The Message of Easter

In his book, Jesus Through the Centuries, the late Jaroslav Pelikan begins by writing,

Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture for almost twenty centuries. If it were possible, with some sort of super magnet, to pull up out of that history every scrap of metal bearing at least a trace of his name, how much would be left? It is from his birth that most of the human race dates its calendars, it is by his name that millions curse, and in his name that millions pray.

Last Sunday Christian churches were filled with people celebrating the signal event in the life of Jesus that would make him unlike any person who ever lived – the fulfillment of his claim that he would rise from being dead. If one accepts the resurrection miracle, then all of the claims Jesus made about himself must also be accepted – his oneness with God, his redemptive mission, and his exclusive agency as the way to eternal salvation.

Did the resurrection happen?

The historicity of Jesus, his crucifixion, death, and burial are well established by witnesses and secular historians – both his advocates and adversaries – who wrote in the first century and therefore were historically close to these events. Modern scholars accept this historicity without equivocation.

The controversy begins with the events after his death and burial.

There are those who argue that the resurrection miracle must be accepted by faith (implicitly without substantiating evidence) and there are those who argue that miracles which defy the physical laws of existence are impossible (implicitly denying that many things in our existence can’t be explained) Beyond their narrow coterie of adherents, neither of these extreme positions can ever be successfully advanced as an objective argument that has a chance at being accepted or criticized by mainstream advocates and adversaries. The poles are too far apart.

True faith, however, is not blind faith. True faith is the most reasonable conclusion one can reach based on the consistency of facts, corroborating evidence, and the testimony of witnesses. Likewise true skepticism is not blind skepticism. A true skeptic similarly examines facts, corroborating evidence, and the testimony of witnesses to determine if the conventional conclusion can be explained any other way. A true skeptic is a critical thinker and true faith is based on critical thinking. There will never be enough facts, enough data, or experience to explain anything with absolute certainty. Just look at how the understanding of “matter” has changed since the Middle Ages to the present, for example. True faith and true skepticism are simply two sides of the same coin. Neither believes it is possible to absolutely know anything.

That said, there has never been anyone who claimed to have witnessed the resurrection as it took place. But there has been ample evidence that it had to have taken place given circumstances that existed before and after the event. While the analogy is imperfect, detectives solve crimes and lawyers try cases without eye witnesses, using evidence and testimony. Likewise, the argument for the resurrection can be made with reason, motive, and circumstantial evidence – not blind faith. To refute the resurrection argument, one would have to present compelling reasons for interpreting the evidence and motives in a different way.

The discovery of the empty tomb, for example, was made by women, according to the authors of four biblical history books – the Gospels – namely Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. Because women were held in low esteem in Jewish society, and weren’t even allowed to be legal witnesses, it is unlikely that this assertion is not fact. With Jesus’ arrest and trial, all of the men who had been his disciples fled and hid behind locked doors, terrified that they might come to a similar end. Why would the authors of the Gospels historically embarrass these men – the future leaders of the Christian movement – and have the empty tomb discovered by women who followed Jesus unless that fact were true?

The fact of the empty tomb was later confirmed by the male disciples upon hearing the women’s witness, but neither their witness nor the women’s became an object of controversy in Jerusalem during the generation that lived during these events. Why? Because the empty tomb must have become widely accepted in a very short time. Because anyone who doubted that the crucified body of Jesus was missing could verify it for themselves by walking the short distance from Jerusalem to the tomb. Because absent a body, the tomb never became an object of Christian veneration by Christ’s followers in the years following the crucifixion. They knew Jesus wasn’t in it.

While this establishes the empty tomb it does not explain what happened to the body.

The Jewish leaders who had instigated the crucifixion of Jesus, however, also became aware of the missing body. Matthew’s account of the scene at the tomb is the only one which mentions guards were stationed there. After the women’s discovery, those guards went to the city and told the chief priests “everything that had happened.” Everything. Whatever the guards reported, Matthew says the priests then bribed them and instructed that they were to lie by saying the disciples stole the body while the guards were asleep.

Despite the unlikelihood that all of several guards would fall asleep at the same time, and all would sleep through the noise of more than a few men toiling to break the seal and roll away a large stone to steal a body, why include the-guards-were-asleep tale in a story whose bias is to advocate for the resurrection – unless there was a cover up? What was being covered up? A sleeping witness can’t testify to anything – certainly not as witness to a theft or the resurrection. But if the guards were awake and saw something which could corroborate what happened in the pre-dawn that Sunday morning, it would be worth all of the hush money the chief priests would pay.

Matthew tells what happened.

And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.

First century Jews believed in angels. There were reported accounts of encounters with them. When the guards regained their wits and told the chief priests what had happened, the Jewish religious establishment would have had little choice but to keep the guard quiet and to concoct the stolen body hoax to explain the empty tomb.

Anyone continuing to believe that the disciples stole Jesus’ body should consider that these men had denied their association with their leader during his arrest and trial, had not (except for one of them) attended his crucifixion and death, had been hiding behind closed doors in fear of the Jewish establishment during the weekend, and had not accompanied women to the tomb in the pre-dawn hours of dark when they were least likely to be seen. How would these same men muster the nerve to steal a body under guard?

Okay, perhaps others antagonistic to the followers of Jesus stole the body. For what motive? Assuming that the theft of the body could figure into some angle to disprove the resurrection, why didn’t the thieves produce the body when the resurrection was being proclaimed 50 days later? Because there was no body – anywhere.

The tomb was empty and no one had a motive and opportunity to take the body. But, there also is enough circumstantial evidence of an inexplicable supernatural event by eye witnesses because something induced the Jewish religious establishment to hush it up with a bribe. Why?

If Jesus had risen from the dead, as he said he would, that could spell trouble for the Jewish leaders. The Roman general, Pompey the Great, invaded Palestine in 63 BC, initiating seven centuries of Roman rule. There had been many uprisings in Palestine since the Roman occupation began, and the region had a reputation in Rome of being a haven of troublemakers. Ultimately, an uprising would occur in 70 AD – about 40 years after these events – that would result in the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple.

When Jesus began teaching his message that the kingdom of God was coming, his followers misunderstood his mission, thinking he had come to establish an earthly kingdom that would liberate the Jews from their Roman occupiers. This terrified the religious establishment. John tells why using the words of the chief priests:

Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place (the Temple) and our nation. So from that day on, the Jewish leaders plotted to kill Jesus.

The Jewish leaders did succeed in getting Jesus executed, but much to their chagrin, the Roman procurator insisted on crucifying him with a placard over his head that declared Jesus to be the king of the Jews. Now this “king” goes missing from his tomb and a bribe has been paid to suppress an apparent supernatural event.

If that is all we have, the argument for the resurrection would be weak. But there is more. Having heard from the women that Jesus’ body is missing, Peter and John go to the tomb to observe for themselves. John tells his recollection:

Peter then came out with [John], and they went toward the tomb. They both ran, but [John] outran Peter and reached the tomb first; and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself. Then [John], who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed. (Underline mine)

The word “saw” is used three times in this account. Translated into English, it would seem that each instance of “seeing” was equal. But the writer uses three different Greek words to describe what was seen in this event for a good reason. The first “saw” is a word that could be translated in English as peep or glance; it was a quick look. The second “saw” uses a word that describes a more analytical way of looking. Peter, for example, studied the scene sufficiently to observe that the burial wrappings and the facial cloth were lying separately.

