When co-editing recently a Civil War diary my collaborator and I encountered
various critical references to slaves and free blacks, Jews, women, Yankeees,
Abraham Lincoln, etc.

We could have left all such items out, thereby gutting this primary source.

There was some pressure about or resistance to including the most derogatory
references, but we held fast, and were able to get the entire
text--everything--published.

To do otherwise would have been a disservice to history, and to scholarship.

Michael Chesson
U/Mass-Boston

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