Slavery

I don't completely disagree with C. Lyon's letter "Civil war wasn't all about slavery" (April 11), but I do take issue with his take on "free" blacks in America at that time. What Lyons fails to mention is that "free" blacks were nowhere near as free as their white counterparts, and that they faced constant hostility even from white Northerners, who viewed them as competition for jobs. Moreover, the hostility they faced was often violent. Even after emancipation, blacks were nowhere near to being "free" if we consider their marginalization and lack of access to the same benefits of civilization as white people; the rise of lynching by terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan; and the Jim Crow laws passed under the legal doctrine of "separate but equal" that further marginalized them Add to that the unfair sentencing of blacks in criminal courts and the inordinate incarceration rate of blacks in prisons.

The Hays-Heighe House at Harford Community College will host Emancipation and Its Legacies, a national traveling exhibition on display through Feb. 25. In conjunction with the exhibit, the Hays-Heighe House is sponsoring free programs and other events for the public. Developed by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in partnership with the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Emancipation and Its Legacies marks the sesquicentennial of President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

I disagree with Mr. Pitts that the cause of the Civil War was all about slavery. I challenge Mr. Pitts to answer the following questions: 1. If the war was about slavery, why was West Virginia admitted to the Union in 1863 (during the War) as a slave state? 2. Why didn't slavery end when the war was over? At the conclusion of the war, slavery only ended in the 11 states that had rebelled. The other slave states, such as Maryland and Delaware, did not become free until the passing of the 13th Amendment, eight months later.

The political wisdom of today declares that the middle class must be rescued, but it's the lower class that is the most endangered segment of America. The working poor are squeezed between pressure from illegal labor and a stagnant economy. The health of this segment of our citizenry is essential to the restoration and maintenance of our national health. Indeed, history demonstrates that a society dependent upon surrogate labor is a society in decay. Given all the attention paid these days to Civil War anniversaries, the Antebellum South provides an example worth revisiting.

T he newspaper ad, were it to run today, might appear in a lost-and-found column, wedged between yard sales and apartments for rent. Yet it could hardly say more about the spirit of an age. "Ran away from the Subscriber living in Annapolis, a young Country-born Negro Man named Harry," it said. "He is of a yellowish Complexion, near 6 Feet high, brisk and active. Had on and took with him a Wig, a new Felt Hat, a grey Pea Jacket, red Waistcoat and Breeches ... "Whoever takes up the said Negro, and delivers him to me, at Annapolis, shall have THREE POUNDS Reward.

The "Making presidential elections fairer" commentary (Nov. 17) omits that the Electoral College is another legacy of slavery. The compromise of 1787, the counting of slaves as three-fifths of a person in determining the number of representatives in Congress to which a state was entitled (plus two senators), was the same formula used to construct the number of electors each state had in the Electoral College. Joseph R. Cowen, Baltimore

The adjective "all" in C. Lyon's letter "Civil War wasn't all about slavery" (April 12) raises the question of degree: How much was slavery the cause of the Civil War? But while no one can claim that slavery was the only factor in the war, slavery's role as the primary cause cannot be denied. To do so distorts and corrupts history and deemphasizes the seminal influence of black slavery on American society and politics at the time, and its legacy. That Robert E. Lee had qualms about slavery; that blacks owned black slaves; that a class-based draft led to riots in Northern cities doesn't mitigate the "peculiar institution's" central role in the violent division of the nation, they merely demonstrate the complexity of race and slavery in America at the time.

In response to Leonard Pitts, Jr.'s column ("What was Civil War about? Listen to the voices of the Confederacy," April 10), it should be noted that political motivation and post hoc justifications are often fluid, and evil, sadly, is often relative. President Lincoln famously said he didn't care about freeing the slaves, but only about saving the Union. Despite this, Mr. Lincoln well knew that the one could not be accomplished without the other. While some of the Union side harangued about the evils of slavery, they were blind to the North's complicity, exploiting slave-grown cotton for mills with dangerous machinery often operated by children, typically white European immigrants, as young as 8 laboring for 16-hours-a-day, often 7 days a week.

RICHMOND, Va. - Gov. Bob McDonnell on Wednesday conceded a "major omission" for not noting slavery in declaring April Confederate History Month in Virginia. As part of his apology, McDonnell inserted into the proclamation a paragraph condemning slavery as "evil and inhumane" and blaming it as the cause of the Civil War. In a 400-word statement his office issued, McDonnell said the failure to include a slavery reference was a mistake. On Tuesday, McDonnell said in a telephone news conference that he wasn't focused on slavery in drafting the decree but on Civil War history.

