[Ohioan]

"slaves remained loyal" -- a contradiction in terms

To suggest that one in bondage may not be loyal is an absurdity. History is full of the loyal and faithful servants. They are celebrated in the Bible; celebrated in the classical world; celebrated throughout European history.

Not all of the brave lads who stood with Henry V at Agincourt, were freemen; many of the seamen who did what England "expected" for Nelson at Trafalgar, had never intended to join the British Navy--nor had their being seized by press gangs, been according to some equitable formula, like the modern draft.

Your Thad Stevens endorsement made your point. You have a fanatic need to fight an historic battle against the Old South. But that doesn't make your hatred rational.

William Flax

[Grand Old Partisan]

Thaddeus Stevens did not hate anybody -- he opposed capital punishment and even offered to denfed Jefferson Davis against a possible death sentence. Enemies of the greatest Republican who ever lived honored him by caricaturing him as the villain of the pro-Ku Klux Klan movie, Birth of a Nation. Unlike the rebel traitors and their neo-Confederate propagandists today, Stevens loved the United States of America and had no respect for slave masters or their apologists.

The euology at his funeral, attended by 20,000 patriots, half being emancipated Americans, was:

"God give to Vermont another son; Lancaster, another citizen; Pennsylvania, another statesman; the country, another patriot; the poor, another friend; the freedmen, another benefactor; the race, another friend; and the world, another man like Thaddeus Stevens"

Amen!