[Alberta's Child]

Does that change the fact that abolishing slavery was one of the best most important things that this country has ever done?

That's a loaded question, because it presents the result without examining the process that was needed to reach it. Curing cancer would be a good thing, too. But if curing cancer requires us to do massive medical experiments on the population and in the process kill several million people who had no cancer to begin with, I would contend that the "cost" of the process far outweighed the "benefit" of the result.

Was a civil war the most effective means of ending slavery in the United States? I'm not taking a position one way or another -- I simply present it to illustrate that sometimes things aren't as clearly obvious as they might seem.

[presidio9]

Was a civil war the most effective means of ending slavery in the United States? I'm not taking a position one way or another -- I simply present it to illustrate that sometimes things aren't as clearly obvious as they might seem.

The fact is the Civil War happened. 300,000 died trying to free millions. 300,000 died trying to keep them in chains. The result is they are free. That's a good thing.

[Scenic Sounds]

Slavery was a pretty bizarre institution. Each slave plantation was like a little communist nation with the workers having no rights.

Like all utopian schemes, it was sort of doomed from the outset, I think.