This is Democracy – Episode 293: Ending Wars

2025-03-07_this-is-democracy_ending-wars
===

[00:00:00] Jeremi Suri: Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy.

This week we are going to speak to a fellow historian, author, and really, uh, a superb writer and thinker about democracy and one of the most difficult. Problems in democracy, which is about controlling and ending wars. Wars that we are sometimes in because we don’t want to be in them, but find ourselves in them wars we inherit, or wars that sometimes we have to fight for a larger purpose.

Throughout American history and throughout the history of other nations, one of the biggest challenges has been ending wars that seem to linger. And often linger far from the battlefield. Uh, Michael Vorenberg is with us today. He is an associate professor of history at Brown University and he’s the author of a number of really important books.

His first book, uh, final Freedom, the Civil War I. The abolition of slavery in the 13th Amendment, uh, really transformed my way of thinking about, uh, that period. And it was so transformative well beyond my reading that even Steven Spielberg loved it and made a whole movie, Lincoln, which is in part, based on the book, not entirely, and I, I’m sure the movie made.

Took some liberties that were not exactly what the author would’ve done, but nonetheless, quite extraordinary that that book, uh, influenced, uh, such an important movie. And Michael now has a brand new book that’s coming out just this month, uh, that I recommend to everyone. I’ve had the opportunity to read it, uh, and it’s really fantastic Lincoln’s piece, the Struggle to End the American Civil War.

Mike Vorenberg, thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:01:33] Michael Vorenberg: Thank you, Jeremy. Thanks for having me on. It’s a pleasure.

[00:01:37] Jeremi Suri: Before we get into our discussion, uh, with, uh, Michael Vorenberg about his new book and about ending wars in democracies, uh, we have of course a scene setting poem. And I think for the first time in about 300 episodes, Zachary, you, you’re gonna read, uh, someone else’s poem.

You’re, you’re, you’re turning over the stage to someone else this time, huh?

[00:01:57] Zachary Suri: Yes. I will read, oh, captain, my captain by Walt Whitman.

[00:02:00] Jeremi Suri: Uh, I can see why. Please, uh, go ahead Zachary.

[00:02:04] Zachary Suri: Captain, my captain, our fearful trip is done. The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won. The port is near the bells.

I hear the people all exalting while follow eyes. The steady keel, the vessel grim and daring, but oh, heart, heart, heart. Oh, the bleeding drops of red. Were on the deck. My captain lies fallen cold and dead. Captain, my captain rise up and hear the bells rise up for you. The flag is flung for you. The bugle trails for you bouquets and ribbon reeds for you.

The shores are crowding for you. They call the swaying mask. Their eager faces turning here, captain. Dear father, this arm beneath your head. Is it some dream that on the deck you’ve fallen cold and dead? My captain does not answer. His lips are pale and still my father does not feel my arm. He has no pulse, nor will the ship is anchored, safe and sound.

It’s voyage, closed and done from Fearful trip. The Victor ship comes in with object one, Exalta shores and Ringo Bells. But I with mournful tread walk the deck, my captain lies fallen cold and dead.

[00:03:16] Jeremi Suri: Hmm. Well read Zachary very well read as a poet, as well as a historian. Zachary, what, what does that poem invoke for you?

[00:03:24] Zachary Suri: Um, well, I think it invokes the, the tragedy of leadership in difficult times. Uh, that sort of, obviously the poem is about Lincoln and his death, uh, just after the, uh, end of the Civil War. Um, and it invokes the, um. The, uh, sort of rare, the, the rareness of a leader like Lincoln, someone who’s able to, you know, bring the ship safely into harbor, but also the burdens of that kind of leadership and how it can destroy someone and how alone it feels when we don’t have a leader like that.

[00:03:54] Jeremi Suri: Right, right. Well said. Well, Mike, this is obviously a poem, you know, so well in a period, you know, better than almost anyone else. I’m, I’m just curious your thoughts on, on this iconic poem.

[00:04:05] Michael Vorenberg: It’s a beautiful poem. Whitman’s an amazing poet, and you’ve given me an impossible act to follow. Uh, it is, it is a poem, as Zachary said about Lincoln and his death.

