[geeks] I just saw...

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Sat, 11 Nov 2006 @ 21:43 +0200, Geoffrey S. Mendelson said:

> On Sat, Nov 11, 2006 at 02:31:28PM -0500, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> > The "Declaration of Independence" was not made on July 4th, it was July
> > 2nd. 
> 
> It's celebrated on July 4th because Nixon read it to the public for the
> first time on July 4th.

The declaration was made on the 2nd, but disagreements among the states
regarding slavery delayed the release until the 4th.

Also worth nothing: New York never signed the declaration.

I don't get the Nixon reference... is that a joke?

> As for Lincon, have you ever read the emacipation proclimation? He freed
> the slaves in "the states in rebelion", over which he had no control.

Yep. He had too many slave owning friends to outlaw it in the north.

Have you ever read his inaugural or the comments he made at a party
after he made the address?

A lot of people would be rather unhappy if it was printed on his
memorial in DC.

> It really was a move to allow the Union Army to march into town, free
> the slaves and then conscript them. They were not allowed to fight,
> but someone had to dig the latrines, haul things, etc.

Remember the movie "Glory"? What Hollywood doesn't tell you about that
battle is that the black troops were being used to test the fort's
defenses so they wouldn't waste white men on it.

In real life, the Union Army determined the fortress was too strong, and
they back off and never attacked it again.  The black soldiers were
cannon fodder.

Hollywood left that part out.

Two of my great uncles were confederate artillery officers. In one photo
the family has the crews are black. They were probably the first black
men my uncles had ever seen before.

> Slavery was allowed in Maryland until after the war. Lincoln was a 
> proponent of a "forgive and forget" type of policy. If he had lived, 
> things would have been very different in the post war south.

True.

-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["If you tell the truth, you don't have to
remember anything" -- Mark Twain]