Apple announces 'Lincoln's Dilemma' documentary exploring the journey to end slavery

I wonder if they’re going to include Lincoln’s abysmal record of treatment of native Americans, or of that will be conveniently left out?

mac_dog said:

I wonder if they’re going to include Lincoln’s abysmal record of treatment of native Americans, or of that will be conveniently left out?

Not relevant -- unless you want to condemn the entire country in the 100 years preceeding Lincoln as well as after.

Actually, you should be more concerned about how we treat them in today's supposedly woke world.

Personally it bothers me that people will impose today's values and laws on yesterday's people who were simply living with and under the morals, ethics, laws and values of their day.  Shouldn't we be more concerned about the profound injustices going on today?

GeorgeBMac said:

Looking forward to this!

We look on the battle to end slavery as a simplified, black and white question of:  "Should people own people -- or not"?

But, in actuality it was far more complex than, for instance, climate change is today:  Today we say "We have to end the use of fossil fuels to save the planet" -- and that is widely accepted as true.  But then you get all those who depend on the fossil fuels industry and the power it produces saying "Wow!  Just one minute!  That's my livelihood you're taking away".

Likewise, ending slavery was taking away the system that many southerners depended on for their livelihood.  

It wasn't just freeing slaves, it was destroying the system that many Americans depended on.

Then, you had both scientists and religious leaders muddying the waters by claiming that slavery was GOOD for those black people -- because, according to them, blacks were not human and needed to be managed like animals.

How does one maneuver through so many political landmines?

I doubt we would be up to it in today's America.  If nothing else, some senator would invoke the filibuster and stop any and all debate while talking heads ridiculed the idea of "destroying the wonderful culture at the heart of America" with wild and crazed ideas about freeing slaves who "depended on slavery for their food, shelter and clothing".

It was complicated.  Far more complicated than any issues facing us today.

You should probably watch this series. Senator John C. Calhoun, the 'father of the filibuster,' made all the above fact-free, racist arguments about the 'benefits' of slavery, and developed the filibuster specifically as a tool to thwart Senate actions that could be a threat to the preservation of slavery.

Prior to the Civil War, the cumulative dollar value of slave holdings in the US exceeded the cumulative dollar value of all other business and industry. Much like the present, that wealth was held by a relative few patrician elites, mostly in the South. Also like the present, the vast majority of the Southern populace did not have any personal stake in that wealth, but were manipulated by fear-mongering and racist arguments into serving the wealthy elites' interests by giving their support (and in fact their lives during the war). Poor whites supported it because no matter how bad things were for them, they could at least see themselves as superior to enslaved black people. Blind racism assured that it never occurred to poor Southern whites that their own employment and wage prospects were greatly diminished when the rich folks could get labor for free from people they 'owned.'

Sure, slavery was 'complicated,' because it was so intertwined into the antebellum social economy, but it was no more 'complicated' than pressing issues today. Owning other people is wrong, and even slave holders like Jefferson and Washington knew it. It was only 'complicated' because facing up to that fact forced unpleasant decisions, making sacrifices to give up ill-gotten benefits and privileges based on past wrong decisions, and fighting through all the lying, cheating and coordinated misinformation efforts generated by those who valued their own wealth more than doing right by others. None of those things are more complicated than or unfamiliar to our current lives. In fact, all of that should be unsettlingly familiar.

I wonder how many states will decide that this is not suitable for children in K-12? Given some of the recent moves to remove books and restrict what parts of US History can and can't be taught and even to restrict children's 1st amendment rights of free speech and criticism, this looks like a huge great target for the anti-everything crowd.