Um, and it is a wonderful poem. It’s made famous in a number of places, a number of scenes. Um, and yeah, I, I have other reactions to it, that poem. Whitman writes after Lincoln is assassinated and there’s a line in it, which I, if I try to quote it directly, I’ll get it wrong, but something to the effect of he has steered the ship to anchor.

Yes. Um, and thus suggesting that we’ve gotten through the war where at Anchor and we have Lincoln to think, and I think that’s a terribly important message. Of course, there’s many other messages in there. I now wanna take this opportunity to jump a few weeks ahead from the assassination. Whitman is present in May.

That is about just over about a month later, about five weeks later during the Grand Review, which is a massive parade, two-day parade through the streets of Washington. It wasn’t really called a parade, it was called a review, but of. The major armies in the east of the US armies and Whitman is there and he writes another poem.

Hmm. And that poem, uh, the first line of which is spirit whose work is done has that same message. It’s reflecting back on the work that has been done, the war that is over. And he is looking at this. What is really in effect, a huge mustering out ceremony. But there’s a line in that poem in which he says, and I, I’ll read it.

Leave me your pulses of rage. Bequeath them to me. Fill me with currents, convulsive. In other words, Whitman acknowledges that. There are these pulses of rage on all sides. The war is over. That is the military war is over. The armies have are done fighting one another, but there are these pulses of rage.

[00:06:41] Jeremi Suri: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:42] Michael Vorenberg: He acknowledges that they exist and so he says essentially. Bequeath them to me. I’ll, I’ll take it all on. Right. And, uh, and fill me with your currents convulsive, this idea of your electric anger, if you will. And, and that phrase, currents convulsive is the title of one of my chapters.

[00:07:06] Jeremi Suri: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:07] Michael Vorenberg: Uh, because after Lincoln’s assassination and still going on during the grand review and after.

There are convulsive currents of rage of violence that certainly look very much like war. They’re called war by some, and the United States is technically and legally in a state of war. So for me, Whitman is a perfect example of someone who. Speaks so eloquently and write so e eloquently about an ending, whether it’s the ending of the war or the ending of Abraham Lincoln, and yet understands very deeply that aspects of the war continue.

[00:07:57] Jeremi Suri: Why Mike? Is this the case? Why isn’t Appomattox a moment when people just come together? That’s the way it’s told. Of course, in textbooks. Uh, that’s the way we tell the story of the end of World War ii, right? Why? Why isn’t that moment an ending point?

[00:08:15] Michael Vorenberg: Appomattox is a surrender of the most famous army, which is the army of Northern Virginia under Robert E.

Lee to Ulysses Grant. It happens on April nine. 1865 and I probably will refer again to that date. So it’s worth keeping in mind. April 9th, 1865. Um, so the surrender of an army and is and of the most famous army is absolutely a moment when we might think about the end of the war. Furthermore, it’s immortalized in.

Paintings, it’s immortalized in textbooks. If I, if I ask people who were educated in the United States to tell me about the end of the Civil War, they very likely will come up with that episode because it was in a textbook. Maybe they saw Spielberg’s 2012 film Lincoln, because he has a scene that shows Appomattox.

It is a remarkable scene, but again, it is the surrender of an army. Uh, so there are a couple problems. First, under international law, an a war isn’t over until the civilian authorities make peace. I. So this is an insurrection. So you could say, well, the Confederacy’s not a nation, but nonetheless, Jefferson Davis is the key.

He’s the president of the Confederacy. He does not surrender at Appomattox. He’s nowhere near Appomattox at that point,

right? Right. Uh, he’s far

away and he has gone publicly, uh, and said that the Confederacy lives on, he has said this after Appomattox, he fully believes that the Confederacy is still at war and will continue to fight.

Yeah. Whereas if you look at the end of World War II and you think about what does that look like, what’s the image? And you know, what does come to mind for me anyway, is a signing ceremony on board of an aircraft carrier. And that signing ceremony is civilian authorities. It’s not, I mean, there are, there are military authorities around too, but that, that’s more like what an ending’s supposed to be like.

