Naming a street or a ship after someone hardly rises to the level of designating a month to celebrate their ‘nobility’ of their efforts.
Seriously how would you feel if the Germans announced a month of remembering the sacrifices of the Nazi soldiers who fell during the war? You’d be okay with that?
I think Virginia should secede. Then the legitimate US government can pull all of those lucrative military contributors out of there, including some 19 military bases and the Pentagon, not to mention the CIA headquarters and other government facilities. The state government would probably collapse within a year.
The equivalency would be naming an AMERICAN ship after Rommel. The Confederates were our ENEMIES. Why should we name things after our ENEMIES? Why should we ever honor them?
Again, the equivalency would be AMERICA honoring Nazi soldiers. Virginia is honoring the ENEMY.
Exactly. It’s like expecting Israel to have a national Nazi month.
Absolutely. To say that morality is relative is not the least bit to say that everything is alright within context; I don’t excuse slavery or stoning women or beheading adulteresses and homosexuals or the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde [though admittedly that was mostly his own fault] or the Salem Witch Trials or the bleeding of pneumonia victims or the crown jewel- the Holocaust. However, it’s senseless and completely useless to say “this happened because the people were intrinsically evil superstitious morons”- it’s more interesting to understand why these things were the way they were. Morality and ethics- if they exist at all- are far more nurture than nature and absolutely relative to culture and this must be understood if you’re going to understand the culture.
Just as nobody who is at all informed can deny that slavery was inhumane and an aberration, nobody who is at all informed can deny that there was no easy answer to it either. Neither was there a line of moral demarcation north of which people viewed it clearly and south of which they viewed it through self interest only- people were wildly mixed both north and south; there were penniless immigrants in the north who couldn’t care less about slavery and even threatened desertion if the Emancipation Proclamation took place, there were southern slave owners who were abolitionists, there were Union generals who owned slaves throughout the war and there were Confederate generals who never had. It wasn’t- no pun intended- a black and white issue.
That said I completely understand how anybody with 19 functioning neurons- not just black people but even people like me (I’m the descendant of slaveowners [and more distantly of slaves]) was offended by McDonnell’s proclamation, which was senseless and imo deliberately calculated to inflame. But as much as it irks me when people like the SCV say “the war was about state’s rights, not slavery!” (totally asinine statement and refuted in damned near every document the CS government issued) it irks me equally when people seem to think slavery was something that anybody could have ended peacefully or seem shocked that people didn’t have 21st century viewpoints. Abolitionists were far from the majority- they weren’t even a sizeable minority- in the north and were viewed as fanatics even by Lincoln and Grant (and especially by Sherman).
I don’t say it would have been easy to end peacefully, I’m saying we don’t need to honor those used used violence ito prevent it from being ended at all.
To use an example from living memory, it’s the same as honoring George Wallace for his “courage” in blocking the schoolhouse door. Saying he doesn’t deserve to be honored is not the same thing as saying segregation was an easy thing to stop.
I mention this not because it’s particularly relevant but just because I find it interesting.
Short list of some U.S. slaveowners who freed their slaves:
George Wythe (read about hismurder trial if you want a gripping read and testament to the meaning of race and freedom in early America)
George Washington (in his will he freed his slaves, though postoned manumission until the death of his wife; he asked his wife to free her’s- she didn’t, but she did free his early because she realized that his will gave his slaves a vested interest in her death)
Benjamin Franklin (also in his will he required his son-in-law to free the slave Franklin had given him before he inherited from Franklin’s estate)
Ulysses S. Grant (I see his manumission of his slave as particularly admirable considering that prior to the war he was in desperate straits financially and selling his slave could have salvaged him; I suspect the temptation to sell him was one thing that caused him to free him- the “my God what have I almost done” moment of clarity)
John Payne- the father of Dolly Madison- he freed his slaves when he converted to the Society of Friends (Quakers) even though it sent him from a rich man to a pauper.
**
BY FAR THE MOST ADMIRABLE MAN IN THE U.S. when it came to freeing slaves** was Robert Carter III, yet I would be shocked to learn more than one or two people reading this know about him. Carter came to the conclusion that slavery was evil, and in spite of what it did to him and to his wife and his enormous family (they had at least 17 children) financially, he freed his slaves.
Why is this so much more impressive than the others?
**
Because Carter owned somewhere between 480 and 600 slaves!**
This made him incredibly hated and also saw the passage of several laws making it even more difficult to free slaves.
