Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory

by Walter Agnew Moore II, Pseudo-Historical Commentator
17 December 2001, Amiens, France

If David yells in my ear one more time, I swear to GOD I am going to spin around and pop him one. And that would be a very bad idea.

David is one of the two big steroid-pumped French gladiator-goons that Thierry pays to stand around here in My Goodness Irish Pub and cool drunks. Usually they do a good job, they're likeable, friendly, and calm. But tonight, for some reason, 15 minutes before closing time, and about one minute after Eddy poured me one last, perfect Guinness, David starts slamming stools up on tables and yelling for everybody to leave.

Whenever he walks past, he yells about one inch behind my right ear: "WAL-TAIR! EET IS TIME TO LEAVE!"

He thinks it's funny. I think I am about to snap.

They do a lot of yelling in France. Yelling of the variety that would get you jumped in less civilized places. I blame it on the continuous rule of law. They will be nicely polite here. Or they will scream their lungs out up in each others' faces. But what they hardly ever do is come to blows. That would be illegal.

It astonishes me, the Bama Boy. Where I grew up, if you yelled in such a rude fashion, it was equivalent to spitting in somebody's face or slapping them. Law be damned, it's on. Maybe that's why I'm feeling the Berserkergang rising, why I'm right on the brink of starting the Fight I Cannot Win; best case would be bruises and being banned from my favorite bar; worst case, if I were to get "lucky" and knock David down, then my reward would be to get rat-packed by 6 Gendarmes plus the Gendarmes' dog, like I saw happen to those yo-yos last week.

Spinning on the edge of crazy-eyed self-destructiveness, it comes to me in a flash:

HOW THE CIVIL WAR COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED

It's 1861. Southern states are seceding from the Union. Feelings are high, but shooting hasn't actually started yet. Many of the later-to-be-famous generals haven't even decided which side they will fight on. Nobody knows what will happen.

Now suppose Abraham Lincoln is staring at the fireplace one night, caught deep in depression, and suddenly has an insight. He turns on his computer and checks his Instant Messenger list. Yes, Jefferson Davis, new "confederate" (whatever that is) President, is online surfing. Abe thinks for a second, almost says no, then gives a crafty backwoods chuckle and decides to take a long shot.

Abe: Hi

Jeff: O Hi

Abe: Heard they made you prez, congrats

Jeff: *FU*. what do u really want

Abe: want to talk. not the same without you guys around

Jeff: i bet, thats not what u said in boston

Abe: thats politics you know that. but you made your point, nobody will mess with you now, you are on your own

Jeff: so no invasion?

Abe: that was just crazy talk, we both know that cannons money industrial capacity and a bigger population are no match for raw Southern courage

Jeff: u got that right buddy ;)

Abe: I never had a beef with you. you and me are cool. Besides, I have stuff worrying me down in Mexico

Jeff: i been to mexco

Abe: I know, you won that buena vista battle, but they cheated you out of the credit. well, ther's problems there again the french are trying to set up a puppet govt there while we are not looking

Jeff: and i care because...????

Abe: well it's like this, without you Southern boys around, I am stuck with a congress run by Codfish New-England Yankee Blue-Bloods who live for money. they don't understand questions from the perspective of, uh, HONOR like you boys do.

Jeff: i am a southern gentlman

Abe: I know, you are the best of the best. *You* wouldn't let those frenchies run riot down there, *you* would protect the virtue of green-eyed aristocratic maidens transplanted from the plains of Old Castile, of Azteck princesses with full, smiling lips, dusky feminine forms of pulchritude throwing themselves grateful at your feet when you deliver them from Gallic rapine, wouldn't you?

Abe: Jeff, this is Abe, you still there?

Jeff: yea look i dont know it sounds good u know but to be honest abe i am tied up with this president shit. folks expect me to give it a go and we got a bright future ahead in the csa. damn u know i like the brunettes though

Abe: I know. Hey, look at it this way: you will always be the first president of the Confederate States, nobody can ever take that from you. But how many chances will you get to be the Liberator of Mexico?

