Anne Sarah Rubin talked about President George Washington and how his career, thoughts, and actions relate to the origins of the Confederacy and the coming of the Civil War. The unresolved disagreements about the status of slavery and the nature of the federal union created situations that presaged the dissolution of the union in 1861 since its founding. Professor Rubin focused on the way that the image of President Washington was used to justify and legitimize actions. She responded to questions from members of the audience.
Anne Sarah Rubin is the author of A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy, 1861-1868 and “Seventy-Six and Sixty-One: Confederates Remember the American Revolution.”
"Four American Presidents (But What Did They Have to Do With the Civil War?)," the annual symposium of the Museum of the Confederacy, was co-sponsored and hosted by the Library of Virginia on Saturday, February 20, 2010.