Response to The Founding Fathers ?

Little Bit Farm - Very well said, indeed!

Nice, lively debate. As for Mr. Rosen, though I do agree with some of your points, on some I must disagree. As far as REAL history goes, weren't many black African leaders in cahoots with slave traders as far back as the 16th century? Slavery was literally developed into an art form on the African continent centuries before we Western Europeans got in on the act.

On the subject of the noble American Indians, why are they considered natives? They did not originate here, but mearly migrated earlier then my ancestors.

As far as we destroying them, they had been destorying cultures of their own kind for millenia. The ancestors of the Cherokees, here in my neck of the woods, wiped out the culture that preceeded their arrival in the Tennessee valley. As a matter of fact, in the early 19th century some Cherokees even owned black slaves.

Does that mean Cherokees are evil? Of course not. Like African chieftans, southern plantation owners, settlers moving west, greedy robber barons, Swedish communists or not so perfect founding fathers, they're just human is all. We are going to do some rather awful things from time to time. All we can hope for is that those who do see the error of their ways and change (South Africa comes to mind). What's important is that what's past is past. You can't change it as I cannot change the fact that my ancestors wholeheartedly supported a Southern Confederacy with the institution of slavery. It's over, it's done, learn from it, don't make the same mistakes again and move on. Those people were no better or worse than ourselves.

Nice point on States Rights however. It is really too bad that the issue had to come to a head over that peculiar institution. Had it been over purely economic issues outside of slavery, I doubt the north could have turned what to southerners was mearly an argument over the right of succession into a holy crusade, while at the same time millions of emigrants were inslaved to the economic system of the northeast, I might add.

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