22 / CHRONICLESnCrackers & RoundheadsnThe Celt in all his variants from Builthnto Ballyhoo^nHis mental processes are plain — onenknows what he will do,nAnd can logically predicate his finishnby his start.n— KiplingnCracker Culture: Celtic Ways innthe Old South by GradynMcWhiney, Tuscaloosa andnLondon: University of AlabamanPress.nDespite all that has passed since, thenCivil War is still at the center ofnAmerican history. No one has everndoubted this in the South, where everynnative is a not-too-remote descendant ofnConfederate soldiers, or of slaves. In mynnative state (North Carolina) and mynadopted state (South Carolina) the CivilnWar killed a quarter of the white men.nThere is nothing even remotely approachingnthis degree of sacrifice andndevastation anywhere else in the Americannexperience.nThe late great Unpleasantness is notnso direct a memory north of the Potomacnand the Ohio, not to mention westnof the Missouri. (In fact, one gets thenimpression that Pancho Villa, Trotsky,nGandhi, and Patrice Lumumba arenmore remembered and honored upnthere than Grant and the boys in blue. Inhope not, but I fear so.) Nevertheless,nthe Civil War remains the critical corenof American experience, not only becausenof its immense scale and revolutionarynimpact, but because it is thenGordian knot of our history.nThe Civil War presents all of thenmajor issues and fundamental conflictsnof America in their starkest form: thenmeaning of the Constitution; the naturenClyde ‘Wilson is descended from longnlines of Scotch-Irishmen on both sides.nOPINIONSnby Clyde Wilsonnof majority rule and consensus; thenbenefits and burdens of industrialization,nmodernization, and centralization;ngovernmental authority versus individualnliberty; the claims of innovation andntradition, social ideals and social reality;nthe position of the black minority innAmerican society. (It even molds ourninternational role, because every subsequentnwar and extraterritorial objectivenof the US has been defined psychicallynand rhetorically in imitation of the winningnside in the Civil War.)n>>-“• . -.J ^^aB^n-