General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: OK, non Confederate leaders statues coming down. [View all]hlthe2b
(102,237 posts)confederate traitors to this country and our founding Fathers will likely elicit a firestorm of controversy and recriminations. To state there is just such a difference is NOT to defend their failures to address the sin of slavery--both personally and in creating the framework upon which our country was founded. But, how long will it be before Lincoln is likewise a focus of derision and disdain because of his own compromises vis-a-vis slavery? He surely fails if one expects a complete and perfect record on this score...
Slavery is our nation's disgrace. No one should glorify the institution nor those who sought to perpetuate it in any way. On that, we can surely agree. But is there no room to judge gradations of culpability and failure on this score--against the totality of the record? Is George Washington really no different than Jefferson Davis or Stonewall Jackson or even Robert E. Lee? Should Thomas Jefferson be judged no differently than Confederate General and KKK Grand Wizard, Nathan Bedford Forrest? Should U. S. Grant, who defeated the Confederacy and went on to fight the KKK's attacks on freed slaves be assessed no differently than Andrew Johnson, who fought to end reconstruction and to turn back all Lincoln's efforts to bring civil rights to black people in the South? (and yes, for the moment I am not addressing Grant's history on Native American issues for which we could/should have an entirely separate discussion and accounting).
I'm still trying to sort these issues out for myself, so please recognize that much of my post is rhetorical. But, like my sigline, I think we need to both appraise and "reappraise" with a full understanding of the record and history.