Editor,

Some reflections on similarities between the post Civil War Era and our own.  History does not repeat itself but similarities between different eras may nevertheless be discerned in the patterns of motivations propelling events in different periods.  To be sure, reflection is not rigorous academic historic research, but the findings of historic scholarship provides the facts upon which greater reflection leading to perspective on our own era may be gained.

Two major trends re-emerge after the momentous event of Abraham Lincoln’s election and the Civil War.  The first was a gathering backlash by some Southern whites against the13th, 14th and 15th Amendments abolishing slavery in 1865, extending citizenship to all inhabitants in 1868 and protection from voter disenfranchisement in 1870 passed by majority Republican Congresses.

The second was the resumption of manifest destiny, temporarily on hold during the war, by the re-stationing of federal troops on the border of the western frontier.  As described by S. C. Gwynne in ‘Empire Of The Summer Moon’, the frontier in 1865 was roughly along the 98th meridian where the Great Plains begin west of San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth, the Indian territory of Oklahoma northward through Arkansas, Kansas into the Dakotas.  And the long history of government support for largely white settler movement into Indian lands of the eastern tribes through enumerable treaties made and broken on both sides, known as the Trail of Tears, was poised to start again on the Great Plains.

The insatiable desire for American dominance in the West had run into the Plains Indians fierce resistance in overrunning their homeland traditional buffalo hunting grounds.  The inevitable Indian Wars, bloody on both sides, lasted until the 1880’s, ending, of course, in the complete reservation enforcement of Native Americans on lands sometimes unsuitable for ranching and farming.  On the settler side were powerful new technologies of the telegraph and the railroads, from which the great buffalo herds were decimated, depriving the Indians of their traditional sustenance and culture.

We may view the major trends in our era analogously by the momentous event of the Obama presidency followed by a backlash by some in the current Republican Party, among conservatives and in corporate leadership to the Obama era’s extension of the civil right of health care for the many, justice enforcement reform and to environmental quality preservation initiatives.  In both eras the backlash certainly includes the innate human drive for power and profit.  The post Civil War retrenchment of former slave owners in devising the cheap-labor share cropping economy resulting in the Jim Crow period may be analogous to our era’s antipathy by some to labor unions and collective bargaining.  The clearing of Native Americans off the land into reservations may be viewed in light of our current boarder fixation by some in attempting to keep legal and illegal immigration to a minimum.

The rush for settlement on western lands during the post Civil War period promoted by the railroads and government may be compared to our current rush for exploration and extraction of coal, gas, oil and other minerals below western lands – promoted by both corporations and the current administration.  This is abetted by new technologies of ground radar, heavy machinery and vehicles, fracking and of course the computer.   The 19th Century taking of Indian lands may be compared to the 21st Century’s real and proposed taking of federal Bureau of Land Management land, National Monuments and National Parks for mineral extraction.

Andrew Johnson was originally invited to the vice-presidency as a ‘War Democrat’ to broaden the coming post-war acceptability for reconstruction.  He also supported the Homestead Act of 1862 for westward settlement. When he became president after Lincoln’s assassination, his post-war southern sympathies came to the fore with his uncooperative views on reconstruction measures.  In response, the radical Republicans in Congress nearly impeached him in 1868.  President Grant, elected that same year, stood firmly behind the Congress’s reconstruction measures including the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.

After Grant, Reconstruction dissipated culminating in the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Supreme Court decision enshrining ‘separate but equal’ and ushering in the legal Jim Crow era not overturned until Brown v Board of Education in 1954.  While not as momentous as Reconstruction, Plessy and Jim Crow, in our current era the election of Donald Trump may be seen in part as the attempt to roll-back health care extension and environmental laws protecting our land, water, air, and public health from toxins.  In both eras, the backlash may be interpreted as attempting to reduce perceived barriers for profit-making enterprises.

One unintended consequence of 19th Century western expansion, at least partly, set the conditions for the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s.  But this is not to denigrate the many honest, hard working Plains settlers and their descendants who have had to deal with a dry, sometimes unforgiving environment.  Familiar unintended consequences of our current era’s practices, laws and policies contribute to the precipitous draw-down of the Great Plains aquifer and fracking-induced earth quakes.  The continued reliance on fossil fuel extraction and its uses are, of course, a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions causing global climate change.  The dire consequences of climate change are just beginning: wild fire, drought, more powerful storms, flooding and sea level rise/storm surge.  After President Trump, like after President Andrew Johnson, will the voters bring someone like Ulysses S. Grant to office to uphold Obama era laws on health care, policing justice and climate change mitigation?  Or will it take eighty-eight years, as between the 15th Amendment and the 1964 Civil rights Act, to confirm the Obama era health, justice and environmental laws and initiatives.  Perhaps by reflecting on past historical eras we can in the 21st Century find better ways to move more quickly in solving our country’s challenges we face today.

Anthony Dater

Kennebunk