[00:10:22] Jeremi Suri: Do you think that there’s another moment? I know in your book you argue that, uh, this fellow Lewis Grant not related to Ulysses Grant struggles years later to try to figure this out in terms of pension benefits, who was actually still serving in the war and who wasn’t. Uh, is there another date that you think substitutes better than April 9th, 1865?

[00:10:46] Michael Vorenberg: I don’t think there’s a single date that works better than April 9th, 1865, but I do think that there are other dates that are contenders and that we should explore what it means to select any given date as the endpoint. What are the implications of selecting that endpoint? So if you select April 9th, 1865, you are choosing a date that.

Says that the main thing about the Civil War is the military conflict between the armies of the Confederacy and the armies of the United States. And that’s a perfectly reasonable way to think of it. You do have to sort of add a footnote and point out that there were still Confederate armies in the field, like Joe Johnston’s and so forth.

But nonetheless, it is still an ending like that. My work on this began, uh, on the book really about 10 years ago, but the kernel of the idea for the book goes back. Nearly 20 and, and that’s because I was in the archives and a strange thing happened. The archivist brought the wrong box. Uh, and it was supposed to be the box that covers subjects under the letter C, but instead it was the, the box covering the letter E.

And, and so, you know, I had nothing else to do in the archive, so I started going through the box under E and this, I won’t tell you about the collection, it’s just kind of a boring collection of legal documents, but it turned out to be actually a very interesting collection because in that box was a whole file, uh, titled End of Civil War.

And at the time I thought I knew what the end of the Civil War was. I thought it was April 9th, 1865. And I said, what’s the big deal? Why is there this big file? I take out the file, I start reading it, and, and it’s mostly the report of this man. You mentioned Lewis, uh, grant writing in the 1890s, many years later, but it happens that Louis Grant was an officer of the US Army who was there at Appomattox on the day of the surrender.

Now we jump ahead a few decades and Grant has been tasked. With identifying the actual legal end date of the war. He’s a lawyer at this point and he’s looking for the end point, and he does an extraordinary amount of research. And now I, here I am in the archives, reading the research and learning all sorts of things that I should have known because I’m a Civil War historian, but it was, so much of it was new to me at the end of the.

Report by the end of the report. Lewis Grant has determined that the legal end, the legal end is August 20th, 1866. 16 months after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.

[00:13:27] Jeremi Suri: Hmm.

[00:13:28] Michael Vorenberg: And that happens to be a date when the President of the United States, Andrew Johnson, has given a proclamation declaring the, that the war is over.

And for various reasons that ends up being the legal end of the Civil War. The Supreme Court affirms that it’s the legal end date, uh. Legally speaking, then that’s a contender. But then there are other ways to think about end dates of the war. So for example, what if we were to say the, the end date is the last surrender?

Mm-hmm. Well, the last surrender happens long after Lee’s surrender. What if we say, well, if the war is war to end slavery, which it certainly right was, uh. It may not have begun that way, but it certainly was that way because of the Emancipation Proclamation by the end and other statements Lincoln makes.

Alright, so if it’s a war to end slavery, then shouldn’t we have an end date that somehow is connected to the end of slavery, maybe Juneteenth, which is in June of 1865, when that proclamation occurs down in Texas, where near where you are, or maybe right. The ratification of the 13th Amendment, so it becomes part of the constitution.

That’s December, 1865. That’s the amendment that abolishes slavery. So these are various ways of thinking about endpoints and returning to what I said at the beginning, the endpoint one chooses, has, has the effect of defining the war. That’s part of the argument of the book.

[00:15:04] Jeremi Suri: Yes,

[00:15:06] Michael Vorenberg: Zachary?

[00:15:07] Zachary Suri: Why do you think it matters where we see the end of the Civil War?

And also, I want to ask, why do you think it’s so tempting for, um, you know, history teachers, scholars, and ordinary Americans alike to see a sort of clean break in April, on April 9th, 1865?

[00:15:28] Michael Vorenberg: I think the question of why it matters is, as I said, because the. Date one chooses helps define the war. But I think there’s another reason too, and this goes to your second question, which is that there is something extraordinarily compelling about the idea of war having a neat and discreet ending.

I think there’s always something compelling about that, and I think that the moment at Appomattox. Gives that ending. Why is it so compelling? First of all, because it’s really nice when a story has a clean ending. We like our stories to have beginnings, middles, and endings, and so if it’s a story of a war, then it’s really helpful if the war has a neat ending.

