As part of our celebration of America at 250, we’ve started a weekly newsletter by historian Jonathan Horn. Learn what happened this week in American history, why it matters, and what else you should see and read in The Free Press and beyond. This week Jonathan looks at how unionists and secessionists on the eve of the Civil War both tried to wrap their cause in George Washington’s mantle. To get this newsletter in your inbox every week, sign up here. —The Editors
Washington’s Civil War
A good reason for resisting the fad of referring to Washington’s Birthday as Presidents’ Day went unmentioned in last week’s newsletter but can be summed up here in two words: James Buchanan. On February 22, 1861, a crowd hoping to see soldiers march down Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue in honor of the first president’s birthday instead saw the soon-to-be former president Buchanan come down with a case of cold feet. With an antislavery Republican named Abraham Lincoln having won the race to succeed Buchanan, Southern states had begun to secede. Warned that a martial display at this time would wreck chances for negotiations to avert civil war, Buchanan ordered the soldiers to sit out the parade—only to flip-flop later in the day upon hearing his decision had disappointed the people lining the streets.
The controversy over Washington’s birthday on the eve of the Civil War provides perspective on our own so-called “history wars” today. The battle back then was not over whether to save or tear down statues of the Father of Our Country (few could have foreseen such silliness) but over who had the better claim to his legacy: those seeking to save the Union he had forged or those seeking to break away from it.
