I certainly agree with Mr. Omohundro.  I am not a historian but a writer who has been dismayed to be saddled with the desire to clean up primary source material for some kind of political correctness.  What ever happened to truthful reporting?  We need to view history with all its warts and problems.  Just my very unofficial 2 cents.
-Melinda Skinner


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> 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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