I also think that. Uh, probably with the post World War II conflicts that the US is involved in Korea, Vietnam, and then the 21st century engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, that you begin to see what now are called Forever. Wars. Wars, where the ending is hard to find. Yes. And in such an environment, the nostalgia, if you will, for a war that has.

A discreet ending that is not a forever war gets greater. And so Appomattox, the idea of an Appomattox ending has even more appeal. Right? And so my book understands that, but also says, I’m sorry, uh, but guess what? The Civil War in some ways. Was a bit of a forever war. Not, I don’t mean to compare it to today’s forever wars, but it did not have the neat ending that we might think and that disrupts a narrative, uh, or a story with great power and appeal.

Um, as you said, Zachary. That we learn and it sticks with us. And even after all this, after all the work I did on the book and and so forth, even in my Civil War classes, I’m inevitably gonna say things like, after Appomattox, this is what happened. In other words, I’ll use, I’ll use app, I’ll use Appomattox as a marker in time despite having written this book.

Yeah. And um, and that speaks to just how compelling and handy it is to have. A moment in time.

[00:18:11] Jeremi Suri: Yeah. Uh, Mike is is part of the problem also what you’ve said so, so beautifully, but also the mirror image of that, that it’s not only that we long for wars that have a discreet ending, it’s that we miscon, conceptualize war as having a discreet beginning and a discreet ending.

They’re supposed to be someone who wins and when they win, it’s supposed to be clear they’ve won again. It’s what we like to think of as American power, that our power is righteous and overwhelming and that. Eventually, this is the myth even of World War ii, right? That the other side will come to see our moral superiority as well as our material superiority and say, no MAs say enough.

Right? I mean, is that a misconception? ’cause very rarely, if ever, do wars end that way.

[00:18:56] Michael Vorenberg: I entirely agree and, and I think the way you have framed it also plays into a subject here that you know well, and that is American exceptionalism. Yeah. If you imagine having a discussion with someone in some other country, I, I won’t name the country, but I dunno, pick a country, but let’s say a country that’s been ravaged by war for, for, for a long time and maybe over and over by various types of powers, and you ask such a person, when did the war begin and when did it end?

They might look at you like you’re crazy.

[00:19:35] Jeremi Suri: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:35] Michael Vorenberg: Because for them, you know that this is just the state of affairs. But for Americans, as, as the way you put it very well, this idea of American might and American exceptionalism and, and, and superior ideology and so forth necessarily means victory. And victory has a clean discernible point.

Uh, and so that’s. Terribly important. And so the idea that America ends its wars, um, is really important. And, and in the book, I quote a couple people in the 20th century saying exactly that, yeah, that America is exceptional in that it ends its wars

[00:20:17] Jeremi Suri: Right

[00:20:18] Michael Vorenberg: now, today in 2025, especially looking back, you know, at the first two decades of the century, um, it’s obviously a tougher statement to make.

[00:20:29] Jeremi Suri: Yes. Yes. Mike. One of the things that struck me, there’s so many things that, that struck me and stayed with me reading your book. Uh, one of them was the degree to which Lincoln wanted to have a soft landing. I. Wanted to be magnanimous. And of course his second inaugural is so, uh, so filled with that. So beautiful in that, um, I, is this in part because he understood this point that the war really wouldn’t be over and you have to give the other side reason to buy in?

Or how do you see that in relationship to what we’ve just been discussing?

[00:21:05] Michael Vorenberg: I like your expression of a soft landing. Uh, and I think you’re right about that. And you’re right also that the second. Inaugural its last line with malice toward none is about forgiveness. So absolutely a soft landing. And I think Lincoln understood that to go back to Whitman, the idea of pulses of rage would continue.

He absolutely understood and he understood that. Bringing an end to that containing those pulses of rage was a process. It would take a process. It would be a political process. It would be a political process that he wanted to be a part of, that he wanted to lead, that he wanted to orchestrate. Of course, he didn’t get to because he was assassinated, but absolutely he did.

