Ok. I'll give you one reason is oil, if you'll give me ensuring the survival 
of our 51st state, Israel, is another among many, many other reasons --  
although hardly a moral one to forego for economic interest. You Jews --  
grab you life jackets -- it's into the sea for you. The "righteous" have 
spoken and "me" "are" the wrong and the wrong doers.

What has this got to do with Virginia History? -- ask me about that when 
gasification of coal becomes the "norm", every Virginia neighborhood has a 
nuclear reactor, and the second vehicle in your garage is a bicycle.

I've yet to find "morality" on the shelves at Kroger's; and, I'm addicted to 
"economic interest" -- my own. Sorry, I'm a bad person. Adam Smith, you 
dirty cur! You made me what I am. What have I learned from history? I'm not 
going to change.

Signed: Immoral Me


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Anita Wills" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 1:06 PM
Subject: Re: Madison's slaves (and black descendants?)


> Yes, we have so much knowledge and a foundation of history to learn from. 
> Yet here we are engaged in a war in which people are dying for Oil. If 
> that is not foregoing morality for economic interest, I don't know what 
> is. So what have we learned from history?
>
> Anita
>
>
>>From: [log in to unmask]
>>Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history 
>><[log in to unmask]>
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Re: Madison's slaves (and black descendants?)
>>Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:15:08 -0400
>>
>>I would imagine that most of us who teach Virginia history have read Henry 
>>Wiencek's book on Washington.  I've read it--indeed, I've taught it.  But 
>>even to the extent that men like Washington, Mason, Jefferson, and so on 
>>acknowledged the evil of slavery--and he is quite right that they 
>>did--they also knew well that their constituents would not follow them on 
>>the issue.
>>
>>I disagree that the Founding was determined solely on matters of interest. 
>>Yes, in the heat of argument, and when it served his purposes, Rutledge 
>>said so.  But its simply ludicrous to suggest that Madison, Mason, Wilson, 
>>Sherman, Livingston, Dickenson, Ellsworth, and so on spent all that time 
>>arguing solely over matters of economic interest.  There was quite a bit 
>>of principled debate going on in the convention--but when it came to 
>>slavery, they were willing to compromise along lines of economic interest. 
>>That fact right there tells us something important about how those men 
>>prioritized the morality of slavery.  While many of them, including some 
>>southerners and some slave owners, agreed that slavery was wrong, too many 
>>of them also agreed with Patrick Henry, for whom "convenience" overwhelmed 
>>conviction.
>>
>>As a matter of political calculation, the Founders knew that they not only 
>>had to craft a constitution, they also had to produce a frame of 
>>government that had some potential to be ratified by their constituents. 
>>And when we look at the statements of the people who ratified the 
>>Constitution, its quite clear where they stood on the matter.  Kaminski 
>>argues that by 1787, whatever window had earlier existed to abolish 
>>slavery was firmly shut--and in my view he is correct.
>>
>>I agree very much that we should be critical of those men--like George 
>>Mason or Thomas Jefferson--who acknowledged the evil of slavery and 
>>nonetheless did nothing about it.
>>
>>But to some degree that is the easy part.  Much more difficult is to ask 
>>ourselves, "what would have to be true about the society in which I live, 
>>that *I* might behave as Patrick Henry behaved?"  What has to be so, about 
>>the world in which I live, that *I* might be complicit in evil? 
>>Acknowledging evil, and then failing to confront it, is a rather human 
>>thing to do.  The harder task in front of us, it seems to me, is to 
>>understand the humanity--the essential "like me-ness"--of men like 
>>Rutledge, or Pinckney.  And, in as much as *those* men were far more 
>>typical of the enfranchised men of the south who exercised citizenship in 
>>the period, in understanding the Rutledges and Pinckneys, we come close to 
>>understanding the society in which most slaves lived their lives.
>>Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
>>Department of History
>>James Madison University
>
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