The third “saw” – the one used in reference to John – is a Greek verb that means to see and understand, to “get it” because all of the clues fall in place. John’s seeing produced understanding that caused him to believe.

What John saw that caused belief can only be speculated but it had to be something so compelling that no other conclusion could be reached except that a miracle had occurred. Quite possibly, the burial wrappings that had encased Jesus remained fixed in a way that a body could not have gotten out of them except miraculously. A bunch of linen strips tossed about the tomb would not produce that kind of insight and belief. A thief could have left that evidence. Whatever happened there happened without haste. The facial napkin was folded and placed separately. Why? Perhaps so an observer could plainly see that the undisturbed burial strips no longer contained a body.

Why didn’t Peter see this? There is nothing that says he didn’t. Luke describes Peter leaving the tomb “marveling” at what he had seen. Why didn’t the women see this? The angel they encountered scared the wits out of them, as it did the guards, and they fled – only learning that Jesus wasn’t there from the angel. Peter and John encountered no reported angels and quite possibly felt it safe to explore.

One might expect that the testimony of Peter and John would have been sufficient to spark a wildfire of rumor that Jesus had risen from the dead. But it still would have been hearsay evidence. Evidence of the resurrection had to be made known in a way that it could not be disputed, and it was – by Jesus himself.

Paul, a persecutor of the Christian movement who later converted to it because of the compelling evidence that a resurrection had occurred, wrote this about 20 to 25 years after the event:

What I received I passed on to you … that Christ died for our sins according to the [Jewish prophecy], that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the [Jewish prophecy], and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also.

Significantly, most of these people were still living when Paul wrote this and therefore could be consulted to corroborate Paul’s assertion that over 500 people had seen Jesus after his burial and apparent resurrection. Moreover, while Jesus appeared to some people individually, he appeared to most as a group. Individual sightings could have been fobbed off by disbelievers as a hoax; but how is a hoax perpetrated among 500 people who unlike, perhaps, “the twelve” and the “apostles” could not have collaborated in a lie?

The last two Paul mentions – James and himself – were particularly important appearances because neither believed Jesus was the son of God during Jesus’ life until he appeared to them individually after his death. James was the earthly brother of Jesus and would be martyred for his belief in the resurrected Jesus. Paul encountered Jesus on a journey to arrest Christians about five to seven years after the resurrection. It was an experience that changed Paul’s life. He became a Christian missionary, primarily to the Gentile world and would be martyred most likely in Rome.

On the day of Pentecost, the Jewish Feast of Weeks which came 50 days after the Jewish Passover, the followers of Jesus and his disciples became fiery evangelists and bold witnesses in the new Christian movement as Luke records in the biblical book of Acts. Only their belief in the resurrection, which had been revealed to them by direct contact with Jesus, can explain this transformation. That transformation would make them willing to die for their faith.

In fact, hundreds of thousands of Christians were killed in the two centuries following the resurrection. They were tortured, beheaded, crucified, sawn in two, covered in tar and turned into torches to light Roman roads. They were wrapped in animal skins and thrown in the Roman arenas where wild beasts tore them to pieces and devoured them. For what? To protect a hoax that they had stolen a body to give lie to a resurrection story? Liars don’t make good martyrs.

Knowing what lay in store for them, persecution scattered these early believers to the ends of the Roman Empire where they founded many communities of believers. Those communities in turn would, in connection with their trades and vocations, travel throughout the Roman world, starting other communities of believers until they could say the good news of Jesus’ resurrection had been spread to the entire world.

The key evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is not only his empty tomb. It is also the disciples’ experiences with the literal appearances of the risen Jesus that caused their inexplicable transformation from cowards into crusaders who were willing to die for their faith that they too would be resurrected to a life without end. So compelling is the evidence of the resurrection that it has been the central rationale for Christian discipleship for over two millennia.

That is the message of Easter.

The First Battle of the Civil War: Fort Sumter

Historians are divided as to the cause of the American Civil War. Perhaps because there was no single cause. The popular notion that slavery was the cardinal issue is wrong. A stronger argument can be made that state’s rights was a more provocative issue – except among abolitionists, who were as disliked in the north almost as they were in the south.

The 150th anniversary of the first shot fired in a conflict that would claim over 600,000 casualties in the next 48 months passed last week on April 12. That April morning was the culmination rather than the beginning of the disputes that led the nation to take up arms as it had on another April morning 86 years earlier. Except this time the enemy was itself.

Fort Sumter is located in the mouth of Charleston (SC) harbor on 70 tons on New England granite dumped there to build up a sand bar for a fort. Although construction had begun in 1827, the fort remained unfinished in 1861, and except for a single soldier who acted as a light keeper and a small group of civilian contractors, it was unoccupied.

Fort Moultrie located across the bay from Sumter was the headquarters of the US Army presence in the area. It had been built in 1776 and was indefensible from land attack since it was little more than a gun platform to guard the entrance of Charleston harbor.

Various artillery batteries were located on the mainland ringing the harbor to support its defense.

South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union – a fact not forgotten by Sherman’s army when it swept through the state during the first 66 days of 1865, leaving a swath of destruction 100 miles wide. Six days after South Carolina declared its secession, 56-year old US Army Major Robert Anderson, anticipating an attack by South Carolina militia, surreptitiously moved his 127 men – 13 of whom were musicians – on the night of December 26, 1860 to the incomplete fortifications of Fort Sumter by longboats, abandoning Moultrie. Anderson was a Kentuckian by birth, a former slave-owner, and was married to a Georgian. He was pro-slavery and his family was sympathetic to the Confederacy throughout the war, yet he remained loyal to the Union.

His antagonist across the bay was Brig. Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, the first general officer of the newly formed Confederate States of America and the commanding officer of the Confederate military in Charleston. Ironically, Beauregard had been an artillery student of Anderson at West Point. When he took command of Confederate forces on March 1, he demanded that Fort Sumter surrender, which was predictably refused, so Beauregard made certain that food and water supplies to the fort were cut off.

This was the scene during the late winter months of 1861 when the situation around Fort Sumter was beginning to look like a siege. Anderson’s move to Fort Sumter sparked the SC Governor to seize Moultrie and the batteries ringing the harbor. All were strategically located to fire on Sumter. The federal arsenal in Charleston was also seized. The batteries and Fort Moultrie were refitted and new batteries were added to increase the fire power aimed at Sumter.

In contrast, Sumter had only half of the planned number of guns installed. There was little ammunition for the guns that were installed and Anderson was running out of food and supplies. It would be difficult to resupply them.

