Yes, although many of us were not taught this history in school, there was a raging political debate about that war in it's day.
Even in the Constitutional Convention (if you read Madison's notes, which are fascinating), several persons spoke out clearly and decisively against the moral horror of slavery and the evil of allowing it to remain embedded in our Constitution (which we did). When people say that slavery was accepted in its time they are wrong. It was bitterly and openly contested, even in Philadelphia in that famous summer of 1787. Later, in an act of cultural white supremacy, we tried to erase this gross, open, immoral, and fully conscious decision from our formal teachings in schools.
This truth telling is part of what CRT is trying to do (decades old effort now), and opposition to it by misrepresenting it is another of those white supremacists methods to keep the truth--the full horror of the cultural decision and apparatus--from being known.
Last edited by TSherbs; January 15th, 2022 at 10:06 AM.
welch (January 15th, 2022)
Read this last year.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...he-emancipator
John Brown goes too far for me. But thanks for the recommendation. Thoreau revered John Brown, but I don't.
No. Thoreau and Abraham Lincoln protested the Mexican War, 1846, as a war to extend slavery. President Polk sent a small army under Zachary Taylor south of what had been considered the Texas border toward the Rio Grande. The Mexican army fired on Taylor's troops, and Congress declared that "American blood was shed on American soil". Lincoln, in his first and last term in the House of Representatives, offered a resolution to discover if "the spot" of the battle was really in the US or Mexico.
The Alamo was an incident in the war by which the Republic of Texas won independence from Mexico. That was about ten years before the US - Mexican War, although it set off the disagreement that would lead to war with Mexico after Texas joined the Union. Texas, of course, was a slave state.
(And, yes, Polk thought it would be nifty to take California and whatever Mexican territory had not been included in the Louisiana Purchase.)
Last edited by welch; January 15th, 2022 at 05:06 PM.
Americans struggle with understanding history at many levels, orders of events [which came first] included.
Middle school students in a school system I was familiar with did not know the correct sequence of WWII, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. God forbid you ask students to identity how many branches of government there are, or to summarize their roles. If you ask people whether the US is a democracy, in my experience 90/100 will be shocked when you tell them "No."
We studied the three branches of the US government in 7th grade. That was the year that Kennedy won the presidency, so our teacher had a good reason to have us learn each of cabinet secretaries and what their departments did. We had a grasp of the flow of US history, and later, in 11th grade Miss Roe made sure we understood "the Spot amendment". We took American literature that same year, and our teacher was fascinated by Thoreau and the other writers in "the American Renaissance". Frank Norris, "The Octopus", fit with Populism, and Dreiser's "Sister Carrie" gave us a view of the Progressive Era. That was what we learned in public schools in Washington, DC and in Prince George's County. Not a fancy upper-middle-class place.
"Democracy"? The US is a democratic republic. Eighteenth Century thinkers tended to think of the two competing systems as a monarchy and a republic, and British, including British Americans, tended to think of Louis XIV as the model of absolute monarchy and just what the Stuart kings had aimed at. Sure, everyone was taught that Athenian democracy might work in a city-state of 100,000 people, but not in a large polity. Madison worked through classical confederacies in the Federalist essays before he got to Number 10.
Every colony allowed voting, with the most widespread suffrage of anyplace in the world...at least by 1740. Most colonies allowed adult men to vote if they owned a certain amount of property. The typical historiographical debate is a "fully / merely" debate, as in the arguments around Robert E. Brown, Middle-class Democracy and the Revolution in Massachusetts, 1691-1780. There were property qualifications, but so many men owned the minimum of property that, Brown estimates, "fully" 70% of men, or "merely 70%, could vote. No place else was even close. And Americans tore down barriers to voting in the early years of the republic. By Jackson's time, only "aristocrats" and supporters of "tyranny" wanted to restrict the franchise.
Not clear if you have read anything about "CRT". Start with the real thing: Delgado and Stefancic's Introduction. https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Race...ps%2C91&sr=8-2
If studies of racism, slavery, and American history make you nervous, the start with Winthrop Jordan's "White Over Black". https://www.amazon.com/White-Over-Bl...ps%2C98&sr=8-2
TSherbs (January 17th, 2022)
welch (January 17th, 2022)
Some good news regarding DeSantis and Trump, trouble in the camp so to speak, with Ann Coulter commenting (what most thinking folks already knew),
"“Trump is demanding to know Ron DeSantis’s booster status, and I can now reveal it,” Ms. Coulter wrote on Twitter. “He was a loyal booster when Trump ran in 2016, but then he learned our president was a liar and con man whose grift was permanent.”
In an email, Ms. Coulter, herself a part-time Florida resident, put a finer point on what makes Mr. DeSantis’s rise unsettling for the former president. “Trump is done,” she wrote. “You guys should stop obsessing over him.”
Oh my, say it isn't so!!!
Well let me ask you this. The state of my birth is Tennessee. There was a Civil War General named Nathan Bedford Forrest. He was also a slave trader and Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan. There was a statue erected to his honor in the state capital. Is this information of importance to you? Is this something you would want members of your family to know? Does it matter morally to you that a person like this be honored?
Is that statue still standing? I visited Monument Row in Richmond this past summer. It's painful to visit because seeing the empty pedestals is such a reminder of all the pain, torture, abuse, murder, and injustice that has been wrought upon African-Americans over our nation's history. The pain is appropriate to our cultural understanding and identity. I hope that they never remove the defaced pedestals.
In 2016 I attended my first MLK Parade. It was a cold, gloomy day, but the spirit of the parade was amazing. I was emotionally moved by how happy the watchers and participants were displaying the importance of the event. I was able to go to a MLK luncheon and hear the speakers. It was all a happy time, and I was welcomed, which is amazing. Everyone was saying, "happy King Day".
"“I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. ”
Dr. King in Memphis 1968
And, if someone thinks this is some Liberal post, shame on you.
Last edited by Chuck Naill; January 17th, 2022 at 07:51 AM.
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