There are several problems with the argument advanced by Ms. Threadgill, but one of them is that she has (I think) misunderstood what I wrote.  I have denied feeling any personal culpability in slavery, but that does not mean that I and indeed everyone else who is a US citizen now does not share some collective responsibility for it.

I do not know how to balance ancestral deeds.  Does the death of one of my ancestors who fought under the command of Col. Leopold Von Gilsa at Barlow's knob, on the first day of Gettsyburg, balance out the deaths of a direct ancestor and several cousins who fought under the command of Brigadier General John Robertson at Little Round top the following day?  The one was explicitly fighting to end slavery, and gave his life in the effort to do so.  I know this from his letters home. The others were fighting to preserve slavery ( as anyone who bothers to read the documents in which Southern states explained secession can easily see).

What about my ancestors who joined the New York abolition society in the 1840s, and donated time and monies to that worthy cause?  I can take no personal pride in their efforts, noble as they were, because were I personally put to the test, I do not know that I would have had the courage they displayed.  But I do think all of us should take collective pride in what they did.  Does their heroism mitigate at all the evils in which others of my ancestors were implicated?

Even more pointedly, what do I make of the fact that, while various of my ancestors have at various times made (and lost) modest fortunes, most of the ones about whom I know anything, who owned slaves, were impoverished when I pick them up in the 1870 census.  That is because, like most slave owners, they were mortgaged to their eyeballs, and the collateral for their debts was their slaves.  They had it coming--I feel little sympathy.  But their children--my more immediate ancestors--were farming on shares in east Texas in 1900.  And THEIR children--my great-grand parents--were picking cotton side by side with black and hispanic men and women in 1933, and sending what little they made home to their parents at the height of the Great Depression.  So at least if my family is to be judged, the prosperous slave owners of the 1850s hardly left much fortune to their kids and grand-kids, let alone to someone like me, separated now from them by six or seven generations.

I think it just is not possible nor feasible to think that we can somehow parse out personal responsibility for the morally reprehensible choices of people who died sixty years prior to my birth.  I do not think that the effort to parse out the blame on a personal basis is productive, or indeed even ethical.

All best wishes,
Kevin


Sent from my iPad

> On Sep 9, 2014, at 4:21 PM, "Linda Threadgill" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> For those who feel it is not your burden to carry, if you profited in any way from slavery you are indeed responsible. If you received monies, property, etc that has been handed down thru the generations because of the efforts of slavery, you are responsible. That is, unless your turned down the inheritance. I love the way some like to separate themselves from the wrongdoings of their ancestors regardless of what the wrongdoing was.
> Linda
> 
> -----Original Message----- From: Hardwick, Kevin R - hardwikr
> Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2014 10:52 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Out-migration from Virginia early 1810-1840
> 
> Jerry--
> 
> My family too owned slaves.  I also have reason to believe that at least one of my ancestors, in the early 19th century, was herself enslaved.
> 
> That was their misfortune, not mine.  I am responsible for my choices, just as they for theirs.  It is hard to argue at this remove, given the many generations and decades that separate them from us, that either you or I have derived much expansion of opportunity relative to others.  So I do not see the purpose of this discussion as to be about assigning personal moral culpability to any particular person, in the present.
> 
> But it seems to me that it is possible, and indeed useful, to engage in this conversation for other reasons.
> 
> Martin Luther King talked about the ideals of America's public, political and constitutional tradition as a promissory note to which all Americans are heir.  One of the things of which we all should be proud is the ongoing effort to realize that dream.  The story of slavery and its aftermath in our country is very much a part of that, and necessary if we are to appreciate properly the struggles and aspirations of the admirable men and women who bequeathed that dream to you and to me.
> 
> All best wishes,
> Kevin
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
>> On Sep 9, 2014, at 1:41 PM, "Jerry Midkiff" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> 
>> We are talking about a subject that is over two hundred years old.  My family owned slaves.  It's hard  taking the blame for them.  I cannot change history.
>>> On Sep 8, 2014, at 9:39 PM, Paul Heinegg <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Is there evidence that a significant number of small slave owners considered their slaves to be something other than property?
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message----- From: Craig Kilby
>>> Sent: Monday, September 08, 2014 2:46 PM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Out-migration from Virginia early 1810-1840
>>> 
>>> Dear Paul,
>>> 
>>> I am so sorry you are insulted and deeply offended. I have no idea why you should be. I did not mention you by name, and in fact was not really referring to you specifically, just the comment that 800,000 slaves were sold into the Deep South and that the huge out-migration had many aspects that should be considered. In that vein, I talked about out-migration of small slave-holding families to the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys, specifically Kentucky, Missouri and Arkansas. Nowhere did I say anything about Mississippi which I do not think was an area highly sought-after by the outwardly bound Virginians and their slave families.
>>> 
>>> It is indeed true that small slave owners had slaves owned by other people on other farms. More often than not, these groups moved in bulk, and webs of kinship were deep. I do not think that kinships were quite as uprooted as you would like to believe. Again, the humanity factor comes into play here. These were not massive cotton plantation families like the in the deep south. These were close-knit family units. These were real people with real feelings and attachments. I know this does not fit well into the narrative of evil white people tearing up black families, but on this I suppose we will have to disagree.
>>> 
>>> Craig Kilby
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> /va-hist.html
>>> ______________________________________
>>> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
>>> http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>> 
>> ______________________________________
>> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
>> http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
> 
> ______________________________________
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
> http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
> 
> ---
> This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
> http://www.avast.com 
> 
> ---
> This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
> http://www.avast.com
> 
> ______________________________________
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
> http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html

______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html