WHY KNOXVILLE DOESN’T HAVE CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS: “The short answer is East Tennessee was a heavily pro-Union part of the South.”

And as I noted in a post over a decade ago, one thing our ancestors seem to have been better at than 21st Century Americans are was bringing the country together after the Civil War. But, of course, having a Civil War in their recent memory made them appreciate having “the hands that were once raised in strife now clasp a brother’s hand.” Note that this line appears in a monument erected by Union troops, a block from my office, commemorating the Battle of Fort Sanders. Our current political class, on the other hand, seems more reminiscent of America’s in the 1850s. Or maybe they just live by Rhett Butler’s saying, that there’s as much money to be made in tearing down a civilization as in building one up.