Jeff: u serious?

Abe: As serious as a bullet through the noggin. I *need* you and your boys, Jeff, you all scrap like a one-eyed wildcat with a bee-sting where the sun don't shine. Call yourselves the CSA or the ABC or whatever you want, but join up with me on this Mexico thing and you will be the commander-- you know you are ok for a politician but that is not you, you are a real man, a soldier, the kind of hero those little Mexican ladies are praying for, clutching their beads over their breasts...

Jeff: HELL ABE LETS DO IT

Abe: Good! IMHO you will shine at the head of our united task force. I will handle all the boring, but necessary, administrative details for both our countries from back here in Washington City, free you up for the real work you know.

Jeff: deal u like that stuff better anyway and u are better at it thn me

Abe: Deal. Oh, one little snag, almost forgot-- these here New England types up here, well, I'd like to ignore them, but they *are* supplying most of our ships-- anyway, you know how they are about this whole Peculiar Institution... what I'm saying, is it would be a lot easier to get you to Mexico to take care of business if they didn't have slavery to carp about.

Jeff: u for real? they used to bring africans over on those same ships and sell them to us down here!

Abe: Well, they don't like to talk about that right now. But we both know it'll be taught in every school of the nation...s, 100 years from now. Anyway, is there anything you could do to help me with on this?

Jeff: dunno i dont know what would happen to my servants if i were to send them forth without my guidance and who picks the cotton then? me no way

Abe: My suggestion is to manumit them and after they are free, to pay them a small amount of pocket-money or goods-in-kind for doing whatever they did before. Some will doubtless wander away, but others will come take their places, and a master of your wisdom and kindness will never lack for willing hands.

Jeff: ok but it doesnt sound christian to turn them out on their own with such meager means

Abe: It works with the Irish.

So, gentle reader, imagine they work it out. They are both self-made bumpkins at heart. It takes some finagling to get the southern "aristocracy" to go along with the Manumission Act of the 1861 Confederate Congress, but they finally pass it in name only, where technically the slaves are free but it's probably 100 years before they actually get to vote, say. The average poor Southern Cracker never gave a flip whether he fought Yankees or Mexicans or French in the first place, he just likes to fight. Yeah hell, he'll march off to Veracruz while the band plays. He'd probably march off to Cuba or Germany or Viet Nam or Iraq if somebody in authority told him it was his duty.

Genl. Jefferson Davis (US/CS Army of the Rio Grande) and his troops and Mexican allies bumble through to victory. The French taste defeat. Future generations of fourth-graders drool sleepily on their desks as the teacher drones on about the 2nd Mexican War, page 137 in your textbooks children. Pot-bellied reenactors frighten tourists at state parks by firing off antique muskets. The CSA still exists as a legal nicety, much as Rhode Island and Virginia are not states, they are "common-wealths", or the way College Football Players are not professionals, they are "students". People have trouble remembering which states are USA and which ones are CSA, it has been changed once or twice to help regulate postal service. There is a country and western hit that goes "We fired our guns and the French kept a-comin'", but none of the waitresses in the truck stop knows what war it refers to. And poor Mexico becomes an economic colony of the norteamericanos.

In short, it wouldn't be all that different. Except that about 500,000 kids, brothers, fathers wouldn't have died so young.

Rule of law is good.

David is staring at me quietly with his eyebrows arched quizzically. I didn't realize I was looking at him. I start to explain slowly, softly yet firmly in French: "David. When you yell like that...serious...that's enough. I have sensitive ears. Too much stuff blew up close to me I guess. Loud noises make me jump. You were militaire, right? Then you know. I don't stay late. You don't need to yell."

He nods with his bottom lip stuck out: "OK, I didn't know. From now on, I don't yell at you."

"Cool."

A minute or two later I toast him with an empty pint-glass, and he gives me a thumbs-up. You shake hands with everybody going into and out of bars here, and he says to me: "Make sure you are here Thursday-- it is my Birthday!"