Extemporaneous musings, occasionally poetic, about life in its richly varied dimensions, especially as relates to history, theology, law, literature, science, by one who is an attorney, ordained minister, historian, writer, and African American.
Thursday, August 10, 2017
WORTH FIGHTING FOR, excerpt
I do not doubt that most white people are white supremacists, given their religion, education , culture, power, and money. In fact, I marvel that all whites are not so!
For the same reason:
I do not doubt that most black people are black inferiorists, given their religion, education, culture, relative lack of power and money. I marvel that all blacks are not so!
This thought was inspired by a passage from the book, WORTH FIGHTING FOR (A History of the Negro in the United States During the Civil War and Reconstruction, Illustrated) by Agnes McCarthy, Lawrence Reddick, et al. (1965):
"Horace Greeley, a New York newspaper publisher, wrote a letter to Lincoln . Greeley asked the President to make the war a moral issue, that is, to make the war a battle for human rights and to let the Negro join the battle. Lincoln replied to Greeley by saying, 'My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save the Union by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that...
"A Union general, George B. McClellan, went even further. No matter how the war turned out, he said, slaves would still be slaves at the end, and masters would be masters. When another Union general, John C. Fremont, freed the slaves in Missouri, President Lincoln had the order of freedom cancelled. In some cases the Union Army actually helped slaveholders to keep their slaves."
P.7.