To your first paragraph, you’re picking nits. So you think that professional welfare recipients & illegals should be able to vote? Home owners & business owners have a stake in our country, whereas the others may have only a personal motivation. Our military takes an oath to serve & protect our country. Do you trust them to have our country’s best interests at heart?
No offense, but you’re sounding like a democrat.
More than a few slaves fought valiantly & died for the Confederacy. Do you think they did this under duress? How could any of the slaves share loyalty, affection, & trust with their “owners” if it was so bad? Why didn’t the ones who stayed behind & protected their “master’s” family while he & the older sons were away at war- just leave? They could have. They could have taken the gun left for that purpose & run off. Maybe some did, but some stayed- & they would have died protecting their charges, if that’s what it came to. All you’re seeing is “racism” & subjugation, but it isn’t that simple. Many of these slaves- maybe even a majority, were practically extended family; second mothers, “aunts & uncles”. How often do you think someone said (or even thought) I *own* you? I don’t think they did. I think it was assumed that the person would do what they were asked or told to do & the “owner” could be relied on to feed them & take care of them when they were sick & intervene for them if they had trouble. It was more patriarchal than “ownership” in most cases.
You “read accounts”. Maybe you should read some more.
I don’t know about anyone voluntarily returning to slavery. Do we know that none did? I do know that there were some slaves who remained in their former “owners” employment- right here in Texas. I also know of someone who refused to hire any of the former slaves who had once belonged to his new wife’s family. He was stabbed to death by one of his wetbacks & at least 2 of his daughters said it served him right because if he’d have hired them, that never would have happened.
This just isn’t as black & white (no pun meant) as some people try to portray it.
I see a difference between a rotten sob & a decent human being. Decent people did not mistreat their slaves. Rotten people exist- in every race & every social strata. I haven’t looked into my dad’s family that much yet, nor the circumstances of “indentured servitude”. Neither that nor slavery sounds good to me. You are correct that the children & grandchildren became “property” of the “owners”. Was that a bad thing or was it a guarantee that they would have housing, food, & medical care? Should they have been turned out- ripped from their mothers & fathers who loved them?
I don’t think it was common practice to “sell” them. A decent person certainly wouldn’t.
I am speaking from not-recent memory (re slavery ending) There is a fairly good discussion here
My point is that slavery still exists & existed in quite a few civilized countries & their holdings (England, for example)- yet America is the only country hounded a full 150 years *after* it ended. You don’t find that curious?
Many of our country’s founders held (or “owned”) slaves. It was accepted practice at that time. That doesn’t make it right. That’s just the way things were back then. It’s a good thing that it ended, certainly. But it wasn’t necessary to have that kind of death & destruction to do it.
How “moral” is it to embellish & sensationalize this to achieve a goal, at any cost?
The South will never “pay” enough to satisfy people like you, will we? Only when we are erased from the face of the earth. (Where have we heard that before?)
That won’t end it, either. Revenge endures forever & harms the vengeful far more than the object.
jmho
So the person who rents a $10,000 a month apartment in Manhattan is only out for themselves and should be stripped of their right to vote, while the person who inherited a shack somewhere will only have everyone's best interest at heart and should be part of the ruling class?
Our military takes an oath to serve & protect our country. Do you trust them to have our country’s best interests at heart?
Then why not just go to a military government, ruled by a junta of generals? The founders thought standing armies "dangerous to liberty" and took great pains to control them. You, on the other hand, think that their taking a vow make them worthy to rule.
Why didn’t the ones who stayed behind & protected their “master’s” family while he & the older sons were away at war- just leave? They could have. They could have taken the gun left for that purpose & run off. Maybe some did, but some stayed…
In point of fact, they left in their hundreds of thousands, making their way to the nearest US Army forces. And tens of thousands of them then put on the uniform of the United States and fought against those same "masters" who were off with their older sons at war. Many more simply refused to work any more. Read about what happened at Jefferson Davis's plantation. They picked up guns, alright, and used them to drive off a confederate cavalry patrol sent to take back control of their president's property. That's why the confederates were forced to enact the very unpopular measure of exempting the owners of a certain number of slaves fro the draft--in order to keep them working.
You are correct that the children & grandchildren became “property” of the “owners”. Was that a bad thing or was it a guarantee that they would have housing, food, & medical care? Should they have been turned out- ripped from their mothers & fathers who loved them? I don’t think it was common practice to “sell” them. A decent person certainly wouldn’t.
And yet that's what happened all the time. Thomas Jefferson wanted to free his slaves when he died, but because of debts, most of them were sold off, families broken up. Breaking up families was seen as unfortunate, but what else could you do when they were a capital asset, part of an estate? Tell your creditors that they're family?
As much as you try to deny it, you're defending slavery and saying it really wasn't that bad, more like a benevolent welfare state than a heinous practice. You truly do long for an aristocracy--one of land, of title, of military rank--to rule over this country, don't you? Because that's what you're saying.
The South will never “pay” enough to satisfy people like you, will we? Only when we are erased from the face of the earth. (Where have we heard that before?) That won’t end it, either. Revenge endures forever & harms the vengeful far more than the object.
Oh, poor, pitiful victimized you.