"What happened here was a terrible tragedy, but I am here to assure that not everyone agreed with what was going-on,"
"From this building, hundreds of thousands of human beings were sent into slavery, to a country where some people were abolitionists, never to return."
The wrong was acknowledged nearly 200 years ago when the U.S. abolished slave trading. The wrong was further acknowledged in the Northern States in the early 1800's by abolishing slavery. The wrong was again acknowledged by the Emancipation Proclamation, and by the deaths of hundreds of thousands of white Americans who fought against slavery. The wrong was permenantly etched in American history when we altered our Constitution to prevent slavery from happening again. The wrong was perpetually acknowledged in the 20th Century through Civil Rights Leglislation, Affirmative Action Programs, and the granting of "minority status" to African-Americans. Today's speech was a side show, utterly unneccessary. I like President Bush, but he's off the wall with this one. It's always easy to acknowledge the "wrongs" of others from generations past, because they aren't there to defend themselves. History always needs to be viewed from the perspective of the times if you're going to paint an accurate picture. Slavery was a legal enterprise in almost every civilized country in the 1700's and early 1800's. When we grow up exposed everyday to something like that it tends to lose much of its shock value, much like abortion, divorce, loose sexual mores, and street violence in our nation today. I'd prefer the President condemn the heinous crime in his own America of slaughtering 1.5 million babies per year in the abortion mills, and let him speak as forcefully, eloquently, and in all the gory detail as he did today. Will some future President call President Bush a criminal for not doing enough to stop abortion in his own day, (though you and I do not feel that way today, it is altogether possible). What is really a test of courage, is to acknowledge your own wrongs.
Exactly. And we paid dearly for it with the blood of hundreds of thousands of young men on both sides. And it was paid for with the destruction of the southern economy and a huge drain on the resources of the Union.
I am a southernor. I am proud of my southern heritage. But some of it stinks.
It is true that slavery has been with mankind just about as long as there has been mankind. It is true that many people, from the Dutch to the colonists to the African chieftans who sold their own people bear the responsibility for the horror that was American slavery. It is true that many fine, upstanding people - people of faith, people of honor, people of integrity, were horribly wrong about slavery.
But, it is mostly true that the price has been paid. America owes no debt to the descendants of slaves. We can acknowledge it was wrong. But we own no-one an apology.
That debt has been paid.