Gettysburg's history remains unsettled, and that's a fitting tribute

So I've been revisiting the Battle of Gettysburg as the Fourth of July approached.

This week marks the 150th anniversary. I grabbed some books from the shelf, and there's terrific stuff online.

What stands out, of course, is the courage shown by tens of thousands of Americans in the face of fear, chaos and carnage. The stakes were astronomically high, and it‘s still stunning how many moments there were when fateful decisions saved or lost the day. Make those calls differently, and the course of our history, world history, changes.

But what's also fascinating is how Gettysburg may have been won, but it still isn't settled. Depending on which volume you pick up, you'll get differing versions of events. Books and the fresh takes keep coming.

Read online comments beneath Gettysburg pieces this week, and you'll find spirited arguments over whose mistakes lost the battle and whose decisions led to victory. Who blew it for the South? Who deserves credit for the North? Or was Vicksburg, which fell 150 years ago today, really more significant?

I bet if some of these commenters met face-to-face, voices would be raised. Fists shaken, even.

Maybe it's irrelevant noise after all this time. And maybe it's actually a fitting tribute to the valor and sacrifice shown on that Pennsylvania battlefield.

The way Lincoln put it roughly five months later, Gettysburg was a fight to make sure government of the people, by the people and for the people did not perish. And one necessity of a healthy liberal democracy, one built to last, is that its people and leaders cannot be fearful of revealing its history. There should be no trepidation about digging up the past, shining a light on it, testing its truths and stripping the varnish from its myths.

Even after all this time, we're not completely there yet. We still live in a nation where too many of us think whitewash is what passes for patriotism. We don't always welcome uncomfortable truths about our past, and we use our “classified” stamps with reckless abandon. Political factions routinely distort our history and wield it as a club to beat down opposition. Our history education too often fails to live up to our history.

The good news is there are many, many more diggers than distorters in this country. And they're still free to shake those shovels at orthodoxy. While Chinese leaders seek to erase all mention and memory of Tiananmen Square, we fill libraries with clear-eyed histories of our most painful failures.

Of course, we can still fight over the details. And I hope we do. We've paid a high cost for the right.