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It’s often said in history museum circles in the United States that if you want to draw a crowd, do something about the Civil War.  That one event, a bloody conflict in which more than 600,000 people lost their lives to end slavery and preserve the Union, still resonates through the passage of time as this nation’s most important historical moment.

Now, with the bicentennial of President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday in 2009 fast approaching, public interest in the Civil War undoubtedly will mushroom from its already high plateau.  In examining Lincoln’s life and times as President, as war time leader, and as the protector of the Constitution, we may, as a nation, confront once again the causes of that war and America’s involvement with the ugly stain of slavery.

This topic — how we understand the Civil War — is at the heart of a new exhibit opening at the Freedom Center in mid-October, entitled “Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War.” It also is the subject matter of two museums, one old, one new, in Richmond, Virginia — the Capitol of the Confederacy. Edward Rothstein, a New York Times writer on cultural affairs, examines these two museums and how they differ in explaining the causes — and contemporary interpretations — of the Civil War and Lincoln’s role in it. A key excerpt:

Both institutions also inadvertently provide lessons on the limits of relativism. Yes, the Confederacy is a part of American history that needs to be better understood, and slavery and race should not be the only windows through which it is viewed. But another kind of judgment is also needed here. Much depends on whether we view the Civil War as the apocalyptic end of a roseate past or the bloody beginning of a promising future. And that is what contemporary controversies over the Civil War are all about.