To say the least if you want to make your boss mad by having from Friday productivity go to ZERO, then go to First Thoughts Afternoon Links — 12.3.10
So much good stuff there. Here is a short essay by Robert Moore I enjoyed that is one among many things linked. See Is It Wrong to Display a Picture of Robert E. Lee? My Response
Friday, December 3, 2010
Southern Baptist Theologian Robert Moore on Confederate Flags and Pictures of Lee
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I know I've responded to this type of post before, but the use of confederate imagery or respect for confederate leaders is so far from a black and white (meaning clear-cut, not racial) issue that it is hard to lump Lee or Stonewall Jackson in with the likes Alex Stephens.
On the South's side you had Lee, who clearly fought for his native Virginia first and foremost without regard to slavery, and Stonewall Jackson who led a Sunday school class for slaves. On the North's side you had Gen Grant, who had owned slaves, was neutral on the slavery issue and issued the anti-semetic Gen Order No 11. The writings of Lincoln on race would probably have made most Southerners blush.
I know there were all sorts of reasons why people go to war. No doubt some who fought in the trenches were for or against slavery. However, it is my gut feeling that the abolition question was more of an ivory-tower debate than something that impassioned the men in either side's army (most union field generals talked about the need to squash secessionism, not slavery).
I find it hard to get my head around the suggestion that as late as the 1840 slaves were still legally held (though not many) in Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin; but by 1860 the same average joe citizens of these states were so fired up that they were willing to free southern slaves by blood.
As somewhat of a modern comparison, I find it analogous to some Bush II supporters claims that the second Iraq War was to remove Saddam Hussein and free the oppressed minorities. While that may have indeed been a secondary or tertiary reason, the primary reason was clearly to prevent the manufacture and distribution of WMDs.
IMO the must undercredited reason for the South's stubborn refusal to end slavery was the Nat Turner rebellion and Haitian slave rebellion. Many went from feeling like slavery would eventually die a natural death to "o crap! we obviously can't set these people loose."
My two (or three) cents.
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