Mark T Pitcavage (mpitc...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu) wrote:
: In article <4oilro$...@panix2.panix.com>, Linda Teasley <l...@panix.com> wrote:

: >  Nothing of the sort.  Reconstruction was wholly dominated by the
: >Radicals in Congress and their Committee on Reconstruction, which was
: >composed mostly of radicals and radicals dominated all the committees.

These statements are factually wrong.  Moderates controlled the
committees; Sumner, for example, was not a participant.  Nor did Radicals
control the Congress.  Many historians, including a heck of a lot of
non-Marxists, know this.  In fact, on this score Foner simply
incorptoates the works of other historians, such as Eric McKitrick, David
Donald, and Michael Les Benedict.  The conservative historians Earl Maltz
also makes this point in an excellent little book on Reconstruction
legislation.  

: >Moderates succeeded only very late in 1) not voting to impeach Johnson,
: >which infuriated the radicals, and 2) FINALLY, in 1876, because popular
: >support for their military control of the South was flagging, radicals
: >got largely voted out of office.

This changes things from the composition of Republicans in Congress in
1865-68 to voting patterns in the South in 1876--not exactly a logical
path of progression.  

Actually, most of the radicals of the 1860s were out of politics long
before 1876.  Sumner and Stevens certainly were.  They were dead.

: >  I have chronicled the Marxist views of Foner, but I will number the
: >posts in this thread and refer you to the correct one if you will specify
: >what you want to know.  The Marxist version of the Civil War and
: >Reconstruction is the most prevalent view now, so Foner is hardly alone.

This would be funny if it didn't betray such ignorance of recent
scholarship.  I know the folks in Madison, Wisconsin, would find it
extremely funny to hear me classified as a Marxist.

Please, Linda, name names.  The Committee on UnConfederate Activities is
waiting.

--Brooks Simpson

Foner, p445:

  ...Grant, coming from a military background, looked upon cabinet
  members as ``staff officers,'' whose main qualification was that they
  enjoyed his confidence or had done him personal favors. Composed
  largely of men with little political influence and ``abilities below
  mediocrity,'' Grant's Cabinet seemed oddly detached from the debates
  of Reconstruction. Initially, former supporters of Andrew Johnson
  outnumbered those identified with Congressional policy, and
  representatives of Southern Republicanism were excluded altogether...

  ...Grant quickly learned the rules of party politics. He came
  increasingly to rely on leading members of Congress for advice and
  guidance, and brought Radical George S. Boutwell into the Cabinet...

But weren't there plenty more where they came from? Stevens was
replaced by Oliver P. Morton, who I understand was a big R Radical.

-Mike

Let's say that Eric and I disagree on this point.  For one thing, John
Creswell was from Maryland.

However, Grant was a moderate Republican.  A Radical was unelectable as
president.

This reverses cause and effect (and so Foner is wrong).  Boutwell came in
after it was discovered (after the Senate had confirmed him) that
Alexander T. Stewart was ineligible to serve as Secretary of the
Treasury.  Grant forged his alliances with Republicans in Congress in
1870-71.

By the way, Grant hated Sumner and Schurz.

Nah.  In fact, at first Morton (in 1865) was a Johnson supporter.  
Radicalism, to the extent that it had any meaning in the 1870s, was much
different that the radicalism of Stevens and Sumner in the 1860s.

Brooks Simpson

: Mark T Pitcavage (mpitc...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu) wrote:
: : In article <4oilro$...@panix2.panix.com>, Linda Teasley <l...@panix.com> wrote:

: : >  Nothing of the sort.  Reconstruction was wholly dominated by the
: : >Radicals in Congress and their Committee on Reconstruction, which was
: : >composed mostly of radicals and radicals dominated all the committees.

: These statements are factually wrong.  Moderates controlled the
: committees;

  That is incorrect.  The Committee of Fifteen, the most powerful
inter-congressional committee on Reconstruction, was dominated by Radicals.

 Sumner, for example, was not a participant.

  True.  So?  Nobody brought up his name.

  Nor did Radicals
: control the Congress.

  They did for a while.

  I said:
: : >  I have chronicled the Marxist views of Foner, but I will number the
: : >posts in this thread and refer you to the correct one if you will specify
: : >what you want to know.  The Marxist version of the Civil War and
: : >Reconstruction is the most prevalent view now, so Foner is hardly alone.

