ABSTRACT
The controversial meanings of the Civil War, like those of any other massive social trauma, have been framed by public monuments and memorials, by the activism of private interest groups, and by a torrent of literature and commentary. Washington D.C. was a crowded place for Lincoln’s second inauguration—thronged with out-of-town visitors, sick or wounded soliders, army patrols, Confederate deserters, political dignitaries, along with all its regular residents. Beginning immediately after the war, battlefields, graveyards, and statues became the principal sites of Civil War commemoration and reflection. The people of the South have surrendered in the war what the war has conquered; but they cannot be expected to give up what was not involved in the war, and voluntarily abandon their political schools for the dogma of Consolidation. The war has not swallowed up everything. There are great interests which stand out of the pale of the contest, which it is for the South to cultivate and maintain.