The newly elected President Lincoln would not be inaugurated until March 4, 1861, so until then, President James Buchanan had to deal with the developing crisis in SC. Buchanan attempted a resupply of Sumter with the Star of the West, an unarmed merchant ship, which was hoped would be less provocative to the Confederates. It passed through the harbor entrance on January 9 and started down the ship channel bringing it under the battery guns of the now-refurbished Fort Moultrie and Morris Island batteries. The first shot was over the bow, which the merchant captain ignored; therefore the following shots were directly at her, striking three hits. This accomplished its purpose in discouraging the Star from her venture and the captain turned around and steamed toward open sea. Anderson prepared his guns when he heard the Confederate fire, but since he was never told of the Star’s rescue mission, he withheld firing his guns to conserve ammunition.

Now it was Lincoln’s turn. Upon his inauguration, the new President was informed that Anderson was down to six weeks’ rations. There were already seven states in the Confederacy and Lincoln was anxious to avoid any action that would encourage the border states to join them. Jefferson Davis and his advisors were struggling with a similar conundrum, wishing to avoid being viewed as the aggressor in the escalating crisis. Five border states, including Virginia, had voted against succession and Lincoln had offered to evacuate Fort Sumter if Virginia would pledge to remain in the Union. It would not.

By April 4, Anderson’s situation in the siege was growing untenable. Lincoln was forced to do something and that something was to send Gustavas Fox, a former navy captain, with a fleet whose purpose was only to land supplies at Sumter unless opposed, in which case it would land supplies, ammunition, and men. Lincoln notified SC Governor Pickens of his intentions.

After Pickens had conferred with Jefferson Davis, Beauregard was ordered to demand the immediate surrender of Fort Sumter, and if the demand was refused, to reduce the fort before the relief fleet arrived. As his representatives, Beauregard sent over to Sumter on April 11 an envoy consisting of Col. James Chesnut, whose wife Mary would write a famous diary of the war, Col. James Chisholm, and Capt. Stephen Lee. After reading the ultimatum to surrender the fort, Anderson declined saying “I shall await the first shot, and if you do not batter us to pieces, we shall be starved out in a few days."

The envoy sailed back to the mainland and presented Anderson’s refusal to Beauregard, including the departing comment. The General sent them back at 1 a.m. with this message:

If you will state the time which you will evacuate Fort Sumter, and agree in the meantime that you will not use your guns against us unless ours shall be employed against Fort Sumter, we will abstain from opening fire upon you.

After reading this note, Anderson conferred with his officers and asked how long they could hold out. His surgeon estimated five days, the last three without food. Anderson therefore replied to Beauregard’s legation that he would evacuate Sumter on the 15th at noon “… should I not receive prior to that time controlling instructions from my government or additional supplies.” Hearing this, Col. Chesnut concluded that there were too many “ifs” in Anderson’s reply so he sat down and wrote an immediate formal response, which he handed to Anderson:

Sir; By the authority of Brigadier General Beauregard, commanding the Provisional Forces of the Confederate States, we have the honor to inform you that he will open fire of his batteries on Fort Sumter in one hour from this time.

It was 3:20 a.m. Major Anderson accompanied the Confederate officers to the Sumter wharf, cordially shook hands with them and bidding them farewell said, “If we never meet in this world again, God grant that we may meet in the next …”

At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, Lt. Henry S. Farley, fired a looping shot from a 10-inch mortar that exploded over the fort. Beauregard gave orders that the guns should fire one at a time from each battery surrounding Sumter in a counterclockwise fashion at 2-minute intervals. Thus began a murderous shelling from the perimeter of Charleston bay, awakening the residents of the city, one of whom was Mary Chesnut the diarist, all of whom crowded outside on Battery Point to watch the arcing shells burst inside the fort.

Anderson tried to maintain a normal garrison routine, ordering roll call and breakfast before Capt. Abner Doubleday fired the first shot. It was aimed at the battery on Cummings Point but missed because the lowest sighting of fort’s guns could not target the batteries. The firing and answering fire continued for 34 hours, putting Sumter on the bull’s eye of the shore batteries and consuming its ammunition supplies down to a perilously low level. In addition, Anderson was running out of cloth gunpowder bags, forcing him to reduce the number of operating guns to six.
Ships from Fox's relief expedition began to arrive on April 12 but were driven back by Confederate batteries. Fox thought it best to wait until nightfall before attempting to land men, supplies, and ammunition, but the winds picked up that night making it impossible to load the shuttle boats necessary to get everything to the fort.

In the meantime, Confederate gunners managed to start several fires inside the fort by lobbing in “hot shots” – cannonballs that had been heated in ovens. The storm that interrupted Fox produced rain that extinguished the fires, giving the gunners on both sides a respite for sleep, albeit a fitful one.

The next morning bombardment resumed with Confederate gunners firing hot shot against the wooden buildings inside the fort. By 11 a.m. fire and smoke became so intense it made staying in the fort almost impossible. Men lay on the ground with handkerchiefs over their mouths in order to breathe. Watching the scene from Morris Island, Confederate Major Whiting later wrote that he was almost moved to tears that day thinking of what the men inside the fort were going through. Whenever a gun would fire from the fort, Confederates manning the batteries would cheer the Union garrison for its courage. At the same time, the Confederates cursed the Union ships standing outside the harbor for failing to come to the aid of their countrymen.

By mid-day most of the buildings and the main gate were aflame. When fire began to creep toward the main ammunition magazine, Union soldiers began moving barrels of gunpowder to safer locations. Anderson stopped them and ordered the magazine doors closed. Shortly after, a thunderous explosion showered the fort with burning debris and broken bricks when the power magazine exploded. A plume of smoke rose above the fort and the citizens of Charleston watching from Battery Point despaired that anyone could remain alive after such a holocaust.

Around 1 p.m. on the 13th, Confederate artillerists toppled the fort’s flagpole, knocking down its large garrison flag. It had been struck nine times by shore gunners. The flag fell on the fort’s parade field where Lt. Hall ran to retrieve it in heat so intense that it singed his hair and forced him to rip off his epaulets because they became too hot to wear. Hall and several others jerry-rigged a temporary flag pole and hoisted it again, drawing more Confederate fire.

Confederate Col. Louis Wigfall, a former US Senator who had been observing the battle when the flag fell, thought it meant the fort was ready to surrender. He commandeered a small boat and had it row him out to the fort while waving a white flag from his sword. The Union gunners could see his approach and ceased fire, but many of the Confederate gunners could see neither the dingy nor the flag and continued to fire, putting Wigfall in serious danger.

Unable to land at the fort’s wharf because the gate was afire, Wigfall crawled through an open embrasure where a Union private refused to let him enter. Finally Wigfall persuaded the private and an officer to take him to Major Anderson. "You have defended your flag nobly, Sir,” Wigfall said. “You have done all that it is possible to do, and General Beauregard wants to stop this fight. On what terms, Major Anderson, will you evacuate this fort?" Anderson took note that Wigfall used the word "evacuate" instead of "surrender." Almost out of ammunition with his men exhausted and shell-shocked after taking 3,300 rounds from Confederate guns, Anderson believed he could agree to a truce with honor. He agreed to leave under arms and with all company property, if they would be allowed to fire a military salute to their flag. Wigfall agreed and complimented Anderson on his courage. A bed sheet was run up on the provisional flag pole and Wigfall returned to Morris Island.