Carter’s brother Charles did not free his slaves, but I’ll mention him anyway since the story of what happened to some of his slaves is interesting- if only to me. He became possibly the richest man in the United States (was definitely on the short list) due his vast land holdings (over 100,000 acres [though some asterisks apply- only a single digit fraction of that was under cultivation]) and slaves (about 600, like his brother). Charles married three times and had at least two dozen legitimate children though “only” about 15 lived to adulthood. Like most planters he had little cash, though he did inherit one of my favorite staircases, though you can really only leave a staircase to one of your kids so he left it and most of his vast real estate and most of his slaves to his preferred son. The other dozen or so kids he provided for split up the rest of his estate, which was still substantial but not enough to make them particularly rich.
One of his daughters was Anne Hill Carter, and her father hated her husband. His name was Henry Lee, better known as “Lighthorse Harry”, and he was of impeccable aristocratic breeding, but he was a gambler and chronically unlucky businessman who had already wasted his own inheritance and spent the inheritance of his first wife (his cousin Matilda Lee) by the time he met Anne and the Carters did not trust him. Their apprehension was warranted- he soon not only went through her dowry but managed to get evicted from the Lee ancestral seat at Stratford Hall by his own son! (The son had inherited it from Harry’s first wife Matilda and was terrified his father was going to somehow manage to lose it even though it wasn’t his, and he probably would have.)
By the time Harry and Anne had their fifth child, Robert E. Anne was essentially an invalid. (Per oft repeated but unsubstantiated legend his mother had been declared dead by this time during an illness and woke up during her wake.) They were also broke of course. Anne’s inheritance from her father had bypassed her and been left to her children so as to protect it from her husband’s circling creditors, and that inheritance was a small trust fund and about a dozen adult slaves and some children.
Harry fled the family to avoid creditors and died in self imposed exile in the Caribbean, essentially leaving his family flat. Anne’s brother granted them free use of his townhouse in Alexandria and the trust fund gave a small income but not even enough to pay her medical bills, so the bulk of their income came from her slaves. She couldn’t sell them because her husband’s creditors would have a claim under some archaic laws, but she saved out a small domestic staff and the rest were leased to farmers. This is the income that supported Robert E. Lee and his siblings.
Lee’s sister Ann became an abolitionist. I would guess this had something to do with it. She and her brother were close and communicated even during the War, when she was a very devout Unionist in Baltimore.
Lee detested slavery, but it was not at all for what we would term enlightened reasons: he hated it for what it did to white people. Of course being essentially penniless (he went to West Point because his family couldn’t afford his tuition to William and Mary) he married money- the only child of George Washington Parke Custis, adopted son and step-grandson of George Washington and a wealthy slaveowner. Washington had asked him to free his slaves, but Custis had never done so.
When Custis did die he owned about 160 slaves. He had freed many over the years (some of them probably his biological children) and in his will he instructed Lee, his executor, to free the rest within 5 years. This was no easy feat since Custis, while he had enormous assets, also had an enormous debt load. Lee had to take a leave of absence from the military to work on this request full time and later confessed that being called to active duty to deal with John Brown was actually a relief because he hated managing plantations.
He did manage to free the slaves by 1862. Here’s an interesting thing though:
Lee’s troops historically revered him- at least as a general rule- saying “we weren’t fighting for a cause, we were fighting for him” and “we’d have marched into hell for that old man”. A woman at Gettysburg who saw him passing by famously remarked “Damn I wish he was ours”. He was considered by most a good leader. (By most- not by all- Longstreet later cast aspersions on Lee’s leadership in his memoirs and Pickett NEVER forgave him, considering him always the man who murdered his regiments by ordering the disastrous charge; Lee was possibly not in his right mind at Gettysburg as evidenced by his letters that describe heart attack like symptoms weeks before and a letter so absent minded to his daughter in law that he asked her to kiss her son for him- Lee’s only grandchild- in spite of the fact the baby had been dead for more than a month and Lee had written a long condolence letter over it, but that’s all an aside.)
Anyway, what I find interesting is that even though Lee did honor the request to free all of the slaves at his father-in-law’s plantations, and even though he said several times slavery needed to be ended and after the war famously said the one good thing about the war was it ended slavery, and even though Lee was seen as a great leader by many of his enlisted men, the slaves under his authority absolutely hated him. Some called him things like ‘soulless’, ‘the meanest man I ever met’, ‘freezing cold’, etc… Several who had lived on the plantation their entire lives ran away even though they knew their manumission was coming rather than work for Lee; when they were captured and returned he beat them severely.
