Reply #136: Now more like a dead end

[Muddleoftheroad]

So, this will be my last post on the subject of Benjamin. Ironically, your full court press here to hide the 2,000 years of European wrongs about anti-Semitism puts me in a position of defending a man I find distasteful -- though still better in some ways than many of his pals. However, that said, I will clarify some things.

1) Historical records are unclear on his ownership or NOT of slaves. I have checked about 20 sources now. There is no clear winner.

2) He WAS the "leading advocate in the Confederacy for ending the heinous practice" of slavery by putting blacks in the army. It cost him a great deal politically.

3) If you don't think doing that would have ended slavery -- not just for the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS who were put in the army, but for the rest, then you are vastly mistaken. The South would have been changed forever. Give a couple hundred thousand former slaves guns and military training and see how long THAT institution lasts. The Southerners knew that as well.

Benjamin CHOSE to be scapegoated at one point during the war to hide the fact that the South had no money. It was his decision and, as a close friend of Jeff Davis and a loyal Confederate, he did it.

Benjamin was fingered as a possible suspect in the Lincoln assassination because he had been both Secretary of War and State and was the closest confidante of Jeff Davis in the cabinet. Of course he fled the U.S. There was much talk about hanging Jeff Davis. It is unlikely that Benjamin would have missed that fate. Since the South was now part of the U.S. again, it is understandable that he didn't return to stand trial or to be buried.

Wow, you found instances of anti-Semitism in the U.S. Congress. Yes, there are instances of anti-Semitism in the U.S. to this day, but we have NEVER managed anything as appalling as the Europeans have mustered -- time and time again.

Inquisition, pogrom and Holocaust. These are European words.

As for the Paschall comment, I have indeed made my position clear. America does NOT have Europe's legacy of abuse, anti-Semitism and wholesale murder of Jews, so there is no reason for us to limit free speech on this topic. Given just how bad Europe can be, it is unsurprising they do so. And, as such, all those cases DO count.

As I said before, Benjamin advocated ARMING hundreds of thousands of blacks in the South. Even if it was for political gains, that was a seachange in Southern attitudes and deserves note for that.

Europe on the other hand has not a couple centuries of such crimes, but a couple THOUSAND YEARS of such crimes. And instead of them getting bad and cooling off, they built to a crescendo in fairly recent memory.

As for sticking to the discussion, I have. It is you and others who wish to hide century upon century of European anti-Semitism and wash it away so that every anti-Israel and anti-Semitic act is NOT treated with the proper context.

That doesn't wash. Or in this case whitewash.

Oh, and one last thing, given different interpretations of the Constitution, Confederates were not traitors. Even Lincoln did not generally treat them as such. Yes, they were in rebellion, but there was much question about whether the states had the right to withdraw from the union. The war settled it, but I still don't classify Confederates as traitors.