The truce that Wigfall negotiated almost collapsed when two Charleston civilians, unaware of Wigfall’s entreaty, rowed over to the fort after seeing the white flag to discuss surrender terms. Arriving at Sumter they confessed ignorance of Wigfall’s visit and abjured his authority to negotiate a treaty. Anderson was furious and ordered the garrison flag raised again. However, when Beauregard had seen the white flag, he sent over two officers who agreed to the same terms Wigfall had set forth, and the truce was thus preserved.

At 2:30 p.m. on the 14th the Union garrison surrendered Fort Sumter to the Confederate legation. To avoid embarrassing his former instructor, Beauregard did not attend the ceremonies.

Remarkably, no one on either side had been killed during the Sumter bombardment. However, when Anderson’s 100-gun salute was fired, the cannon exploded on the 17th salute, killing the gunner and mortally wounding the assistant. The assistant was taken to a Charleston hospital where he was cared for until he died two days later. Arguably these were the first casualties of the Civil War.

The chaos of the exploding gun caused the Confederate steamer Isabel to miss the ebb tide and it was fast aground at the end of the fort’s wharf. The Isabel was to take Anderson and his men, arms, and supplies to the waiting Union ship, Baltic, of Fox’s command which was anchored off the bar outside of the harbor. Anderson boarded the Isabel with the garrison flag under his arm, and he his soldiers spent the night onboard the steamer even as the Confederates and civilians occupied the destroyed fort and celebrated the occasion that put it in their possession.

The Isabel was able to get underway early the next morning. As it steamed past Morris Island on its way to the Union fleet, the Confederate gunners who had shelled the garrison for two days uncovered their heads in salute to Anderson and his command. Transferred to the Baltic, the Fort Sumter garrison sailed for New York.

Upon his arrival, Anderson was promoted to Brig. Gen. and sent to Kentucky. While he was not wounded in the Sumter shelling, the strain of the affair wrecked him emotionally and physically. He was retired for disability on October 27, 1863. Just before the war ended, however, Anderson was promoted to Maj. Gen. and he returned to Fort Sumter on April 14, 1865 to raise the shell-shot garrison flag that he had lowered four years before to the day.

Later that evening, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theater in Washington City.

“They Have Killed Papa Dead!”

Five days following Robert E. Lee’s surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant at Appomattox, Abraham Lincoln attended a play with his wife and another couple at Ford’s Theater in Washington City on the evening of April 14, 1865. The 146th anniversary of that eventful evening, which fell on Thursday this week, should not go unnoticed.

Notwithstanding Lee’s surrender on April 9, Confederate armies continued to fight in the south. Confederate Lt. Gen. Johnson didn’t surrender to Union Maj. Gen. Sherman until April 26 near Durham NC, and Confederate General Kirby Smith surrendered near Brownsville, TX on May 26. However, as he went about his duties on April 14, Lincoln was sure that the war would soon end. It was Good Friday. He was six weeks into his second term. At 11 a.m. on the 14th Lincoln had a meeting with his cabinet and General Grant in which he discussed his plans for a reconstruction of the south without malice when the war ended. He asked Grant about news from the North Carolina war front. No word.

Late in the afternoon, Lincoln and Mary Todd, his wife, had ridden in an open carriage to the Navy Yard. He seemed cheerful – almost joyous – she later recalled. Lincoln told her he did feel exceptionally well because soon the war would no longer dominate his life. “We must both be more cheerful in the future,” Lincoln said, “between the war and the loss of our darling Willie, we have both been very miserable.”

Yet three days earlier, Lincoln had confided to Mary and Ward Lamon, his self-appointed bodyguard, a dream he had had.

About ten days ago, I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along. I saw light in all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. 'Who is dead in the White House?' I demanded of one of the soldiers, 'The President,' was his answer; 'he was killed by an assassin.' Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which woke me from my dream. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since.

The President and First Lady were scheduled to attend Ford’s Theater to see Laura Keene's acclaimed performance in the play, Our American Cousin. They still hadn’t found another couple to join them even though they had invited 14 people, including General and Mrs. Grant. All had turned them down for various reasons. In his memoirs, Grant wrote that he and Mrs. Grant had decided to visit their children in New Jersey, when in fact Julia Grant recalled a particularly distasteful scene in which Mary Lincoln had exploded in a fury of public anger, embarrassing the President, the Grants, and a number of nearby army officers and their wives, one of whom Mary had called a whore. Julia Grant refused to sit with “that crazy woman” for several hours in the confined space of the President’s Box at Ford’s Theater.

Mary Todd Lincoln suffered severe headaches and depression, particularly after the death of Willie Lincoln, their 11-year old son, from typhoid fever in 1862. Also, Mary’s family was from Kentucky – a border state which often found members of the same family on opposite sides of the war. Hers was no exception. One of her brothers was a surgeon in the Confederate army; several half brothers fought for the Confederacy and were killed in the war. These deaths brought on extended periods of mourning. Then there was the carriage accident during the White House years which caused a serious head injury. Modern health professionals, however, believe Mary was bi-polar.

Even the Lincoln’s oldest son, Robert, the only child who would survive into adulthood, declined to go to the theater with his parents. He had just returned from Appomattox where he had witnessed the Lee surrender. He was tired and preferred sleep to entertainment that evening. The only people who would accept the Lincoln invitation were Maj. Henry R. Rathbone and his fiancée, Clara Harris, the daughter of a New York senator.

John Wilkes Booth was a member of a famous acting family. He was a fanatical southern sympathizer. When Grant suspended prisoner of war exchanges, because he believed it was extending the war by returning fighting manpower to a southern army starved for it, Booth hatched a plan to kidnap Lincoln, take him to Richmond, and ransom him for further prisoner of war exchanges. Booth recruited six conspirators to help with the plot. But when Lincoln failed to show up at the kidnap location due to a change in his plans, the plot fell apart.

With Lee’s surrender, all of Washington City was in a celebratory mood. On Tuesday evening of this week, crowds had gathered at the White House asking the President to speak. He spoke of a post-war America without slavery which would be united; he wouldn’t tolerate an attitude of rejection and anger toward the South because it would be “discouraging and paralyzing” for both races. In the crowd, listening to Lincoln’s words, was John Wilkes Booth. He turned to Lewis Paine and David Herold, two of his conspirators and said, “That means nigger citizenship.” Booth implored Paine to use the gun he was carrying to shoot the President, which Paine refused to do. Booth turned away in disgust, saying, “By God, I'll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever give.”

At around noon on the 14th, Booth went to Ford’s Theater to pick up his mail and overheard that the Lincolns and the Grants would be attending the play that night. He determined this was the time to strike. Ironically, if the Grants had accompanied the Lincolns, there would have been armed military around the General, which likely would have prevented Booth’s assassination plan from ever succeeding.