Annapolis has joined a handful of jurisdictions across the country to officially apologize for its role in the American slave trade. The City Council passed a resolution unanimously Monday, with aldermen Michael Christman and Julie Stankivic abstaining. Sponsored by aldermen Richard Israel and Sam Shropshire, the measure went through substantial revisions, with the final version, drafted by Israel, expressing "profound regret" and recommending that the last week in October be a week for studying slavery.

The "Making presidential elections fairer" commentary (Nov. 17) omits that the Electoral College is another legacy of slavery. The compromise of 1787, the counting of slaves as three-fifths of a person in determining the number of representatives in Congress to which a state was entitled (plus two senators), was the same formula used to construct the number of electors each state had in the Electoral College. Joseph R. Cowen, Baltimore

The more I consider the partisan divide between Republicans and Democrats, the more I am reminded of the Civil War era. If one replaces the word "slavery" with words like "same-sex marriage," "abortion" and "immigration," the similarities are striking. The prejudice against gays and immigrants today is identical to the prejudice against enslaved blacks. And the difference in attitudes between southerners and northerners is equally striking. Republicans and Democrats are both entrenched in their opinions and biases.

In his column ("Sailabration brings out the mobs," June 19), Dan Rodricks resoundingly endorses the content of a letter submitted to Archbishop William E. Lori by local Catholic Jeff Ross, to protest plans to include a quote from Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in a forthcoming evening Mass. The quote in question implores Confederate soldiers to ask God's aid in their effort to defend the Old South's liberties and her cause. Mr. Ross declares the preservation of slavery an inextricable element of those liberties and that cause, and he opines that "slavery is the institution that Lee labored to preserve.

It was a big, beautiful weekend for Sailabration in the city of Baltimore, with superb weather, tall ships, Blue Angels, sailboats in the Inner Harbor (and at least one canoe), even a reason for the party (War of 1812 commemoration). And while I'm sure the opening of the new Wegman's in Columbia was exciting, it couldn't compete with Sailabration. ••• But all those people - gobs of people, mobs of people in downtown Baltimore! They were absolutely everywhere during Sailabration, crowding the promenade and the bridges connecting the piers.

Regarding the horror in Norway, I have no intention of "looking inward," as letter writer Steve Devon suggests ("Norway tragedy should make us look inward," July 26 ). The devastating murder and destruction in that country had nothing to do with a failure to recognize the "value in multiculturalism. " I personally don't see much value in "multiculturalism" myself, but it would never occur to me to bomb buildings or open fire on helpless victims. As for living in a country "founded on the principle of equality" and Constitutional redress, Mr. Devon has a poor grasp of American history.

The girl is 13, maybe 14, an unhappy adolescent with problems at home and a need to get away. Her mother spends most days getting high and is thinking about trading her child's body for drugs. The live-in boyfriend hits on her whenever mom nods out. Last year she dropped out of school. So she packs a bag and heads for the bus station, because it's the cheapest ticket out of town. As she sits on a bench surrounded by her belongings, a guy appears and starts chatting her up. He seems sympathetic, a good listener.

None of reader C. Lyon's arguments mitigates against slavery's primary role in the Civil War ("Civil War wasn't all about slavery," April 12). For example: 1) West Virginia was admitted to the Union as a slave state but with a constitutional provision that required the gradual abolition of slavery. 2) Slavery ended with the passage of a constitutional amendment – the 13 t h -- a slow process that was made much more so in the immediate post-war period when the number and status of former slave states was uncertain.

The adjective "all" in C. Lyon's letter "Civil War wasn't all about slavery" (April 12) raises the question of degree: How much was slavery the cause of the Civil War? But while no one can claim that slavery was the only factor in the war, slavery's role as the primary cause cannot be denied. To do so distorts and corrupts history and deemphasizes the seminal influence of black slavery on American society and politics at the time, and its legacy. That Robert E. Lee had qualms about slavery; that blacks owned black slaves; that a class-based draft led to riots in Northern cities doesn't mitigate the "peculiar institution's" central role in the violent division of the nation, they merely demonstrate the complexity of race and slavery in America at the time.