“Madam, do not train up your children in hostility to the government of the United States. Remember, we are all one country now. Dismiss from your mind all sectional feelings, and bring them up to be Americans.”
Robert E. Lee
Letter To Confederate Widow
Robert E. Lee had spent four years leading a Army in hostility to the government of the United States but upon defeat he realized that what the war had largely been about was the destruction of regional identities in favor of the creation of monolithic nation-state America that demanded that all of its citizens find their identities as Americans. Lee understood that loyalties that had once been regional and sectional were now to be loyalties that were national. Whereas a child in the 1840’s might be raised to think of himself as first and foremost Virginian, a child raised in the 1870’s must be raised to think of himself as first and foremost American. And so Lee, seeking to help his beloved South integrate into the new national reality, urged his people to accept and live in light of the consequences of the War of Northern aggression.
This might be simply interesting history if it were not the case that I believe we are living in similar times where there is a vast push in place to reorient people into how they think about sovereignty. Whereas in the 19th century the shift was accomplished where people moved from thinking about the sovereignty they lived under and were loyal to from regional or sectional considerations to National considerations, now in the 21st century I believe we are being pushed into thinking about sovereignty we live under and are loyal to from National considerations to international considerations. If the War of Northern aggression accomplished destroying regional sovereignty (and so regional citizen identity) thinking for National sovereignty thinking what is being pursued in our lifetime is the pursuit of destroying concepts of National sovereignty (and so national citizen identity) in favor of One world sovereignty where people think of themselves as citizens of the planet.
It is interesting that in both pursuits race has been used as a fulcrum on the part of those who desire to increasingly centralize power. Whereas in the 1860’s the issue was ostensibly slavery, the issue today is illegal immigration. The putative sin of slavery was used by those who desired a federalized nation state to give excuse for destroying the concept of regionalism and sectionalism. Similarly today the ill defined sin of racism is being used by those who desire America to become part of a centralized world state. As the elimination of slavery was used as the moral excuse to achieve great heights of immorality in the name of the State conquering all, so the need to eliminate immoral racism against illegal immigration becomes the excuse for erasing borders in pursuit of the building of a world wide Babel.
In both cases traditional understandings of family and ethnicity were and must be demolished in order for new understandings of family and ethnicity to take root. The reason for this is that any organizational unit (familial or ecclesiastical) that can possibly create and demand a loyalty that rivals loyalty to the ever expanding State is a loyalty that must be exterminated by those seeking to create a world state. Just as a nation cannot have a citizenry that thinks of itself primarily according to its regional roots so a state that is seeking to be one world cannot have a citizenry that thinks of itself primarily in terms of ethnic or familial or faith terms. Just as the North crushed Southern identity in order to build a new centralized nation state, so the one worlders will have to crush any who hold on to an American identity in order to build a new centralized World state. What is interesting to observe here is that both in the 1860’s and today it is people with a shared mindset and ethos who were and will be crushed.
The evidence of the push to one world government is everywhere. From the North American Union to the current financial crisis to the education that is pursued in the government schools, to the multicultural and politically correct agenda what is being attacked is not only American sovereignty but also the idea that America means something that should not be allowed to be put in a one world blender.
If you love your children you will first investigate what America means. You can hardly defend them from the ubiquitous one world clap trap if you don’t realize what America means. In order to find that out you will have to go behind the recreation in America in 1865 to original sources — Federalist papers, anti-federalists papers, speeches by Patrick Henry, Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, Fairfax resolves, original state constitutions, etc. — and read for yourself what our founders were doing when they made America.
Unfortunately, I can see another day coming when somebody writes a letter to a widow of somebody who died defending America saying,
“Madam, do not train up your children in hostility to the government of the New World order. Remember, we are all one country now. Dismiss from your mind all Nationalistic feelings, and bring them up to be Worlders.”
Viewing this from a Post Mill mindset, could this be God’s way of bringing all nations and peoples under Him? Not in a pluralistic way, but that possibly, in our time, we see religious and cultural pluralism so that in the future, God will bring one nation/world to faith and repentance in Him? All things working together for the good of those who love HIm, who are called according to HIs purpose.
IE America must decrease so that Christ can increase?
Just trying to see a “silver lining” if there is one. All that said, I am preparing myself and my children for when a legitimate “magistrate” rises in opposition to the current trends.
Matt,
Personally, I don’t think it’s going to work. Babel never does. So, I’d have to say, while anything is possible, I have my doubts on that scenario.
I think the silver lining will be the realization of God’s people that they cannot serve two masters. Eventually, the cost of serving the State will no longer be able to be denied.
I agree with jetbrane. The Lord will bring sufficient chastening upon His people that they finally see that they cannot live unequally yoked to a polytheistic state . . . as they cannot serve two masters. I see the post-mill scenario working out as individual nations come under the Kingship of Christ though national covenant, forming Christian republics as the Gospel works effectively amongst His people to bring reformation and restoration.
Sorry, but however much respect Marse Robert deserves for 99% of what he believed and said, he was just wrong, here. The Yankees had forced the South into what was, effectively a military draw, with a THREAT of “finishing them off,” based on civilian death (I will gladly accept correction in this, since I’ve not yet read as much as I hope to.) In modern political parlance, there was no “mandate,” to hegemonize the country. The Confederacy should have re-organized its armies into guerilla militias scattered throughout the South and outside the boundaries of D.C., then sued for peace based on total destruction of northern infrastructure. What-if’s aside, I just don’t understand the instructions, after four years of seeing what the Union had planned for America, to just “accept it and move on.”
Jay
Jay,
The way I read it is that Lee was simply trying to make the best of a horrid situation forced upon his people. This letter must be balanced by the comment he made that (paraphrasing) “if he knew what the Yankee’s had in store for his people he would have died with his army, sword in hand.”
Do we know which quote came first?
I’d have to research that.
I suppose the real question the LORD is putting us all to the test over is, “Will you obey Me, even unto death, that I may give you a crown of life.”?
Lee had no certainty as to the outcome of the war, but he pursued the duty presented him with all the faitfhulness God enabled him with. When we are called upon, may we be blessed of our heavenly Father to show the same devotion to duty.