Booth and his conspirators met later at the boardinghouse of Mary Surratt to discuss a plan for the night. Booth was to kill the President and Grant. David Herold, who knew his way around Washington City, was to guide Lewis Paine to the house of Secretary of State William Seward, whom he was to kill; then Herold would lead Paine out of the city to escape. George Atzerodt, another conspirator, was to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson. If they could succeed in Booth’s plan, it would disrupt the Union government and give the Confederacy an opportunity to reorganize and fight on. Mary Surratt, still owned a tavern in Surrattvile, MD. Allegedly, she was to arrange for two carbines and ammunition to be there for Booth and Paine to pick up that night as they made their escape into the Maryland countryside – a fact never proved.

The Lincolns and their two guests arrived late for the play. Taking their place in the President’s Box, Lincoln took his wife’s hand. "What will Miss Harris think of my hanging on to you so?" Mary Lincoln asked. “She won't think anything about it," Lincoln replied, speaking the last words of his life. For about 10:15 p.m. Booth slipped into the President’s Box and fired his single-shot derringer at the back of Lincoln’s head. As Lincoln slumped over and Mary grabbed him, Rathbone rose to wrestle Booth to the ground but was severely stabbed with a knife Booth held in his other hand. He continued to hold it when he leapt from the box toward the stage. But snaring his spur in the presidential bunting, he landed in the audience, breaking his left fibula. The audience thought it was part of the play and began to applaud until Mary Lincoln and Clara Harris began screaming and Rathbone pointed at Booth and cried “stop him.” Brandishing the knife, Booth yelled "Sic semper tyrannis!" (Thus always to tyrants) and made his way outside through a stage door where a horse was waiting for him.

An army surgeon in the audience made his way to the President’s Box and found that Lincoln had no pulse. Searching for a wound, he found it over the left ear where he removed a clot and Lincoln began to breathe easier. Another doctor arrived and an impromptu team hoisted the six-foot, four-inch President and carried him out the front door uncertain of their destination. Met by a man in the street with a lantern, crying “Bring him in here! Bring him in here!” Lincoln was carried across the street to the Petersen boarding house. Too large to fit the bed in a first floor bedroom, Lincoln was placed diagonally.

Several doctors had now gathered around the comatose President, but nothing could be done. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton came and took charge. An hysterical Mary Lincoln was ordered out of the room. "Take that woman out of here,” Stanton ordered, “and do not let her in here again!" Captain Robert Lincoln arrived and stood at the head of his father’s bed.

Tad Lincoln, the Lincoln’s youngest surviving son, was but 12 years old. He had attended Grover's Theater to see Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, and was not allowed to go to the Petersen House. Entering the White House East door of the basement, therefore, he ran to the White House doorman, Thomas Pendel, crying, “Oh, Tom Pen! Tom Pen! They have killed papa dead. They've killed papa dead!”Pendel tried unsuccessfully to calm Tad and finally got him to his bedroom where he put him to bed and laid down with him until Tad fell asleep around midnight.

Around 6 a.m. on the 15th the death struggle began. Robert had tried to be stoic but broke down and cried as his father lay dying. Stanton and Welles also cried. At 7:22 a.m. Lincoln breathed his last breath. “Now he belongs to the ages,” Stanton said, although some witnesses believe he said “angels” rather than “ages”.

Paine managed to force his way into the bedroom of Secretary of State Seward that night where Seward was recovering from a carriage accident. Paine succeeded in stabbing his victim many times in the chest and face, but Seward survived. The screaming of the Seward household as the attack took place rattled David Herold, and without waiting for Paine to come down, he took Paine’s escape horse for himself. Not knowing Washington City, Paine wandered around the streets for hours before he found the Surratt boardinghouse. There, he and Mary Surratt were arrested by detectives who had connected them to Booth.

Herold and Booth made it across the Anacostia River bridge on horseback about an hour apart and somehow managed to find each other in the dark. Booth knew the countryside and made his way to the house of Dr. Samuel Mudd who set Booth’s broken leg and provided him with crutches. The pair then continued on and arrived at the farm of Richard Garrett on the afternoon of the 24th. Claiming he was a wounded Confederate veteran, Booth and Herold were allowed to stay in Garrett’s tobacco barn where Union soldiers and detectives caught up with them. Herold surrendered and came out but Booth refused even when the barn was set afire by the Union troops. A soldier who had crept up to a window to look into the burning barn saw Booth inside and shot him in the neck, severing his spinal cord. Booth was dragged outside, and asking a soldier to raise his paralyzed arms before his face so he could see his hands, his last words were “Useless, useless.” He died at daybreak.

George Atzerodt lost his nerve and made no attempt to kill Vice President Johnson. He hid out in a Maryland farmhouse until he was tracked down and arrested.

Everyone who was known to have had anything to do with Booth or Herold, including Dr. Mudd and John Ford, the owner of the theater, was arrested and put in jail to await trial.

On May 1 a military tribunal convened to try eight suspects – Mary Surratt, David Herold, George Atzerodt, Lewis Paine, Samuel Mudd, and three others thought to have aided in the conspiracy. The trial lasted for seven weeks. Surratt, Herold, Atzerodt, and Paine were sentenced to death by hanging. Surratt thus became the first woman put to death by the federal government. Mudd avoided the death penalty by one vote and was sentenced to life imprisonment along with two others suspected but not proven to be involved in the plot. One of them died of yellow fever in prison. Mudd and the other person were pardoned by President Johnson four years later. They claimed their innocence for the remainder of their lives.

With Lincoln’s death, Andrew Johnson was sworn in as President and became one of the least popular presidents in American history. He was impeached by the House of Representatives in 1868 but the Senate failed to convict him by one vote.

William Seward recovered from his wounds and continued to serve as Secretary of State throughout Johnson's presidency. He later negotiated the Alaska Purchase from Russia in 1867, which was then known as Seward's Folly.

Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris married two years after the assassination, and Rathbone became an American consul to Germany. He later became mentally unstable and in 1883 shot and then stabbed Clara to death. He spent the rest of his life in a German asylum for the criminally insane.

John Ford was exonerated and attempted to reopen his theater a few months after Lincoln’s assassination. Public outrage forced him to close. The federal government bought it, and after several incarnations for other uses, in 1968 Ford’s Theater and the Petersen boarding house were combined into museums and a working playhouse. The President’s Box is never occupied during a play.

Lincoln’s body, along with that of his son Willie, was placed on a train on April 21 to begin 1,700 mile trip through 444 communities in seven states where he was repeatedly put on view or made to lie in state. The embalming arts were considerably less skilled than today’s and as Lincoln’s body began to decompose and change color, he was embalmed several more times and white makeup was used to cover his blackening face. Pungent flowers were used in decorations to cover the smell of his corpse. He finally arrived for his interment in Springfield IL on May 3.

The original Lincoln tomb was in constant need of repair and deteriorated significantly due to constructing it on unsuitable soil. In 1900, a complete reconstruction of tomb was undertaken. It was completed on April 25 1901. Grave-robbing for extortion was not unknown in the late 19th century and there was at least one attempt to steal Lincoln’s body in 1876. So when Robert Todd Lincoln visited the reconstructed tomb, he was unhappy with the security of his father’s body and ordered yet another placement in a crypt holding the coffin in a steel cage encased in concrete in the floor. On September 26, 1901, Lincoln's body was exhumed so that it could be reinterred in the newly built crypt. However, the two dozen people present, fearing that Lincoln’s body might have been stolen, decided to open the coffin to confirm that Lincoln’s body was in it.

