The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on July 09, 2025, 11:45:56 am ---I'm afraid I had to read FRiend Lee's post a couple of times before it got through my thick skull that she meant going back in time to George Washington, not Abraham Lincoln returning to Washington. D.C.
--- End quote ---
Ohhh, I misread it, too. Then I googled it and found that there've been at least a few (probably false) claims that Lincoln's wife had slaves and he sold them at some point, though perhaps not until she died. That doesn't sound very Lincolnesque to me. Especially because even in some cases presidents who owned slaves freed them rather than profited on their sale. Still, freeing them suggests that they knew in their heart of hearts that slavery was wrong but were too used to having the help while they were alive.
It's amazing how hypocritical some of the Founders were. What??! National leaders are never hypocritical, are they?? :laugh:
But that they could live with statements like "all men are created equal" while also owning humans suggests to me that they had completely accepted the idea that Black people were inferior beings and not entitled to the same rights and freedoms, that slavery was their proper role in life. We're just lucky that they stated the noble sentiment in vague language, rather than "all land-owning white males were created equal," or things like the Civil Rights Act would have been even more difficult to get through.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on July 11, 2025, 05:29:02 pm ---Ohhh, I misread it, too. Then I googled it and found that there've been at least a few (probably false) claims that Lincoln's wife had slaves and he sold them at some point, though perhaps not until she died. That doesn't sound very Lincolnesque to me. Especially because even in some cases presidents who owned slaves freed them rather than profited on their sale. Still, freeing them suggests that they knew in their heart of hearts that slavery was wrong but were too used to having the help while they were alive.
--- End quote ---
Do you mean "Washington" here?
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[*] Previous page
Go to full version