{"id":8179,"date":"2011-04-21T05:00:20","date_gmt":"2011-04-21T09:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geneveith.com\/?p=8179"},"modified":"2011-04-21T05:00:20","modified_gmt":"2011-04-21T09:00:20","slug":"preserving-the-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/04\/preserving-the-union\/","title":{"rendered":"Preserving the Union"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In a review of Robert Redford\u2019s new movie The Conspirator<\/em>, about the plot to kill Lincoln, Ann Hornaday makes an interesting point, that one of the major patriotic ideals for which many Americans died in the Civil War\u2013namely, the Union\u2013is nearly always denigrated in movies and has faded from the American consciousness:<\/p>\n

As University of Virginia history professor Gary Gallagher gracefully proves in his book \u201cCauses Won, Lost and Forgotten,\u201d about how popular culture has shaped ideas about the Civil War, the preservation of the Union has never been deemed worth valorizing by filmmakers, who have historically been more drawn to Lost Cause romanticism or self-flattering stories that emphasize emancipation of enslaved people or the reconciliation of the white South and white North. (At one point in \u201cThe Conspirator,\u201d noting the higher causes they both fought for, Surratt tells Aiken, \u201cWe\u2019re the same,\u201d a classic reconciliationist elision of the myriad ways the two sides weren\u2019t the same.)<\/p>\n

\nConsidering the depiction of white Union soldiers in such late-20th-century movies as \u201cGlory\u201d and \u201cDances With Wolves,\u201d Gallagher writes, \u201crecent Civil War films fail almost completely to convey any sense of what the Union Cause meant to millions of northern citizens. More than that, they often cast the U.S. military, a military force that saved the republic and destroyed slavery, in a decidedly negative, post-Vietnam light.\u201d\n

Replace \u201cpost-Vietnam\u201d with \u201cpost-Iraq\u201d and you get a pretty good description of how the U.S. military is portrayed in \u201cThe Conspirator.\u201d Rather than a principle worth fighting for, or a fragile democracy still vulnerable to dead-enders who would reignite the war, the Union is painted as the nest that hatched the egg of an overweening state and arrogant abuse of power. Hollywood may be where Confederates are buried in their onetime capital, but for moviegoers, it\u2019s still the place where the Union Cause goes to die.<\/p>\n

via Robert Redford\u2019s \u2018The Conspirator\u2019 and the lost Union cause \u2013 The Washington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The review cites the anti-government sentiment of both the left and the right for denigrating the Union cause.\u00a0 But surely our national union is more than just government and can be embraced by those who believe in a limited government. The Constitution was put together to form \u201ca more perfect union.\u201d\u00a0 Does anyone today really want us to exist in separate states as separate countries?\u00a0 Can we recover the love of all of these states and all of these different people coming together into the Union?\u00a0 Where does the ideal of the Union manifest itself in today\u2019s love of country?\u00a0 Or is there no longer a place for it?<\/p><\/div>\n<\/blockquote><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a review of Robert Redford\u2019s new movie The Conspirator, about the plot to kill Lincoln, Ann Hornaday makes an interesting point, that one of the major patriotic ideals for which many Americans died in the Civil War\u2013namely, the Union\u2013is nearly always denigrated in movies and has faded from the American consciousness: As University of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,20,31],"tags":[506,1679],"class_list":["post-8179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-history","category-movies","tag-civil-war","tag-patriotism"],"yoast_head":"\nPreserving the Union<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a review of Robert Redford's new movie The Conspirator, about the plot to kill Lincoln, Ann Hornaday makes an interesting point, that one of the major\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/04\/preserving-the-union\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Preserving the Union\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a review of Robert Redford's new movie The Conspirator, about the plot to kill Lincoln, Ann Hornaday makes an interesting point, that one of the major\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/04\/preserving-the-union\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cranach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-04-21T09:00:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/04\/preserving-the-union\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/04\/preserving-the-union\/\",\"name\":\"Preserving the Union\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-04-21T09:00:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-04-21T09:00:20+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\"},\"description\":\"In a review of Robert Redford's new movie The Conspirator, about the plot to kill Lincoln, Ann Hornaday makes an interesting point, that one of the major\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/04\/preserving-the-union\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/04\/preserving-the-union\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/04\/preserving-the-union\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Preserving the Union\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\",\"name\":\"Cranach\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\",\"name\":\"Gene Veith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gene Veith\"},\"description\":\"Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a writer and retired literature professor, serving as Provost Emeritus at Patrick Henry College. 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