tina (tls@ziplink.net)
Fri, 04 Feb 2000 14:31:50 -0500
At 11:08 PM 2/3/00 EST, you wrote:
>
>I couldn't agree more. That's exactly how I feel about Lincoln's
>Emancipation Proclamation. Too radical. He just refused to face the fact
>that SOME African Americans were happy to be in the tender care of
>well-meaning owners. It would have been so much better to open people's
>minds by just emancipating slaves a couple of years at a time -- say, all
>slaves over 60, then all slaves over 58 a few years later, when people were
>somewhat weaned from their view of slavery as the perfect condition for ALL
>African-Americans, and accepted the proposition that slavery may not be the
>best condition for each and every one of them.
>
Dan -
I think she has a valid point - how you go about freeing the education
system is critical. To use your analogy, Lincoln's goal was excellent, but
his methods were half-baked, involving a bloody war, the economic collapse
of the South, the creation of a new elitist class of Northerners, and a new
underclass of Southerners.
The effects of all this have lingered to this day in the form of racial hatred.
Lincoln had no plan for the emancipated slaves, but left them without skills
or education in a world where no jobs were available.
Was it better to starve to death but be free? Quite likely, but it wasn't
necessary.
T.
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