In San Francisco, Virus is Contained but Schools Are Still Closed

[David Lockmiller]

(12-15-2020 09:29 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  David,

Just curious. Did you know George Washington would take puppies that he didn't find to be "pure," tie them up in a sack, and drown them? Does that bother you at all?

Best
Rob

I found a lengthy article on this subject.

It begins with an abstract of the well-documented article itself as follows:

The Dogs of George Washington and the Less Fortunate Ones of His Slaves
by John Ensminger

Abstract:
The practices of George Washington as to the dogs on his plantation and with which he hunted, and his attitudes towards the dogs of his slaves, show considerable influence from his English roots, though with significant adaptation to the very different North American environment. Practices such as drowning puppies from unwanted unions of his hunting dogs with loose dogs on the plantation reflect a period where dogs that did not have an economic or decorative purpose were thought best to remove. Hanging excess dogs of slaves, or threatening to do so, continues a practice found in English law for dogs that violated forest and game laws. Washington’s efforts to re-establish a hunting pack after the Revolutionary War shows how keen he was to resume his participation in the hunt, though his disappointment with the dogs supplied by the Marquis de Lafayette prove that he was still able to judge the quality of a dog even when he could no longer participate in the sport at the level he had in his youth. His efforts to find an Irish wolfhound show that he appreciated the range of functions dogs could perform. Washington was not a precursor of the cooing pet lovers that have since inhabited the White House, but rather had the tastes and skills of an English gentleman with hunting property.

In his conclusion to the lengthy article, the author wrote:

It is not fair to judge our first president by modern concepts of humaneness, nor to expect that he should keep alive dogs for which an estate such as Mount Vernon had no use. Neither can it be expected that a slave owner would overlook the activities of slaves of which he disapproved, and it is arguable that hanging dogs before their masters was a way of frightening the slaves sufficiently that no punishment would be needed for the owners of the animals. Nevertheless, it is not appropriate to overlook such facts in an effort to make the first president into a precursor of later cooing pet lovers in the White House. He lived in an age when dogs were expected to be useful, and likely more than any of his successors in office knew how to make them so.

Rob, I hope that you don't lose any sleep after reading this.

By the way, Rob, what have you personally done to prevent the elected members of the San Francisco School Board from unjustly and unfairly dishonoring the character and reputation of President Abraham Lincoln? As far as I know, San Francisco is the first city in the United States that has considered doing something like this. Oh, yes, try to be as brief as possible.