From: Ed Dupree <tedupree at fas.harvard.edu>
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> Long live country music etc., but fuck Lee along with his Cause.
Apologetics, etc. for various defenders of slavery, etc. in u.s. history tend to be based on "historical understanding" -- that they just simply reflected common opinion, etc. Now I'm not in principle averse to such arguments: I believe, for example, that complaints about ancient slavery (e.g., esp. in Athens) are incorrect.
But by the mid-18th century there was a sufficient body of opinion condemning slavery as such as to undercut any and all excuses for its defenders. Samuel Johnson once made a toast to the next Negro Insurrection in the West Indies. He also opposed granting independence to the American Colonies on the basis that slave-drivers weren't fit to be free themselves. I think all slaveowners and defenders of slavery from 1776 on can be condemned as showing bad faith. And I think that bad faith predominates over or corrupts whatever other virtues may be claimed for them.
Carrol
P.S. Ref. "particular WPA slave narrative": Was it in a collection called _Bullwhip Days_? I can't locate my copy just now to check, but it is a collection of slave narratives from the 1930s.