Posted on 04/24/2002 9:33:49 AM PDT by wasp69
If we are to be a free people, slavery has to be indefensible. If we start to find the security of slavery attractive, we are on the road to losing our freedom and our respect for the idea of freedom. That's not the right path to take.
It's true that slavery has played a role throughout history, but the assumption is that at some point we would outgrow it.
Were American slaves better off than the free employees of the time? That's a hard question to answer. Certainly the overwhelming majority of free employees didn't face the beatings and chainings the slaves suffered. Nor were they likely to be separated from their families against their will.
By modern standards, it couldn't have been pleasant to have been a factory worker in New York in the 1850s, but if families could stay together and pool their resources they could survive and eventually prosper. In other parts of the free states there was greater equality between employers and employees.
"Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." - Abraham Lincoln, Speech to One Hundred Fortieth Indiana Regiment, March 17, 1865.
The Real Lincoln
Posted by Titus Fikus to GOPcapitalist; ConfederateMissouri; Whisky Papa On General Interest ^ Apr 21 11:08 AM #77 of 104 ^
Also, may I suggest investing in a writing by northerner Henry Adams about the onset of the war called "The Great Secession Winter of 1860-61." Adams, who you may know of in his own right through American history, was the son of Charles Francis Adams, a prominent congressman during the war from an even more prominent political family (that of John and John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts).
A truly stunning and phenominal documentation of the general quality and and integrity of the lame tripe you pour all over the fine intentions of Free Republic.
'The Great Secession Winter of 1860-61 was published by some other Henry Adams in 1958. The son of Charles Francis Adams died in 1918. Click the link and do try to think. It's well worth the effort.
The Real Henry Adams, not the truckstop junk history peddler
I thank for taking my advice and coming forth with a legitmate attempt to find a provable fact. It seems you have done so, so now here it is just for you.
FLUSH!
If you manage to get through the linked Encyclopedia article on the great grandson of John Adams, (the one any three year old could find), you will note that one of his most famous works is on the inadequacy of most of our education systems. He was talking most sincerely about the the morose and incompetent sort of work exhibited in the words italicized at the beginning of this post above. I recommend you invest in one of his actual works instead of the popular pablum tripe you so adore.
Llan-ey/Titus responded to it by denying its authenticity in the post that I repasted verbatim in #104. Now, as you can see by 101, he not only considers it authentic but is quoting it as his own most recent cut n' paste.
As you noted yesterday, he literally has no arguments of his own...though his antics provide more than enough for everybody else to laugh at!
You constantly say that and I think we need a little clarification. Would that be your opinion of traitors to the American Empire (to which the Confederate soldiers were not) or all traitors in general? According to you and others, the American colonists were traitors to the British Empire. Do we damn them as well? How about the Jews and others who rebelled in New York in 1863 over fighting for the northern interests? Are they damned? All freedom fighters worldwide who fought in the 20th century against their respective governments who happened to be of a communist nature? By definition they were traitors as well
Which is it? All traitors or just those fighting for freedom you don't agree with?
No, but you probably were, because you are as old as the hills, but you don't know everything there is to know, so I did your homework for you. If you don't know $hit about the draft riots, check this out. They were real unified, weren't they?
http://www.nyhistory.org/education/teachers/respondtodraft.html
I don't know, were you there at the time?
Henry Adams, "The Autobiography of Henry Adams."
Henry Adams was one of those Bostonians bred in an atmosphere of transcendentalism, reform and abolitionism who were thoroughly disillusioned by the war and the postwar ascendency of corporations and political machines, industrialism, New York and Chicago. Adams's own cynicism started earlier and ran deeper than that of his contemporaries because of his family's own loss of influence and power. In his family, all political figures would be regarded as rivals who threatened the family's reputation and its hopes. And as the family's political prospects waned Henry's cynicism waxed. His years spent abroad, his diplomatic experience and his inability to find a vocation or place that contented him increased his bitterness.
Adams was a great historian, and his history of the United States during Jefferson and Madison administrations is a classic. But his more autobiographical writings are marred by his cynicism and narcissism. Adams's admirer and imitator Gore Vidal has picked up on this side of his personality. In Vidal's fictional and non-fictional accounts of politics, everything comes down to the cynical exercise of power. Vidal's views about politics and history may be provocative, but they are seldom reliable. Take Vidal entirely at his word about American history and you're sure to go wrong. One has to apply some of this skepticism to Adams's own autobiographical and fictional writings, dominated as they are by Henry Adams's own wounded pride.
Adams is an intriguing figure. He came to hate the victorious Republicans because he associated them with the fall of the older America in which his family had played such a great role. At the same time, he had no use for the claims of the secessionists to be the defenders or preservers of that older republic or to offer a positive alternative for the country's future.
It may be a hard concept for somebody as fundamentally dishonest as yourself to accept, but I do not see there to be any rational reason for you to doubt what I post. Then again, your skepticism is understandable considering that it is coming from a person who lives and breaths deception to the point that he had to "create" a new posting name after his abuses of this forum got him kicked off under the old one. I know it may be hard for you to accept this, Llan-ey, but not all of us share your credibility problem.
So in other words, you are now quoting from the essay you claim to have been written by "some other Henry Adams" in 1958? See my repost of your statement in 104 if you are still confused, Llan-ey.
"On the very morning of the 4th of March, the Senate passed the Amendment to the Constitution by exactly the necessary vote; and even then it was said in Washington that some careful manipulation, as well as the direct influence of the new President, was needed before this measure, so utterly innocent and unobjectionable, could be passed."
Gee. Sounds like quite a feat for a guy who claimed in his inaugural address to have never seen the amendment he helped pass.
Or have you simply latched onto another source of quotations loosely tied but unrelated to this debate in order that you may appear as a participant? And in doing so do you seek to temporarily spare us from the continual flow of mental diarhea that dominates your presence here by replacing it with a flow of quotation diarhea from a text to which there remains question to both whether you accept its authenticity and whether you understand its meaning?
A simple yes or no will suffice to all.
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