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To: Non-Sequitur
Sir, you are quite wrong about Jefferson Davis's views on slavery. You should read President Davis's Inaugural Address, which does not even mention slavery.
Davis and his older brother Joseph ran their plantation with a view toward the freedom of their slaves as soon as possible. They even established a court system by which no slave could be punished except by a jury of his peers (i.e., other slaves). See "The South Was Right," pages 103-104. The master could commute but could never increase the punishment. In this and many other ways, the Davis brothers constantly strived to prepare their charges for a day which they knew and hoped would soon come in which slavery would not exist and for the challenges of life as a free man.

You do know, do you not, that Jefferson Davis's wife Varina Davis formally adopted a black orphan named Jim Limber? See "The South Was Right," pages 104-105. Jim was an integral part of the Davis household until the invading Yankee aggressors captured him and took him away, never to be heard from again.

You must tell me how you account for the fact that, even after the war, the former slaves of the Davis family largely refused to leave. (Of course, this was common throughout the South.) The former slaves with pride and true devotion continued to care for Mr. and Mrs. Davis throughout their lives, even without financial compensation. When Jefferson Davis died in 1889, there was a tremendous display of grief and affection from his former slaves. One particularly poignant tribute came from a former slave in, of all places, North Dakota. See "The South Was Right," page 105-106.

I find it very telling that these documented tributes from former slaves are exceptionally well-written, leading me to believe that the efforts of Jefferson and his brother Joseph to prepare their charges for the burdens of free men were mostly successful. Of course, there is the undeniable fact that, precisely because the Davis family were such good and kind people, their former slaves tended to never want to leave them.

Tell me this, you despisers of Southern culture, how many of your employees would stay with you and serve you loyally and without complaint and without pay or much beyond the level of subsistence? None? Well, I guess that that means that you are just not in the same class as the slaveholders of the Old South. In which case, on what basis do you presume to judge them? Oh, so you think that the "darkies" were just simple-minded? How racist of you!

Slavery was wrong, but history and the undisputed facts shows that these people who owned slaves were honorable and noble. It is up to us to try to reconcile these two apparently contradictory truths.
190 posted on 11/29/2002 7:51:17 PM PST by Iwo Jima
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To: Iwo Jima
Davis and his older brother Joseph ran their plantation with a view toward the freedom of their slaves as soon as possible.

Nonsense. Davis and his brother ran their plantation with a view towards making a profit and nothing else. And they made a very good living at it, too. Davis was a slave owner all his adult life, owning as many as 115 at a time. And in all those years of slave ownership do you know how many of those slaves Davis granted their freedom? None. Zero, zip, zilch, nada, not a single one. If Davis and his brother ran their plantations with a view toward the freedom of their slaves as soon as possible then don't you think that at least one slave would have qualified over the course of 30-odd years? In fact, Jefferson Davis summed up his views towards blacks in March 1861 when he said, "We recognoze the negro as God and God's Book and God's Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him - as our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude. Freedom only injures the slave. The innate stamp of inferiority is beyond the reach of change. You cannot the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or good as slavery allows him to be." My information is from "Jefferson Davis, American" by William J. Cooper and from "Look Away; History of the Confederate States of America" by William C. Davis.

You do know, do you not, that Jefferson Davis's wife Varina Davis formally adopted a black orphan named Jim Limber?

Again, nonsense. The Davis family may have brought Limber into the Executive Mansion to live with them but any idea that he was 'formally adopted' or a legal part of the Davis family is ridiculous. If he was then why did they drop him like a shot after the war was over? He plays no part in the family after 1865. Could it be because he was freed?

You must tell me how you account for the fact that, even after the war, the former slaves of the Davis family largely refused to leave.

I can't tell you this because it isn't true. The Davis plantation was brought under Union control fairly early in the war and the slaves disbursed.

If all you have to go on are the works of the Kennedy brothers then I suggest you quote from Grimm's Fairy Tales. It's a more reliable source.

217 posted on 11/30/2002 5:02:16 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
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