A second major reconstruction of the tomb was undertaken between 1930 and 1931 because the work in 1901 had begun to deteriorate. During the repair, Lincoln’s sarcophagus was placed outside where souvenir hunters essentially destroyed it. His coffin was therefore placed in another sarcophagus inside the newly reconstructed tomb monument where it resides today.

After it was placed in the original vault on May 4, 1865, Lincoln's coffin was moved 17 times and opened six times before resting at its current site.

Surrender at Appomattox, April 9, 1865

This past week saw the 146th anniversary of the historic surrender of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the parlor of the Wilbur McLean house in Appomattox, Virginia.

Five days previously, Lee notified Richmond that he could no longer hold the Petersburg line after a 292-day siege, the Confederate government dissolved and President Jefferson Davis, his Secretary of State Judah Benjamin, and his secretary of war, John C. Breckinridge fled for their lives in fear that they would be executed for treason if captured.

Lee, meanwhile, withdrew to Amelia Courthouse southwest of Richmond expecting to find a trainload of provisions there for his starving troops. Finding no train, he sent wagons into the countryside to forage and lost a day in his march west to outflank Grant and to prevent Grant from outflanking him.

Plan B was to march to Appomattox Station where Lee hoped he would find another supply train. But his army was attacked on April 6 at Sayler’s Creek and delayed by a battle that cost the surrender of 7,700 of Lee’s men, including Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell, a senior commander, and eight other generals. Lt. General A. P. Hill had been killed by a sniper on the last day of the Petersburg Siege, so the loss of Ewell dealt Lee’s officer corps a severe blow.

Arriving at Appomattox Station on April 8, Lee found that Maj. Gen. George Armstrong Custer (later to be killed by Indians at the Little Big Horn) had captured and burned three supply trains waiting for Lee. Lee therefore began planning his next move westward toward Lynchburg, Virginia where he expected yet another supply train would be waiting.

On April 7 Lee had received a note from Grant suggesting that the hopelessness of more fighting must be apparent to Lee and that it might be time to consider surrendering the Army of Northern Virginia to prevent “the further effusion of blood.” In a return Lee wrote to Grant:

Though not entertaining the opinion you express of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia, I reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood, and therefore, before considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer on condition of its surrender.

Grant had a reputation for accepting only unconditional surrenders. But on April 8, Lee received Grant’s reply:

I would say that, peace being my great desire, there is but one condition I would insist upon,--namely, that the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged.

Believing that only Union cavalry lay between his army and Lynchburg, Lee launched an attack at dawn on April 9 under the command of Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon. Suffering from the stress of continual combat and a migraine headache, Grant commented to his commanders, “It looks as if Lee still means to fight.”

Gordon’s attack crashed through the front line Union cavalry and occupied a ridge behind the Union cavalry line where the Confederate advance troops could see two corps of Union infantry drawn up in battle positions. Notifying Lee of the unexpected army that had blocked their escape, most of the Confederate senior generals agreed that surrender was the only option left. Lee’s response was "Then there is nothing left for me to do but to go and see General Grant and I would rather die a thousand deaths."

Lee sent a note over to Grant on the morning of April 9 asking for a meeting. Grant responded that he had received Lee’s note at 11:50 a.m. and that “I am at this writing about four miles west of Walker's Church, and will push forward to the front for the purpose of meeting you.” Grant invited Lee to select the meeting place and send notice of it to him.

Lee’s representative rode into the village of Appomattox. Finding several houses too dilapidated for a meeting, he finally selected the home of Wilbur McLean. The choice was an irony of the war. McLean had owned a farm in Manassas where on July 21, 1861 it became a major point of fighting in the first Battle of Bull Run. That McLean house became the headquarters of Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard. As he was preparing a bucket of stew for the General’s lunch, a Union cannon shot came down his chimney and exploded in the bucket. That was all the warning McLean needed to move his family out of the war zone. In time he found and purchased a farm in the peaceful central Virginia village of Appomattox where the war caught up with him. McLean later commented that the war had begun in his front yard and ended in his parlor.

Lee arrived first at the McLean house and McLean seated him in the parlor. The Confederate Commander was dressed in a magnificent uniform, complete with sash and dress sword, a felt hat, new boots, and fine leather gauntlets. Grant arrived shortly afterward and had his aides wait on the lawn as he went in alone to meet Lee. Grant was dressed as he had arrived from the battlefield. He wore the uniform of a private except for the epaulets showing his three-star rank. His boots and lower uniform were muddy. He wore no sword.

The two men were a study in contrasts. Lee, 58 years old, was erect, six feet in height, with a gray beard and gray hair slightly thinning in front. Grant was 43 years old, four inches shorter, stooped, and his beard and hair were brown without a trace of gray.

Grant signaled his men in, all of whom entered quietly as if surrounding a death-bed. Grant broke the silence with a recollection that he and Lee had met during the Mexican war when Lee was a captain and Grant a lieutenant. Grant said he would have been able to recognize Lee even after all of these years. Lee recalled that they had met but confessed that he couldn’t remember Grant’s features.

Turning to the purpose that had brought them there, Grant discussed the provisions of the surrender. Lee asked if he would commit the terms to writing, which Grant did in his own hand. Generously, Grant said that officers should retain their side arms, rather than be forced the indignity of surrendering them, and they should keep their horses. Lee commented that Confederate cavalrymen and artillerymen provided their own horses, and asked that they be allowed to keep them. Grant agreed.

A little before 4 p.m. it was all over. Lee rose, shook hands with Grant, and bowed slightly to the other Union officers that lined the walls. Then he and the single aide that had accompanied Lee into the McLean house descended the stairs where Lee waited until his horse, Traveller (British spelling) was brought over to him. Lee was apparently unaware that all of the Union officers lounging on the McLean lawn had stood in respect as Lee descended the stairs. Once mounted on Traveller, Grant, who was then standing on the porch raised his hat in salute to Lee, as did all of the Union officers surrounding the house. Lee acknowledged their salute by raising his hat and then rode off to meet his army. For a moment, Grant’s officers began cheering in celebration of the moment, but they were immediately ordered to stop. "The Confederates are now our countrymen, and we do not want to exult over their downfall," Grant said.

On the evening of the 9th, Lee sat in front of his tent before a fire with his aides and generals, talking about the army, the events of the day, and his feelings for the men who had fought for him during the war years. Lee directed Colonel Marshall, the aide who had accompanied him into the McLean parlor, to write out a farewell address with ideas Lee had expressed that night. Marshall wrote a draft in pencil, which Lee read on the 10th, making two changes, and then it was given to a clerk to write in ink. Many other copies were made, all of which Lee signed personally.

Headquarters, Army of Northern Virginia, 10th April 1865.

After four years of arduous service marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources.

I need not tell the survivors of so many hard fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to the result from no distrust of them.

