BUT IT IS the South and anything associated with the Lost Cause that is today’s inflamed front of the culture war. In 1898, President McKinley, a veteran of Antietam, could go to Atlanta, stand for the playing of “Dixie,” wave his hat to his old enemies, and recommend the preservation of Confederate graves—a splendid gesture that helped heal a country about to go to war with Spain. Today, McKinley would be charged with giving moral sanction to a racist cause.
