that literature with that of the "Lost Cause" from the 1890s-1920s. You will see a huge gap between the mythology of the Lost Cause literature and the reality.
ReplyDeleteRemember, you cannot defend what is indefensible. Take it from one Southerner to another. Defenders of the South who say, "slavery was wrong, but..." severely weaken their credibility. Any attempt at defending Southern leaders who advocated for slavery is futile. We have no ethical basis to defend them. Appealing to the notion that they were a product of their time is a form of moral relativism. It is affirming the idea that slavery is wrong now, but for them, not so much, because they came from a culture that accepted it. That argument does not work, 1) in 1860, more people were advocating against slavery on a wide justificatory basis than were defending it, 2) the Judge of all the earth would not accept that defense, 3) when the defense has been used for more recent departures from morality, like the Nazis, it exposes it for its absurdity even more profoundly.
We must defend our Southern heritage when it comes under unjust or unfounded attack. But we don't do our heritage any favors by defending it from attack that is just.