An interesting contrast is Jefferson Davis- he was detested by many who served under him and even in his own writings comes across as the most conceited and arrogant bastard on Earth. He was a nouveau riche snob, an ardent classist, an outspoken white supremacist even by 1860 standards, his own wife called him a “girded tree” emotionally and said that he never once doubted he was absolutely right even in spite of all evidence to the contrary. His slaves seem to have genuinely liked him- many corresponded with him until his death and then with Mrs. Davis, and many also contributed financially to his support long after they were no longer living on his land.
Again, not particularly relevant, but interesting in showing the many complexities of slave society.
No disagreement on the “doesn’t deserve to be honored” part. (Hell, all morality and ethics aside, it was 150 years ago- hasn’t any Virginian done anything since then worthy of note?) I can understand why 100 years ago or even 60 years ago some were still being honored in place names and holidays- it was still closer to living memory- but today it’s just the work of a racist asshole.
Sampiro, I had heard that about Davis. One theory I heard was that slaves were so far beneath him socially that they didn’t trigger his insecurities like wealthy white men did.
Another point against Lee was his lack of attention to gathering intelligence. Jeb Stuart and reading northern newpapers was about the extent of his intelligence collecting. (Longstreet was the one who hired “Harrison” aas a scout during the Gettysburg campaign.) This is particularly baffling as Lee’s biggest job in the Mexican war was gathering intelligence. That information was put to very good use by Gen. Scott, as Lee well knew.
People used to beat carthorses, too, but that doesn’t mean they should all be set free.
You forgot about gas stations and restaurants.
The restaurant people are Bangladeshis.
:rolleyes: Silly bint, he said “another HUMAN BEING”, a designation that does not apply to carthorses.
I think you mean “expected.”
Don’t forget engineers, computer programmers, college professors, grad students, taxi drivers, convenience store owners, magazine stand clerks, movie theater employees, DMV officials, …
… and, of course, Democratic senatorial campaign volunteers …
We are a very diverse group! 
Seriously, though, S.R. Sidarth (Macaca) was a Virginian by birth. Allen moved around with his NFL family, but went to high school in Los Angeles and it was in California that he learned to love the Confederate flag.
Figure that one out …
I think that’s definitely a part of it. He also had a soft spot for Indians- when Black Hawk surrendered he famously ordered the chains be removed and treated him kindly- but then he didn’t see him as a threat. He didn’t feel that way about Mexicans because they were a threat, and the Indians who were still in Mississippi who had one way or another avoided removal he had no respect for at all.
Another part was that he was a notorious recluse for many years and the only people he saw were his slaves and his relatives. He was spoiled (his brother- 24 years his senior- had given him 1,800 acres along the Mississippi River) and of course he’s seen as godlike (not in the moral sense but in intelligence and power) by his slaves and the poor whites on the place so he wasn’t used to being disputed. The Davises also totally made their own rules- his brother had between 6 and 9 acknowledged illegitimate children by the time he married at 43 to a 15 year old girl and taught his slaves to read in violation of law- so he was from a very eccentric background and not used to being challenged in doing whatever the hell he wanted.
When he did re-emerge at 40 and began to encounter opposition in D.C. he couldn’t deal with it and too everything personally and cultivated a visceral hatred of his opponents. His second wife- half his age and strong willed- also had some serious problems with him. When she told him to go stuff himself over his control-freak ways he essentially tossed her aside until she pulled a Catherine Parr and begged on her knees to be forgiven and taken back into his good graces. (Since so many of the early bios of her were written by men she comes across as a Mary Todd Lincoln like shrew but that’s not the impression I get of her at all [which is admittedly biased since I’m writing a play in which she’s the main character- interesting woman- later moved to NYC when he died and praised her husband to the rafters in print and trashed him and the Confederacy in private correspondence, though she was interred with full honors as a Confederate icon when she died and shut up]).
I think he was mentally impaired at parts of the war. He didn’t want to serve at first- he spent most of the first year building up physical defenses and raising troops- and I think his health was not that great. Plus, you have to wrap your cigars in something. (Reference: Lee’s movement plans were intercepted at Shiloh because whoever possessed them wrapped them around his cigars; it was such a find that McLellan initially thought it was a plant, but nope.)
All you brown ones look the same.