: This would be funny if it didn't betray such ignorance of recent
: scholarship.  I know the folks in Madison, Wisconsin, would find it
: extremely funny to hear me classified as a Marxist.

  Are you saying that I have classified you as a Marxist?  You're dreaming.

: Please, Linda, name names.  The Committee on UnConfederate Activities is
: waiting.

  Tee hee.

  lgt

--
  Five pelican bedecked battle flags began to flap. . . three thousand
men stepped off on the left foot.  With strict cadence, ninety paces per
minute, a forest of burnished steel paraded up the hill.
                                Winchester ---  25 May 1862  

: hub...@hubcap.clemson.edu (System Janitor) wrote:
   [snip of Foner quotation]
: Let's say that Eric and I disagree on this point.

  That is, perhaps, to your eternal credit.  One would hope that you
disagree with Eric on lots of things, including his eternal fascination
with all things Soviet.

: However, Grant was a moderate Republican.  A Radical was unelectable as
: president.

  A compromise with radicals was absolutely essential for election, and
Grant wanted to be president.  It's hard to fault him for his change of
views because of this perfectly understandable human weakness.

: By the way, Grant hated Sumner and Schurz.

  Sumner's intellectual snobbery turned off a lot of people, including Grant.
:  
  Linda T.

--
  Five pelican bedecked battle flags began to flap. . . three thousand
men stepped off on the left foot.  With strict cadence, ninety paces per
minute, a forest of burnished steel paraded up the hill.
                                Winchester ---  25 May 1862  

No it was not.  In fact, even a conservative republican, William Pitt
Fessenden, headed it.

Mark T Pitcavage (mpitc...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu) wrote:

   I had said:
: >    The Committee of Fifteen, the most powerful
: >inter-congressional committee on Reconstruction, was dominated by Radicals.

: No it was not.  In fact, even a conservative republican, William Pitt
: Fessenden, headed it.

  Not the most extravagantly pro-radical imagination such as yours could
characterize Fessenden as a conservative Republican.  He was a radical
who hated Johnson and opposed Sumner on the representation bill.  He
assisted the radicals in unseating Senator Stockton so that they could
change the vote on a key radical measure.  He was also self-righteous and
smug about his views, as were most other radicals.

  "It [the bill for Reconstruction] opens a way by which the Southern
mind -- to speak of it as the Southern mind -- may be led to that which
is right and just.  I have hopes, great hopes, of those who were recently
Confederates; and I believe that now that theyhave been taught that they
can not do evil, to all the extent that they might desire, with impunity,
and when their attention is turned of necessity in the right direction,
the road will seem so pleasant to their feet, or, at any rate, will seem
so agreeable to their love of power, that they will be willing to walk
in the direction that we have pointed."

  Thus spake Fessenden.

  Linda "barf" Teasley
--
  Five pelican bedecked battle flags began to flap. . . three thousand
men stepped off on the left foot.  With strict cadence, ninety paces per
minute, a forest of burnished steel paraded up the hill.
                                Winchester ---  25 May 1862  

Linda, I have to admire your incredible energy, and your willingness to defend
a cause even after it is obvious to all that you do not know what you are
talking about, but you are going to have to learn how to let well enough alone.
 Calling William Pitt Fessenden a radical who hated Johnson just won't pass
muster.  For practically forever, Fessenden has been recognized as -not- a
member of the radical republicans.

Even someone like Claude "Mr. Tragic Era" Bowers, the great friend of yours and
Mikes, notes that Johnson admired Fessenden and that Fessenden along with Lyman
Trumbell "had felt bitterly on slavery and rebellion, but hopes to reconcile
the factions, unite the party, and thwart the extreme views of Stevens."  Hmm,
uniting the party and thwarting Thaddeus Stevens doesn't sound like a radical.

Decades after Claude Bowers wrote his book, Eric McKitrick in his book on
Andrew Johnson characterizes Fessenden as a moderate criticized by extreme
radicals and extreme conservatives alike, and suggests that "one discovers a
great deal more about the government crisis that was participated in the winter
and early spring of 1865-66 by following the course of things along -his- angle
of vision--and that of his colleagues Trumbull, Grimes, and Sherman--than by
following the philippics of Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens."  And as for
"hating Johnson," as you suggest, McKitrick notes instead that Fessenden
reached out to Johnson in 1865 and "indicated to Johnson that if the latter
wanted allies in Congress he could have the most powerful ones there were.  
Fessenden's own great influence was available to him..."