But feeling that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that could compensate for the loss that must have attended the continuance of the contest, I have determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen.

By the terms of the agreement, officers and men can return to their homes and remain until exchanged. You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed, and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you his blessing and protection.

With an unceasing admiration of your constancy and devotion to your Country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous consideration for myself, I bid you an affectionate farewell.

R. E. Lee, General, General Order No. 9

Unlike most of his soldiers, Lee had no home to return to. When Lee decided to fight on the southern side, the Union government had seized the Arlington House, located across the Potomac River on the Virginia heights overlooking Washington City. Lee and his wife, Mary Anna (Custis) Lee, a great grand-daughter of Martha Washington, had lived in Arlington House throughout Lee’s military career in the US Army before the Civil War.

During the war, most of the dead on both sides were buried in cemeteries near the battlefield where they had died. But Union Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs was charged with the responsibility for soldiers who died in and around Washington and Alexandria City. Meigs was a Georgian who had served under Lee in the US Army and he hated his fellow southerners for fighting against the Union. Out of spite more than necessity, Meigs took control of Arlington House and ordered that graves be dug just outside of the mansion front door to prevent the Lees from ever returning and living in their ancestral home. He personally supervised the burial of 26 soldiers in Mary Anna Lee’s rose garden, including his own son, who was killed in October 1864. Thus began the Arlington National Cemetery.

Penniless and propertyless, the Lees traveled to Richmond and lived there for several months in a rented house. In June 1865, Robert E. Lee was indicted for treason. Grant threatened to resign as General of the Army, and while President Andrew Johnson refused to restore Lee’s citizenship, he suspended prosecution.

In late summer of 1865 Lee was offered the presidency of Washington College (now Washington & Lee) in Lexington, Virginia with a home and salary that would provide his family an income. Under his direction and because of his personal prestige, the student body and faculty grew.

Traveller, Lee’s horse throughout the war, accompanied him to Washington College and lived in a stable that was joined to the President’s House. The horse had become so famous that veterans and students plucked hairs from his tail to keep as souvenirs. Lee wrote his daughter Mildred that Traveller was losing so many tail hairs that “he is presenting the appearance of a plucked chicken."

On October 2, 1865, the same day that Lee was inaugurated as president of Washington College, Lee signed an amnesty oath, complying fully with the provision of the Johnson administration to restore citizenship to those who had rebelled against the Union. However, Lee’s citizenship was not restored, and for 110 years following the surrender at Appomattox, Lee remained a man without a country. Quite likely, someone in the State Department was determined that Lee would not regain citizenship as long as he was alive. Only in 1975, after a five year campaign to posthumously restore Lee’s citizenship was it restored in a joint resolution introduced by Senator Harry F. Byrd, Jr. (I-VA).

On September 28, 1870, Lee suffered a stroke. He died two weeks later, shortly after 9 a.m. on October 12, 1870 in Lexington of complications from pneumonia. He was 63 years old. Traveller was led behind the caisson bearing the General's casket, his saddle and bridle draped with black crepe. Lee was buried in a vault underneath Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University. Above the vault and behind the Chapel podium is a statue named The Recumbent Lee, which was placed there in 1883. My family and I have seen it, and it evokes emotions that are difficult to describe.

In 1871, not long after Lee's death, Traveller stepped on a nail and developed tetanus. There was no cure, and he was euthanized to relieve his suffering. He was buried on the grounds but later dug up and his skeleton reassembled and put on display. Visitors desecrated his remains, carving their initials on his bones and over time the skeleton began to deteriorate. Finally in 1971, Traveller’s remains were reburied in a wooden box encased in concrete just outside a side entrance to Lee Chapel and only a few feet from the Lee family crypt where his master’s body rests. The stable where he lived his last days, still connected to the Lee House on campus, traditionally stands with its doors left open to this day to allow Traveller’s spirit to wander freely.

Among Southerners, Lee came to be ever more revered after the war as he lived uncomplaining despite the indignities he suffered at the hands of the US federal government. In an address before the Southern Historical Society in Atlanta, Georgia in 1874, Benjamin Harvey Hill, who was a US legislator from Georgia before and after the war, and a Confederate senator during the war, described Lee as:

... a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbor without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward.

Budgeting by the Inch

The clock is ticking down on the April 8 deadline to produce a 2011 budget (unlikely) or to kick the can down the road with another continuing resolution that avoids a government shutdown (getting unlikelier by the day.)

As I wrote in my March 14 posting, Playing “Chicken” with the White House, the easy stuff was given up in the first two CRs, and the Democrats are now at a point where serious cuts have to be made if the remaining $51 billion in cuts (a paltry sum in comparison to current spending) demanded by the Republicans are to be made. Keep in mind that there is still no 2011 budget, because the 111th Congress couldn’t get one passed even though it held the almost bullet-proof majority that got ObamaCare passed. Absent a budget, all of the current spending is at the same level as the 2010 budget, and it is the spending at that level ($3.55 trillion, 33% of which was deficit spending) that Congress is now haggling over cutting.

My sense is that Congress has given up hope of agreeing on a 2011 budget and is preparing to focus on the 2012 budget. After all, half of fiscal 2011 has passed so why bother?

In the 25 weeks remaining in the 2011 fiscal year, which ends September 30, the Republicans have so far insisted that the cost of signing on to another CR is $2 billion per week. That is such a small amount of the current average weekly federal spending – $68.3 billion per week – you’d think that waste alone could cough it up. But according to the Democrat Senate caucus, cutting spending by $2 billion per week (less than 3%) is “too extreme” and they cite the immeasurable sacrifice that the Republican meat axe would inflict on education, health research, food inspection and other programs and services.” Wow! I hadn’t realized that our federal government had become so efficient that not even 3% of its expenditures is waste.

A $4 billion spending reduction agreed to by the Democrats on March 4 extended government operations two weeks until March 18, and another $6 billion was found to extend operations three weeks to April 8. The word on the street has it that the Dems will offer another $20 billion in cuts – on top of the $10 billion already conceded – if Boehner and the Tea Party are willing to settle for $30 billion instead of $61 billion. That’s unlikely. At least I hope so.

Now it comes down to who blinks first in the “shut the government down” game. A Rasmussen poll released Friday showed that 57% of “likely voters” thought making deep cuts was more important than avoiding a government shutdown. Only 31% thought keeping the government running was more important. Twelve percent had no opinion.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week, pundit Fred Barnes wrote that the incremental strategy the Republicans have been using is working. Since $2 billion a week was a small spending reduction relative to over $68 billion in average weekly authorized spending, Democrats would have a hard time explaining to the voters why cuts of that magnitude were so unacceptable that they justified shutting down government. After all, Republicans had wrung $10 billion in concessions in two tranches from Senate Democrats and the “budget by the inch” strategy would likely continue to work.

I disagree for two reasons. First, Barnes’ argument is based on logic and logic is not part of the political process – certainly not as politics are practiced in Washington. Emotion fuels the political process because each side has a constituency it must posture for or lose their support and both sides are vying to influence the moderate independent, whose vote will determine who wins in 2012. The Independents and each party’s constituent base are so far apart ideologically that the party leaders have to be almost schizophrenic to placate both.

