Pretext: I am a huge nerd who just finished reading a biography about Ulysses S Grant, an American Civil War hero and 18th president of the United States. He’s a guy who is known for being a force of reckoning in the fight for American equality. Whether it was his campaigns on the battlefield or his policies in the White House, Grant shone as a beacon of hope for a better tomorrow for all people in these United States. Yet a sentiment sat within Grant in the later years of his life. He would best express it in a statement he made 151 years ago to his Army of the Tennessee, the army he led for most of the war.
Perhaps solemnly, Grant affirmed that in the event of another civil war “the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s, but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other.”
These words have reverberated through my head since finishing the book, especially with the national midterm elections a few weeks away. I’m not writing today to convince anyone to vote for any specific candidate; rather I am writing to convince anyone not planning to vote to do so— and to do so with the memory of those who came before us in mind. People like Grant, who boldly equated “patriotism” with “intelligence.”
When Grant spoke his aforementioned quote, he was building to the understanding that education–the remembrance of our shared history–was the key to preserving our nation. Although he spoke directly to his former soldiers, his words were aimed at all who called America home. It was a nation that had been rebuilding, reconstructing for ten years at that point. While the virtues of freedom had overcome intolerance by the war’s end, what that would look like in the long term remained an open question. On the one hand, formerly enslaved African American men had taken government offices across the south, ushering in a new age of democracy. But on the other hand, the evil Klu Klux Klan had arisen to terrorize newly freed African Americans and other groups of Americans —including Jews— across the south.
When Grant called for education for all Americans, it reflected his own growth in what “America” ought to mean to the people who live within her borders. Only thirteen years earlier had he called for General Orders Number 11 while leading the very same Army of the Tennessee. The order expelled Jewish people from Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee under the generalization that all Jews in those states acted as an economic boon to the Confederates. Grant held a prejudice of his own while actively fighting against the prejudices of others.
But with time, Grant’s ideas changed. He came to regret General Orders Number 11 and went on to become the most Jew-tolerant president up to that point in time. He would outwardly apologize for his earlier actions. This was not accomplished by ignorance but by talking to his fellow Americans, understanding them.
Grant saw that the best way to make lasting change was to implement free, public education. He understood that education is the most powerful tool for flexing each of our own political muscles. That’s important because in our society, on paper at least, we the people are our own government. The people in charge are supposed to be us. Don’t we want the people making the choices on what happens in our nation (and in case I haven’t been clear, it’s us!), to have an understanding of our history and world? There’s sentiment across this nation that things aren’t going as well as they could, to put it very nicely. This is a bipartisan sentiment— one of the only beliefs currently held by nearly every American citizen. The onus is on us to change something right now.
Yes, change can be scary. Just as much as it’s led to the best in the past, it also has gone for the worst. But when it leads to the best, more of us benefit. Those afraid and opposed to education will always be those who have the most to lose from change. There’s a reason the pre Civil War north was dynamic and futuristic compared to the plantation-ridden antebellum south.
I’m not asking you to sit in a classroom and take notes; I doubt Grant was either. I am asking you to treat the world as your classroom this election season. Grant’s legacy is interwoven with our American story. That includes the legacy of the Civil War, Special Field Orders 11, Reconstruction, and you and I. We are the stewards of Grant’s plea to reunite as a nation. For the sake of our own interwovenness into that legacy, let’s remember how we got here. Happy voting!