Decades after McKitrick wrote his book, Eric Foner in his book on
Reconstruction characterizes Fessenden as a moderate and notes of the Joint
Committee on Reconstruction that its membership "was carefully balanced among
the party's factions.  Moderate Senator William Pitt Fessenden of Maine
occupied the chair, while Sumner, considered 'too ultra,' was left of
entirely."  Like Bowers and McKitrick, Foner notes that "politically,
ideologically and temperamentally, moderate leaders like James G. Blaine and
John A. Bingham in the House, and Lyman Trumbull, John Sherman, and William
Pitt Fessenden in the Senate, differed markedly from their Radical colleagues."

So amazingly there has been complete continuity across the years, from
Dunningites to revisionists to post-revisionists, all of them agreeing that
Fessenden was a moderate and not a radical.

Only Linda Teasley stands alone, bravely maintaining her bold stance.  You can
send cards and letters to her courtesy of the University of South Florida or
the Coca-Cola Company.

Mark T Pitcavage (mpitc...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu) wrote:

: So amazingly there has been complete continuity across the years, from
: Dunningites to revisionists to post-revisionists, all of them agreeing that
: Fessenden was a moderate and not a radical.

  The evidence that you present is at odds with your assertion that
Fessenden was a "conservative."

: Only Linda Teasley stands alone, bravely maintaining her bold stance.  You can
: send cards and letters to her courtesy of the University of South Florida or
: the Coca-Cola Company.

  You're adorable, but your information is, as usual, outdated.

  Linda T.
--
  Five pelican bedecked battle flags began to flap. . . three thousand
men stepped off on the left foot.  With strict cadence, ninety paces per
minute, a forest of burnished steel paraded up the hill.
                                Winchester ---  25 May 1862  

Call them Radical Republicans and Moderate Republicans; call them Radical
Republicans and Conservative Republicans.  Some historians such as David Donald
have adopted intricate classification systems.  Whatever you call the wings,
the point is that William Pitt Fessenden was not, as you so boldly assert, a
radical.  Why don't you admit that you were wrong?

In article <4p1hm5$...@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>,
mpitc...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Mark T Pitcavage) writes of the rights
of slaves:

In bringing "civilization" to the semi-tropical regions of North America,
the early English settlers found themselves handicapped in four key ways:

1. An inhospitable climate: In the 1600s, the coastal regions of Virginia
and Carolina were almost completely forested and entangled in underbrush
-- a jungle. The heat and humidity were such as few Englishmen had ever
imagined. Swarms of biting and stinging insects, including mosquitos which
transmitted malaria and other diseases, were a constant plague.

2. A shortage of labor: French and Spanish colonies in the region had
floundered for this basic reason. Continental peasantry would no sooner
choose to die in a malarial swamp than would any other people. The middle
class had little reason to leave home and seek death at the hands of
hostile natives in a newly-discovered wilderness.  Once it was discovered
that there were no hordes of gold to be plundered (De Soto 1540-45), the
main European outposts in the Southeast for 100 years were the military
bastions of Bourbon dynasties and the religious missions of the Papacy,
with the occasional trading expedition bringing in furs from the interior.
There simply was not enough immigration to these colonies to supply the
labor force necessary to sustain "civilization." Jamestown nearly
collapsed in its early years and the prospects for English settlement
between the Chesapeake and the Gulf looked dim.

3. A shortage of capital: England groaned under taxation, necessary to
support its repeated wars of empire with the Continental powers. While
ambitious men would furnish money as capital to colonial ventures, the
colonists themselves received little or no subsidy from the mother country
and were constantly strapped for cash.

4. Constant threats from natives. The American Indians tribes of the lower
Southeast were a very warlike people, having in the Mississippian period
elevated combat to the status of a religious rite. That the words "crazy"
and "fool" (rough translations of the proto-Creek terms) both were
synonyms of "brave" to these people should give some indication of their
fearlessness in battle. The Indians also had a distinctive code of honor,
and any slight to a leader's dignity might be construed as just cause for
war. Thus, while tiny bands of English settlers battled mosquitoes and
poverty while trying to settle a bleak wilderness, they also occasionally
found themselves sending away part of their labor force to fight and die
against these native warriors, in order to keep from losing what little
"civilization" they had created on American shores.

