[wastoute]

And before you get all offended let me point out that the abolitionists wanted slaves to count as NOT HUMAN. 0%.

[Mamzelle]

Pish-posh. That was all bout political negotiations and jockeying to do southern states out of power. It is better to deal in facts rather than what you think they "wanted"--the north and abolitionists had few economic stakes in slavery. At one time or another, several prominent northern Founding Fathers owned slaves. That they abandoned the practice was probably due more to do with economics than shame.

If any of us could go back to 1810 and see the conditions under which our American ancestors lived, we would be shocked at the discomfort, poverty and squalor. The modern middle class is purely an American creation, and is fading rapidly. I visit historical plantations and listen to the tourists go tsp-tsk over the slave cabins. It is very likely that their own ancestors never knew such comfort!