March 3-5, 2011
Conference: Civil War – Global Conflict

On March 4, 1865, with the Civil War all but over, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated for the second time as President of the United States of America. In his justly celebrated inaugural address he called for healing in a reunited nation: “With malice toward none; with charity for all…let us strive on to finish the work we are in…to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

In that same spirit, the CLAW program today begins its 4-year-long commemoration of the Civil War with a conference that reflects on the war as a global conflict. Some of the nation’s leading Civil War scholars will consider, among other things: how the international circulation of ideas about liberty, slavery, race, ethnicity, nationalism, imperialism, gender, and religion all helped to shape the conflict; how diplomacy and military strategy affected the war’s outcome; and how the war itself determined subsequent political alliances and military conventions.

As Lincoln’s second inaugural speech intimated, this is not a moment for bravado, nor even a moment for passive mourning, but a moment for settling down to carry on the unceasing work necessary to achieve the kind of understanding that might lead to a just and lasting peace.

The conference will take place at the Stern Center starting today at noon and running till 5:30 on Saturday. Full details are available at http://spinner.cofc.edu/atlanticworld/civilwar/index.html. Please join us if you can.