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.

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.

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.

"It is not safe ... to trust $800 million worth of Negroes in the hands of a power which says that we do not own the property. ... So we must get out ... " — The Daily Constitutionalist, Augusta, Ga., Dec. 1, 1860 "[Northerners] have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery. ... We, therefore, the people of South Carolina ... have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and other States of North America dissolved. " — from "Declaration of the Causes of Secession" "As long as slavery is looked upon by the North with abhorrence ... there can be no satisfactory political union between the two sections.

Maia Woods had long wondered about the strange-looking house on Rolling Road in Rockdale, the one that sits off Liberty Road, boarded up and neglected. On Saturday, she found out about its years as a station on the Underground Railroad, how it's been moved twice in its 200-plus-year history by family members well aware of its historical importance, and how it was bought by a couple 30 years ago determined to see it preserved — even though it's been so contaminated by pesticides that no one will ever be able to live in it again.

I am appalled with the Baltimore Sun paper for their obvious support for Republican views and policies. I thought the newspaper was supposed to write the facts without partiality and let readers form their own opinions. With regard to the immigration issues and new policies in Arizona, I am disgusted by the short memories some Americans have, many of whom are descendants of immigrants or undocumented citizens. This country was founded on immigration, slavery and thievery. Please let us not forget this country was taken from the Indians.

The founding fathers -- Hamilton,Madison,Jefferson, et al -- knew that the question of slavery must ultimately be resolved for the republic to endure.But they also knew they couldn't resolve the question of slavery without destroying the fledgling union they had sacrificed so much to create. At enormous cost to the nation -- black and white, slave and free -- they let it fester until the nation could no longer endure half-slave and half-free. But the nation in 1860 was no nearer to a resolution of the question of slavery that both sides could accept within the framework of the union than it was in 1789.

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.

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.

Though slaves probably helped build the college that would become the University of Maryland, College Park, the institution was created in part to push Maryland past its reliance on slave labor, according to a study released Friday by history professor Ira Berlin and a group of undergraduate researchers. The new study gives the university a clearer picture of its origins as it celebrates the 150th anniversary of its opening. It paints a complex portrait of a society that was looking to a future beyond slavery while remaining heavily dependent on it. Researchers could find no direct evidence that slaves helped build the Maryland Agricultural College, which opened its doors in fall 1859.