On the cover of the book is a painting called The Peacemakers that was painted in 18 68, 3 years after the war. And it’s a painting of a, of an actual scene in, uh, March of eight, a few weeks before Appomattox, where Lincoln meets with his top military officials, including Grant and Sherman. Uh, and he says at that meeting, when he’s talking about.

How to handle the Confederates, because that’s the main part of the discussion, which is how are we gonna handle Confederates in terms of surrender and so forth. He uses the phrase, let ’em up easy.

[00:22:43] Jeremi Suri: Hmm.

[00:22:44] Michael Vorenberg: And that’s a phrase that comes from his experience wrestling, uh, in the frontier. And, and so as a wrestler on the frontier, right, you’d go out and you wrestle with somebody.

And a point comes when both sides acknowledge that one party has the upper hand, right? You stand up, you shake hands, and, and that’s it. What you don’t do. If you’re the victor is you stand up and then you punch the guy, you say you let him up easy. Right? You say there’s honor involved and, and it’s over.

Right? So the Let him up. Easy phrase for me is, is really embodies Lincoln’s notion and then if you jump ahead, okay. Lincoln’s death, his assassination, that’s actually gonna make it very hard. Uh, to let ’em up easy, right? ’cause so many northerners blame the south, all southern whites for Lincoln’s death.

The rage, the rage that’s there because of Lincoln’s death is actually gonna become an impediment to the idea of let ’em up easy.

[00:23:56] Jeremi Suri: Right? Uh, uh, Mike, it’s so striking to me that you’re making this very compelling argument because as I read a lot of the literature, uh, and you know this literature better than I do, but as I read it, it seems that the, the, the fairly standard criticism is that the union was not harsh enough.

More should have been done in the years after Appomattox, whether Appomattox was an end or not, that the, the more should have been done in those years to, through military force and other elements, make the South reform and transform race relations more significantly than they were transformed. You seem to be making the opposite argument.

Uh, is that fair?

[00:24:41] Michael Vorenberg: The question being how could things have been done? Differently and better. Yes. Is a really good question. And I guess if one is holding to Lincoln, yes. Uh, I think had Lincoln been alive through this, he would have felt that he could work towards an end without a lengthy occupation of the Army.

And the question then is. Is that actually true? That is, could Lincoln have pulled it off? Um, I don’t know. But what I do believe, and you’re right, that I I think a, a normal, a, a common response today among scholars is to think, well, there was an occupation by the US Army, and really if that occupation had been more, uh, heavily.

Staffed with soldiers. So it’s a larger army in the south and then left in the south for as long as possible. Um, and that would have been the way to go. And that is a big part of my book because that basically is the philosophy, uh, of what’s known as the grasp of war.

[00:26:05] Jeremi Suri: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:06] Michael Vorenberg: So if Lincoln’s philosophy is let him up, easy.

On the opposite side, you have Richard Henry, Dana, Richard Henry, Dana, Massachusetts lawyer, international lawyer, orator. From the get go, he is suspicious that Appomattox is a true endpoint. On the day after Appomattox, when everyone’s celebrating in Boston, he stands up in the midst of the celebration, gives a speech, and says.

Peace was not made. Mm-hmm. That grant and lead did not make peace. That peace has to come that peace, you know, peace is a process. Later on in the summer of 1865 is when he’ll deliver his much more famous speech in which he’ll talk about the grasp of war. That the, the victor must hold the enemy in the grasp of war until they have secured from the enemy, whatever it is that the victor.

Sikhs politically, it’s a kind of klau Tian formulation of war, if you will. Right. And, uh, and that, but it’s not, it’s war and politics working together. So yeah, going back to your question that that idea of Richard Henry Dana is still fairly popular today among historians of what should have been done. I don’t think that a massive military occupation.

Um, necessarily would’ve made a huge difference. And I’m very certain that it wasn’t viable. It just wasn’t viable.

[00:27:33] Jeremi Suri: Right.

[00:27:34] Michael Vorenberg: What I do think was viable and wasn’t, uh, done and wasn’t experimented as much as it should have been, and maybe would’ve been done under Lincoln, but it’s tough to say, was a more severe period of political dis disfranchisement.

