One of my favorite scenes from the old Lonesome Dove TV series is when Bol, the Mexican cook is “whackin” the dinner bell for supper. Gus McCrae, played by Robert Duval tells Bol, “a man with any sense at all can tell when it’s sundown without you whacking’ that bell.”
To which Bol tells McCrae, “Robert E. Lee freed the slaves. I can whack it if I want to.” McCrae tells Bol “It was Abraham Lincoln that freed the slaves Bol, not General Lee.”
It is at the point a Texas cowhand, Pea Eye, joins in and muddies the discussion by saying, “he (Robert E. Lee or Abraham Lincoln we are not sure who Pea Eye is referencing as “he.”) didn’t free Mexicans anyway. It was “Americans he freed.”
The more erudite Augustus McCrae sees that the conversations is going sideways. He tells Pea Eye that he is in over his head. “It was a bunch of Africans Abe Lincoln freed.”
Now Larry McMurtry’s book came out in 1985 and the TV series aired in 1989. When I first saw this scene I had to laugh at the deep misunderstanding of the Civil War that was taking place in that brief scene. It is somewhat apropos, though. One-hundred and sixty years later I think we are just as confused about the Civil War and its outcome as we, as a nation have ever been. In fact some may argue we are reverting back to the post Reconstruction era.
However, it the ending part of the scene I think what is really relevant for today. I doubt Larry McMurtry, when he wrote this, thought somebody forty years later would reference his writing this way. But here I am probably reading way more into it than the scene actually was. I think the final lines of this scene are short and succinct and very 2025-26ish.
McCrae references his partner and fellow long-time Texas Ranger, Woodrow Call, as being born in Scotland He says that Call is “no more American” than the Africans Lincoln freed.
Call, played by Tommy Lee Jones, returns the burn to McCrae saying. “I recon I’m as American as anyone from Tennessee.” (Gus’s home state.)
I am sure when McMurtry penned those words in the 1980s about a Western adventure that would take place in the 1870s; he was not thinking about immigration or birthright citizenship. It was sort of comic relief depicting the mind sets of those at Lonesome Dove laboring all day in the hot Texas sun getting ready to sit down to supper.
In fact McMurtry’s book is loosely based on the lives of Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving of Goodnight Loving Cattle Trail fame. I am not sure of what their politics were; and that is not the crux the of story.
I just think there is some sort of irony or historical symmetry in this fictional scene of the Old West, even if it is only in the writings of a man in the 1980s. Because today, when it comes to immigration it appears that the Trump Administration is much like Pea Eye: in over their heads. The Administration is rounding up stray foreigners and wrangling up legal concepts to the Supreme Court to drive immigrants into detention camps and onto new foreign vistas.
Gus McCrae is like the MAGA leaning Supreme Court, the ex-Confederate who realizes the South lost and that is that. It is a new day–no matter how you slice it. But it is day still laced with old prejudices.
However, it is Woodrow Call who says, “I recon I’m as American as anyone from Tennessee.” It is Call’s simple statement that reflects the 14th Amendment’s “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” It is that little section of the Constitution that is driving the Administration bat-shit crazy.
Ironically, it is Bol, the Mexican, whose family most likely has been in Texas long before Texas was a state in the United States. He could easily parrot Call’s words: “I recon I’m as American as anyone from Tennessee.”
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