We need to make one more side trip into the 19th Century. The Civil War.
No other event so defines us. I would argue that not even the Revolution is as important to who we are today as the Civil War is. This event, along with World War II, established the national identity in ways with which we still struggle to accommodate today.
Shelby Foote, in his majestic narrative about the Civil War, pointed out the central change of the aftermath. “Before the war, we said ‘the United States are.’ After, we said ‘the United States is.'” A simple enough thing to say, but to comprehend the meaning is to understand that the country underwent a fundamental realignment of perspective. …