Hmm. Uh, of former Confederates. I think, uh, that to me is quite striking of how easy it was if you were a former Confederate to become reinstated with full citizenship rights and voting rights. Now, a lot of that has to do with Andrew Johnson being so for, he wasn’t just forgiving, he was over the top, uh, in sort of giving to former Confederates, their status, making alliances with former Confederates.

Lincoln wouldn’t have. Made a, that those kind of alliances, the former Confederacy would’ve sought allies in the south that were more truly unionist unionist in their hearts. I.

[00:28:28] Jeremi Suri: So it’s, this is perhaps an unfair question, but I know you’ve thought about this, uh, because you were kind enough to also share with me some of your, your really thoughtful writings that didn’t make it, uh, into the book that were on the cutting room floor.

We all have these pieces of our writing that, that never make it into our books. And you did think comparatively and internationally, you know, what, what do you think we learn about. The ending of wars and the difficulty. ’cause we end up having these same debates that we’ve just discussed right now. Right.

Should we use more force at the end? Right. Should we have had more force in Iraq or less? Should we have tried to reach out more to different communities there than we did? Uh, what do we take away from this, uh, Mike for thinking about other wars?

[00:29:13] Michael Vorenberg: I think we have to break from ideas that go back to the European enlightenment.

That wars can be fought sensibly, legally, and have discreet and obvious endings that all can agree with. And what I just said makes perfect sense if you study the Vietnam War or conflicts in the 20th century. But my point is that. Uh, we also learned this from a war that we think of as a traditional war in certain ways, like the Civil War.

So all wars violate some of the dictates, uh, that are sort of imagined by enlightenment era thinkers. What’s the takeaway of that? The takeaway is to really, truly, I. The notion that it is harder to get out of wars than to fight them. Hmm. Uh, that’s, that’s not, I’m not the first person to say that. And, uh, but I think it’s, it’s really worth thinking about, right?

And this idea of victory, that you fight a war, there will be a victory, and then the war is over. That notion is still with us. It is still with us and maybe it will be with us forever. I would like a takeaway to be that there be a more critical eye towards that view at the end of the book. I point out that after the Sylvie, uh, after, after, um.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, the most recent invasion.

[00:31:07] Jeremi Suri: Yes.

[00:31:08] Michael Vorenberg: Uh, and, and the war is going on. Within days of that invasion, I started seeing editorials appearing in magazines and articles in, uh, diplomatic history periodicals, saying, how does the war end? And I think that’s a very common thing, right? The war begins, or.

Seems to begin, and then we ask, how do we get out of this? Right? How does the war end embodied in that headline, if you will, of how does this war end? Is the assumption that there will be a discreet endpoint that a moment will come and we’ll say, that’s it, the war’s over. And that’s the kind of thing that we always need to be challenging and remembering prior conflicts, even one.

As seemingly classic in its organization, beginning, middle, and end as the American Civil War.

[00:32:10] Jeremi Suri: Yes. Uh, I think that’s such a powerful insight, uh, Mike. And, uh, it comes through so clearly and so compellingly in your book, and it’s, it’s really a theme that runs through our podcast each week that, you know, democracy is a layered process, and the past never really goes away.

It’s not even passed to bring in William Faulkner that, you know, we we’re, we’re constantly living on the legacies of prior periods, and while there are new technologies and new things happening, the old. Hasn’t gone away. And, and that’s the, the challenge of democracy is to balance the balance, all of these things.

Um, your book really gives us so much to think about. I wanna highly encourage all of our listeners to read it. I will probably be assigning it in in the next year, so many of my students will have to read it. Mike, thank you so much for, for joining us and for sharing your insights, uh, about your book Lincoln’s piece with us.

Thank you, Mike.

[00:33:07] Michael Vorenberg: Well, thank you Jeremy, and thank you again for having me on. And, um, I hope your students, if you do assign it, uh, enjoy the book and, uh, and praise and, and not curse me. For, for, for what you, for what you have done to them.

[00:33:20] Jeremi Suri: Well, they’ll, they will love the book and still curse me for assigning it to.

And so thank you very much. Thank you to, uh, Mike, to Zachary for his insightful poetry reading as always, and thank you most of all, to our loyal listeners and loyal subscribers to our substack for joining us for this episode of This Is Democracy.