NYTimes Charles Blow Opinion

[Steve]

As the one who sort of revived this thread, I feel obliged to make a reply to Rob's post at # 33. So, I'm going to put off my response to the Blow column for another month.

For the colonization issue, here's a good article to read:

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/262986...w=fulltext

I agree with Rob's point that we/historians should make moral judgements about the past. A lot of times the "we shouldn't judge the past by our standards" is used to obfuscate or ignore an issue. (Though it is always important to be reminded sometimes that past can be very different from our present world.) I've also seen the opposite where people want to make some type of moral judgement about the past and will bend the facts about the past to fit their preferred morality or politics.

As for Rob's specific points about Lincoln's talk with the delegation (which were bolded), I agree with Rob's points about their wrongheadedness, except for one. I disagree that Lincoln was blaming the war on Black people, I read it as Lincoln blaming the war on slavery.

I also believe the evidence of Lincoln's actions following the implementation of the Emancipation Proclamation and the large scale recruitment of African American soldiers indicate a change of heart on Lincoln's part on the issues of African Americans dignity and role in American life/society.