:rolleyes: yourself. Slaves weren’t considered human in the same way that their owners were. Having to beat something to make it do the work you’ve assigned it isn’t a good argument for freeing it; plenty of slaves presumably worked without beatings of any kind, let along regular ones, while many animals have been beaten to make them perform tasks they do not desire to carry out. The ability to not only learn to read or write but to learn from being able to communicate in such a way, on the other hand, is a very good indication of personhood. We have laws against animal cruelty now–do we have laws against animal literacy?
And to throw a totally irrelevant comment in, there is a bar in Old Townnamed after Lighthorse Harry, where I spent a pleasant evening with friends a couple of Saturday’s ago.
Slave beatings most certainly occurred but most masters tried to minimize them. This wasn’t for humane reasons but economic: you don’t want to damage a slave’s ability to work or their resale value, and at auction slaves would usually be stripped and examined to see if they had scars. For this reason- the desire to minimize beatings- when slaves were beaten it was usually done in such a way as to set an example- i.e. they had the hell beaten out of them, often with salt rubbed into the wounds when it was done, not unlike the British navy (in which there was no cannibalism). This was probably particularly the case with Lee, who since he was working to free the slaves and resentful over it for many reasons didn’t give a damn about resale value.
By most accounts I’ve read the two most common things that would make a slave run away (and most escape attempts were failures for obvious reasons) were to avoid beatings for a serious infraction (e.g. damaging an expensive horse, hitting an overseer, etc.) or, first and foremost, the auction block (specifically either that they were going to be sold or their loved ones had been sold).
Some of the most chilling words on disciplining slaves came from Thomas Jefferson. I’d link if I could and I’m sure they’re on line somewhere. Jefferson has a reputation for some reason as having been a kind slave owner- I’m not really sure where that comes from (I suppose the need to see him as such) but he doesn’t appear to be any better than average and was worse than some.
He was good about not separating families, but with a huge asterisk: his extravagant lifestyle and near compulsive spending put him into such debt that when he died his slaves were ALL sold to the winds and just about every family was sold apart (BUT Jefferson was dead by this time, so he didn’t have to see it- this was a big part of Jefferson- out of sight out of mind [those who’ve been to Monticello are familiar with the revolving dumbwaiter door that allowed him not to see slaves in the dining room]).
He wrote to his daughter about an overseer that the man was (paraphrasing but not by much) “mean and base and too free with the lash”, BUT “he’s the best I’ve ever had in making money, so I’ll hold my nose and keep him”. And again- he was writing this from D.C. where he didn’t have to see the scars on the slaves.
When one of his slaves kept running away Jefferson lost his temper and gave instructions to sell him south and (again, paraphrasing but not much) “make it look as if he vanished into thin air”- i.e. sell him far away and answer no questions any slave has as to what happened to him, again the “set an example” punishment.
His relationship with Sally Hemings is of course something that we’ll never know the full story on- it’s been portrayed in movies and novels as a love affair and called ‘rape’ by detractors, personally I think it was a matter of mutual convenience in which there was probably some affection (hard to have sex with somebody for 30 years and feel nothing for them) but said affection was incidental- mainly he got a concubine and she got preferred treatment for herself and freedom for her children. Supposedly he was much taken with a portrait of van der Werff’s painting of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar that he was given a copy of it (i.e. a copy of a copy) and while I think psychoanalyzing the dead is somewhere between impossible and rude one can see the appeal: his wife (though she was herself a widow when she married him) asked him on her deathbed never to remarry, and part of the Sally legend that has ironically never been disputed is that she was his wife’s half sister, and Jefferson- like most planters- very definitely considered himself the patriarch, so disregarding the psychoanalyzing the dead caveat you can probably see him as considering Sally his wife’s sanctioned surrogate to him.
Jefferson had several slaves who were legally white, incidentally. By Virginia law, when your ancestry was down to 1/8 black (octoroon to use an antiquated term] or less, you were legally white (meaning you could legally own property/marry a white person/didn’t have to leave the state if freed/etc.). What it did NOT do was change your status from slave to free, and several members of the Hemings family were still enslaved though legally white. One of Sally’s nieces actually legally became engaged to a white lawyer in Charlottesville even though she was a slave; Jefferson did not manumit her, but he did sell her to the lawyer who freed her then married her.
Considering its namesake fled Alexandria for the Caribbean to avoid his debts, I wonder if they serve jerk chicken or let you run tabs.