The answer to this quartet of problems was African slavery. Whether it was
a just or humane answer is certainly subject to debate, but that slavery
was an effective answer is beyond dispute. Once African labor was
introduced to the English colonies, those colonies grew and flourished in
a remarkable way. It should be remembered that slavery existed in all of
the original colonies. New York City had a huge slave market in the early
1700s, the plantations of the Hudson River valley were worked by slave
labor and -- despite protests from the Quakers -- colonial Pennsylvania
had tens of thousands of African slaves.

Slavery came to the English settlements of North America in a number ways.
The Spanish and French had originally tried to make slaves of the native
Indians, yet found them prone to disappear into the wilderness where they
were hidden among their fellow Indians -- a tricky business. The first
English settlers had first tried the same thing; entire volumes have been
written by anthropologists studying the effects of English attempts to use
the Cherokee and other friendly tribes for slave-raiding into the
interior.

Nearly two hundred years before the founding of Jamestown, however, the
Portugese explorers had encountered slavery along the African coast and --
being frustrated in reaching the fabled riches of the East -- had decided
that commerce in this human wealth was fair recompense for their efforts.
It was not until the discovery of the New World, though, that a great
demand for African labor developed. In the De Soto chronicles is told how
a mass suicide by native Indian slaves in Cuban gold mines in 1540
resulted in the Spanish first introducing African slaves to that island,
and soon such slaves were being imported to the Caribbean, South and
Central America by the tens of thousands. At various times, the Portugese,
Spanish, Dutch, French and English were  all involved in this practice.
Ninety-four percent of slaves shipped from Africa were delivered to the
West Indies, South or Central America.

The Dutch brought the first black slaves to Virginia in the early 1600s.
Later, French and English slaveholders from the West Indies carried the
practice to South Carolina. Georgia -- founded as a refuge for English
debtors -- had at first forbidden slavery, though within a few decades the
colonists (jealous of the wealth they saw in neighboring Carolina) had
overruled this ban.

At all times, however, it was true that slavery tended to flourish chiefly
a.) in inhospitable climates; and b.) where there was profit to be made
from cash crops. The rice of Carolina and the tobacco of Virginia both
grew in hot, humid climates. To plant and harvest these crops in
marketable quantities required a large and stable work force during those
seasons, and neither white nor Indian populations proved sufficient for
this purpose.

So it was that by 1700, chattel slavery had established itself firmly in
the English colonies of North America. As "civilization" took root, the
oppressed of Britain began to flock to these shores in greater numbers.
Craftsmen and laborers found jobs in the cities of the Northeast, while
hardy yeoman farm families spread out toward the frontiers along the
slopes of the Appalachian chain. Yet in the coastal areas of the South,
slave labor still ruled over huge plantations where rice, tobacco and
cotton were grown. The families which pushed toward the frontier in the
1700s -- including Thomas Jefferson's family -- took slavery with them,
but the practice of slavery in Piedmont Virginia was markedly different
from the practice in coastal Carolina, and the size of black populations
in the upland regions never rivalled those of the littoral.

The American Revolution brought the first real tug at the fabric of
slavery. Jefferson wrote a clause into the Declaration of Independence
condemning the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but it was rejected at the
urging of delegates from South Carolina and New England. The Carolinian
interest in slavery was obvious; few among the general public now realize
that New England shippers and merchants were up to their necks in the
slave trade.

Within a few months of the ratification of the Constitution, a clever New
Englander visiting Georgia devised a mechanism for separating cotton fiber
from its seed. This made possible the profitable cultivation of upland
cotton and opened the American South to what was perhaps the most
lucrative agriculture of all history, including even the opium poppy and
the coca bush. With a few hundred acres and a few dozen slaves, vast
fortunes could be (and were) made in a few short years. During the decades
preceding 1861, cotton was by far the most valuable of American exports.

Slaves did many other kinds of work besides picking cotton, of course; the
tobacco of Kentucky and Virginia, the rice of the Carolinas, the sugar of
Louisiana -- these, too, were the products of slave labor. And black
servants performed every manner of service and craft both in the towns and
in the country: Cooks, maids, butlers, blacksmiths, carpenters. The very
pillars of those old Southern mansions were hewed and erected by the hands
of African-American slaves. They were mainly employed in manual or
domestic labor, but some few blacks (both free and slave) advanced to such
skilled positions as tutors, overseers and even became slave-owning
planters themselves!

And while it was rare enough, it was sometimes the case that a white
slaveholder would bring his black maidservant to court, petitioning for
her manumission; the writ being granted, the slaveholder then would
immediately request that he and his recent chattel be united as man and
wife. Rare, and shocking to public sentiment, but it happened.

