We’ve never been more divided? I traveled into Kentucky’s past to find out.
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Our House Divided
A reporter’s journey through Kentucky’s Civil War history with an eye on today’s divided politics.
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Analysis
When I worked in Frankfort I had a desk in the Herald-Leader’s Capitol office, a veritable cupboard under the stairs on the second floor, right below the Senate chamber.
There’s an awe that comes with working in magnificent government buildings, a gravitas whispered from the heavy curtains and intricate murals and the once-mighty figures in the portraits and sculptures, put there to remind you of your mortality and your own small verse in the powerful play of history.
I’d most often feel this magic at night, when the building feels empty. I’d find myself pulled into the rotunda, staring up at Abraham Lincoln.
I was used to seeing Lincoln statues — he’s everywhere.
What I hadn’t seen very often was the guy standing over his right shoulder, the only white statue in the rotunda. When I got there, I openly scoffed at the inscription at the base of the Jefferson Davis statue: “Patriot - Hero - Statesman.”
Patriot? How could someone who led an armed uprising against the United States government be considered a patriot? And, always the haughty Yankee, I’d take visitors to see it, as if to say “see what it’s like here in Kentucky?”
On May 16, 1861, on the other side of the Kentucky River from where the statue of Jeff Davis once stood, the Kentucky House of Representative voted to approve a resolution declaring that Kentucky would remain neutral in the Civil War. It was short lasting. Within a year, Union and Confederate troops were fighting throughout the state. By October 1862, the Confederates retreated into Tennessee after the Battle of Perryville and Kentucky remained in Union hands through the rest of the war.
Politicians speak the language of conflict. It is not a transitioning energy economy, it is a war on coal. It is not an attempt to cut back on American drug use, it is a war on drugs. There are “battles” in the halls of government, “attacks” on ideas and “assaults” on our values.
These simple, sweeping terms have rhetorical value. They make a blunt and forceful point, drawing lines between good and evil with allusions to sacrifice and valor.
But rhetorical conflict is not the same as actual conflict. Last summer I wanted to step back into the most divided time in our country so that I could better understand our current divisions.
So I traveled the state to see the Civil War sites of Kentucky. To learn about the battles that were fought here and see how we continue to remember them. To look at the houses of the upper class of the time and see the small log home of the man who led our country through war. I wanted to see how museums choose to tell the story. I went to 10 Civil War sites throughout the state and interviewed more than 20 academics, politicos and history buffs.
As I learned about the war, the similarities to the past felt eerie and the lessons it could teach us felt pressing.
I found that we are divided, but I also found that an eagerness to heal those divides without addressing the hard truths that created the division in the first place can result in a repressed status quo. I also found that when lies intended to placate a few powerful people are permitted to take hold, they can take decades to unravel.
In part, I think I embarked on this project to find reassurance that our country had persevered through more precarious times and had come out stronger.
Instead, I think I found a warning.
Daniel Desrochers was the Herald-Leader’s political writer for 5 years. This was his final assignment in Kentucky before moving to Washington D.C. to join McClatchy’s Washington Bureau, covering politics for the Kansas City Star.
This story was originally published November 28, 2021 at 6:00 AM.