Second, Barnes assumes that either the Democrats or Republicans will rather cause the government to shut down rather than yield their principled stand for the commonweal. The object of this game, however, is to make demands in full knowledge that the other side will reject them so they are blamed for the government shutdown on their unreasonableness – not as the consequence of a reasonable and principled stand.

There is possibly a third reason why I disagree with Barnes. I think Washington has become so politicized that it is dysfunctional.

That seems to be borne out in the results of another recent Rasmussen survey which came out this week. Just 16% of “likely voters” thought it would be better for the country if most incumbents in Congress were reelected. Just 16%! That’s a seven-point drop since last August. Over half (56%) say it would be better if most incumbents were defeated. Ah, but all politics is local, the late “Tip” O’Neill used to say. OK; fewer than one in three “likely voters” think their own representative is the best person for the job. In short, voters are less supportive than ever of congressional incumbents. The latest Gallup puts Congressional disapproval rating at 74% – the lowest in 37 years.

I wonder if Congress really cares what voters think.

The latest CR extension will be expiring in a week at about the same time that Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, releases the Republican’s version of the 2012 budget. Details haven’t been released but it’s safe to say it will be a far cry from Obama’s extraterrestrial 2012 budget calling for $3.73 trillion in spending of which 44% will be borrowed deficit spending. For every $4 that the federal government takes in during FY 2012, Obama wants to spend a little over $7. However, he has hinted that he might be willing to “compromise” and for every $5 taken in, Obama proposes to spend $7. In the Obama “compromise” only the American taxpayer is taken in.

While the 2012 budget will be another opportunity for the Republicans to restore fiscal sanity, remember that the GOP holds only the House; the Senate and White House are still in Democrat hands. So what is the worst thing that can happen if the Congress can’t agree on a 2012 budget? Either it resumes CRs or it shutters government non-essential services. In other words, the GOP has no clout until it gains control of the Senate and the White House or has the ability to override White House vetoes.

After the last CR vote, more than a few on the GOP side grumbled that they hadn’t been sent to Washington to keep the government running in two and three week intervals. In an effort to send a message to Speaker Boehner, 54 Republicans voted against the last CR, but 66 of the 87 first-term GOP lawmakers voted for it, that’s over 75%, and 85 Democrats voted with the Republicans, suggesting some bipartisanship.

Absent a majority in the Senate, Republicans are going to have to win some Democrats to their viewpoint on spending cuts and deficit reductions. Those who are threatening to withhold their vote for future CRs should consider how “no” votes will help them (and other like-minded lawmakers) achieve what they do want to see happen – further cuts in FY 2011 spending and a pared down FY 2012 budget. So far, incremental spending cuts have worked to achieve the first aim. If the Democrats offer to cut $20 billion in addition to the already conceded $10 billion in cuts, and if they say “take it or leave it” because there will be no more FY 2011 cuts, then Republicans will have to decide whether they will accept “half a loaf” or shut down non-essential government services. Shutting down the government might help win public opinion to the spending cutters’ side. Or it might not. It depends on which side can win the public relations war in convincing the Independents as well as their base of the reasonableness of their position. That’s always “iffy” but Independents tend to be better informed politically than other subsets of voters.

As one political pundit recently noted, those who favor bigger government have succeeded in expanding it incrementally. New programs were layered on top of existing programs over many years. This pundit counseled spending cutters to patiently follow the same course in the remaining months of FY 2011.

He is partly correct. Bush and Obama were considerably helped in their mammoth intrusion into the private sector by the unknown and therefore scary impact that the financial market meltdown might have on the American economy. Obama further leveraged the rising unemployment and sagging economy to justify throwing hundreds of billions of dollars into misbegotten stimulus initiatives. His pièce de résistance, however, was ObamaCare, which could have only happened with absolute majorities in the Senate and House and a Democrat in the White House. GOP incremental spending cutters have none of the power levers for large scale spending reductions to reverse the large scale spending increases of the last three years.

But the GOP will have significant leverage in the negotiations to increase the debt ceiling. Sometime between April 15 and May 31 the government will reach its legal borrowing limit and Congress will have to raise it. The Treasury Department has warned of dire consequences if the US can’t borrow more money and fails to pay its interest obligations. Unlike negotiations on the budget, where a government shutdown hangs in the balance, failing to raise the borrowing limit or delaying the payment of interest is in a different league. It will be the best opportunity for conservatives to get a quid pro quo – serious spending reductions for debt limit increases.

What is frustrating to Republicans in the wake of their landslide 2010 elections is that they can’t accomplish more now. It’s hard to swallow that they might not get the remaining $31 billion of the $61 billion they wanted to cut. The shortfall, however, is mostly symbolic; it’s still a small number compared to the $1.7 trillion that will be spent in the remaining 25 weeks of FY 2011.

And regardless of all of the happy talk in the Democrat caucus, every credible poll indicates Republicans will take the Senate in 2012 because they need only a net change of four to gain the majority and Democrats have 23 vulnerable seats to defend. Even Biden admits to the likelihood of a loss of the Senate – and he was the guy who believed the Democrats would hold the House in the last election. Whether a Republican can dispossess the White House of its present incumbent in 2012 is still a question mark. But Republican majorities in the Senate and House will keep Obama in check even if he is reelected, just as they kept Clinton in check when he was reelected.

The biggest threat to America’s long term economic viability, however, is not $61 billion in spending cuts during FY 2011. It is the growing “market share” of government. For six decades government’s “market share” was 20% of the GDP. Twenty percent is what the feds took in as tax receipts and borrowing and 20% is what it spent. The private sector – all of the businesses, families, and individuals – plus state and local governments took the other 80%. That 80/20 share was remarkably stable until Obama came along.

Moreover, despite all of the tinkering with the tax code to get more money out of those nasty old rich folks who never pay their fair share, federal tax revenues have been stayed in a narrow band within one or two percentage points of 18% of the GDP. That’s all the federal government has ever been able to get regardless of tax rates.

Since federal government spending has historically been 20% of the GDP and tax revenues have historically been 18% of GDP, the federal government ran an historic deficit of 2%, which it had to borrow. Borrowing is nothing more than a tax on future generations to pay back – some of whom aren’t yet born and have no representation in Congress. But borrowing has been tame in the past compared to the hockey stick increase in recent years.

The government’s market share began to increase under Bush with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an expensive Medicare drug benefit, and education spending – all ill-conceived notions of “compassionate conservatism" (except the wars.) Government’s market share accelerated under Obama because he is admittedly intent on remaking America in a different mold – one in which government had an expanded role. The government’s market share under Obama has shot up to 25%. Tax revenues, which cannot be forced up as history has shown, actually dropped under the weight of a recession, and the shortfall – about 10% of GDP – was made up by borrowing.

Setting political rhetoric aside, the problem that must be solved by this and future Congresses is how to restore government to its historic 20% market share. America can’t afford Obama’s vision and still be America. Government will never – never – create real economic value that comes remotely close to what would be created by restoring the 5% market share the federal government has taken from the private sector.