Slavery was not everywhere, then, universally a system of gang-labor
driven on daily by the lash. Even on the massive plantations of
Mississippi Delta country, the hardest work of planting and harvesting
consumed but a few weeks of the entire year. But the immense wealth
generated by King Cotton came to define slavery. The declining family of
grandees in Maryland, their property's soil leached out by generations of
tobacco harvests, might find that the planters of Alabama and Georgia
would pay good money for slaves. To threaten slavery in the Deep South,
then, was to threaten the value of slave property everywhere. The boy who
grew up in a frontier cabin -- though born into a family that owned no
slaves -- might either aspire to himself become a planter himself one day,
or else perceive that wholesale emancipation could somehow disrupt the
social system he had known all his life.

We have seen how, in the 1600s, the labor of African slaves was vital to
making the permanent English settlement of North America a possibility.
This system of labor -- created by Africans, exploited by the Portugese
and exported by the ships of ...

read more »

In article <4p39tj$...@hermes.acs.unt.edu>, jsand...@jove.acs.unt.edu

The people who were slaves in America in 1860 had, for the most part, been
slaves in America for many generations. Prior to that, many of them were
descended from people who had been slaves in the West Indies. But all of
them, I believe, were the descendants of men and women who had originally
been enslaved in Africa. Africans enslaved Africans and sold them to
European (and later American) slave merchants for re-sale in the New
World.
The point being that the slave status of African-Americans in the
antebellum South was hereditary, just as the free status of English
colonists was also hereditary. The Founding Fathers made a great deal of
tracing their history to show that they had been free men when they
"migrated hither," that they had not since lost the rights of Englishmen,
and that they had no intent in 1776 of surrendering their rights to
Parliament, the King or his ministry. American free men were equal, under
the law, to their English brethren, and had equal claims to
representation, et cetera -- this was the essential burden and intent of
Jefferson's phrase.
The African-American slaves had no such pedigree of ancient and hereditary
rights to parade before the "just opinions of mankind." They had been
brought to this nation as slaves and European Americans had no knowledge
of African constitutions, charters, et cetera, granting these people any
rights at all. A master might grant freedom to his slave, but that was
about it.
Many slaves were not "held in bondage by superior force," although they
would have welcomed freedom had it been an option.
As it was, it took a long bloody war to bring about the end of slavery,
and it took another year to remove all other legal restrictions upon the
descendants of those bondmen. But to create by fiat "a right to freedom"
for the slave is mere semantics and demagoguery.

Robert Stacy McCain

In article <4p2212$...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, reb4l...@aol.com (REB 4

(QUOTING PITCAVAGE)

And now R4L
Reb, I believe Pitcavage's middle name is either "Rousseau" or "Marat."

The right of freedom, like all human rights, *is* hereditary-- if you have
a human genome, then by golly you've got the right.  The right is not a
legal one, it is not a historical one, but rather innate to being a human
being; as Jefferson put it (in a deistic way) we are "endowed by [our]
Creator with certain inalienable rights."

I'm happy to join with Locke, Rousseau, Jefferson, Hutcheson, etc. in
being a semantic and a demagogue, when I say that all human beings have
fundamental, inalienable rights which flow from no other source than that
they are human beings.

--
Justin M. Sanders           "I shot an arrow into the air.  It fell
Dept. of Physics               to earth I know not where." --Henry
Univ. of South Alabama           Wadsworth Longfellow confessing
jsand...@jaguar1.usouthal.edu     to a sad ignorance of ballistics.

In article <4s99qm$...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,

Gee, if natural rights were good enough for Thomas Jefferson, I guess they're
good enough for me.

In article <4s99so$...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,

This is without a doubt one of the dumbest posts I have ever read.  All humans
have a right to freedom, regardless of whether or not they or their
grandfathers or their great-grandfathers had been free in the past.

On 13 Jul 1996 19:01:44 -0400, rstacy2...@aol.com (RStacy2229) wrote:

<lots stuff snipped>

:The African-American slaves had no such pedigree of ancient and hereditary
:rights to parade before the "just opinions of mankind." They had been
:brought to this nation as slaves and European Americans had no knowledge
:of African constitutions, charters, et cetera, granting these people any
:rights at all. A master might grant freedom to his slave, but that was
:about it.

