Somebody at Colonial Williamsburg, I’m flattered to say, likes me. Or perhaps to be more precise, like the Disunion Series, because I was extended an invitation to visit the the famous museum/educational center/resort and attend a conference entitled Storm on the Horizon: Slavery, Disunion, and the Roots of the Civil War. I had a terrific time.
Fortunate to have caught an early flight, I was able to spend a portion of spectacularly beautiful afternoon in Richmond visiting the Museum of the Confederacy and its neighbor, the Confederate White House, which was home to Jefferson Davis and his family during the war. My visit happened to coincide with a lecture on the selection and inauguration of Davis, which had taken place almost 150 years previously to the hour (we met at noon; Davis was sworn in at one PM.) The talk, which was given by Dean Knight, who is Supervisor of White House Operations, was very thorough and contained a lot of information that was new to me, which annoyed me, since I had 
just finished writing about the event. Anyway, I enjoyed the short visit, and then drove over to the grounds of the Virginia State Capitol, where I saw their spectacular statute of George Washington, as well as other monuments, including one commemorating the struggle for civil rights.
I arrived in Williamsburg around three PM, in time for a tour of the Civil War era Williamsburg. I knew that a pretty fierce battle had been fought in Williamsburg in May of 1862–part of General McClellan‘s poorly-conducted Peninsula campaign–but I did not know that Williamsburg remained under federal occupation
from that point until late 1865.
After that, we attended a lecture by Professor Gordon Wood of Brown University, author of the splendid Empire of Liberty, who spoke on the subject of the Revolutionary War-era roots of the Civil War. This was an excellent talk, full of fresh perspectives. Wood began by observing that while he could see why the southern states wanted to secede, it wasn’t immediate obvious why the North cared. Wood made the case that the North took seriously the words of the Declaration of Independence about all 
men being created equal, and after the failure of the French Revolution and of the revolutions of 1848, really bought into the idea that America was the world’s last, best hope of democratic principles. Although the South professed adherence to these ideas as well, and at the very end of the 18th century took some steps towards abolition, the 19th century saw a strengthening of the institution of slavery. In Wood’s estimation, the crucial factor that separated the sections was the attitude towards work: the North embraced it, honored it, and rewarded it, while the South thought it was menial and degrading. Slavery, said Wood, created two different cultures; by the time of the Missouri Crisis of 1819, Civil War was inevitable.
We ended the evening at the excellent seafood buffet at the Williamsburg Inn (special props to the crab cakes!)