HUH??? Ever hear of such a thing as "natural rights"? A right to own
one's person, as in self? The Africans were brought as slaves to this
hemisphere because they were captured and kidnapped. There were no
volunteers among the slaves. At least none that have written their
memoirs.

:Many slaves were not "held in bondage by superior force," although they
:would have welcomed freedom had it been an option.

You betcha, Ubangi!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lynn Berkowitz                                    lynnb...@ix.netcom.com

In article <31e867c9.4042...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, lynnb...@ix.netcom.com

Ms. Berkowitz,

I refer you to my reply to Mark P.  Can you not stick to the context of
the message to which you reply?  It dealt with historical precedents, not
"natural rights".

R4L

In article <4s9fc6$...@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>,
mpitc...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Mark T Pitcavage) writes:

<prior part of RSM's post snipped>

Stick to the context, Mark.  Your little philosphical interjection in
quite irrelevant.

R4L

REB 4 LIFE (reb4l...@aol.com) wrote:

I refer Allan back to the quoted article that Mr. McCain was replying to--
it was mine, and it *was* about natural rights.  The whole topic of the
sub-thread was a discussion about the legal rights of slaves versus the
natural human rights of all people including slaves.

--
Justin M. Sanders           "I shot an arrow into the air.  It fell
Dept. of Physics               to earth I know not where." --Henry
Univ. of South Alabama           Wadsworth Longfellow confessing
jsand...@jaguar1.usouthal.edu     to a sad ignorance of ballistics.

In article <4sc2lc$...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
REB 4 LIFE <reb4l...@aol.com> wrote:

Why do "historical precedents" take precedence over natural rights?  Certain
things are inalienable.  The previous poster suggested that the slaves had no
rights because, he asserted, they had had no rights.  But all people are
possessed of certain rights, are they not?  And the fact that some people may
be denied the exercise of those rights through the tyranny of slavery in no way
means they do not possess them.

In article <4scarn$...@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>,
mpitc...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Mark T Pitcavage) writes:

That's all just fine, Mark.  I made no statement regarding the precedence
of one kind of "rights" over another.  It would be nice if you folks could
discuss
slavery without getting all bound up in "natural" or "moral" rights.  I
don't think
anyone who posts here has a problem acknowledging the immorality of
slavery, although there are quite a few of us who draw the line when it
comes to attaching a stigma of immorality to people who were born in a
time when slavery was so imbedded in the social and economic structure.

R4L

In article <4s99so$...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, rstacy2...@aol.com says...
[SNIP]

Are you living in the 1990's or 1790's.  I guess it would be OK for
you that if your parents were slaves that therefore you MUST be
a slave and have no other rights.  Or if you parents were in jail that
therefore you must also be in jail.  Who cares what you parents did
or didn't belong to.  Some of the greatest leaders of this country
came from some of the worst backgrounds.  It almost blows my mind
that someone would even make a effort to support slavery this long
after it has ended.  

I am personally shocked at the way many of our
ancestors treated the Native Americans.  And will in no way make any
cheap and easy concessions to them.  I could make some wild claims
like you do about manifest destiny and signed treaties and of how
they were thought of as savages.  But this would all be a smoke screen
for a major disgrace. I choose to accept what happened at face value
and try to learn from it.  You on the other hand seem to want to hold
onto some idea no matter what.  Amazing....

--
Monte Christensen              | "Work is causing me to lose my religion"
Email: Mon...@Microsoft.com    |   -- Personal Adaptation of REM

In article <4s9f9b$...@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>,
mpitc...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Mark T Pitcavage) writes:

MARK PITCAVAGE: APOLOGIST FOR A SLAVEHOLDER!!!
How much longer until the Political Correctness Society revokes your
membership, Mark?
RSMc

In article <4s9f60$...@hermes.acs.unt.edu>, jsand...@jove.acs.unt.edu

Well, whoop-te-do, Mr. Sanders. And since you are so firmly committed to
stamping out social injustice, why don't you just hop the next flight to
Tehran or Beijing and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?

BUT, NO-O-O-O-O-O-O, you're going to sit there in your ivory tower and
malign Americans who have mostly been dead for 100 years or more, which
will perpetuate forever your name among the hallowed halls of academia,
where such activities seem to be the raison d'etre for your funding by the
Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Humanities and
assorted grants from foundations established by misguided Robber Barons
who thought they could buy their way into heaven. The world has gone plumb
crazy, I reckon.

Robert Stacy "feelin' right at home" McCain