That rhymes.This quote is from (the exceptional) “Forget the Alamo,” which various Texas politicians are currently trying to cancel because it has the temerity to focus on the pretty central role of slavery in Texas’s independence and statehood.
— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) July 17, 2021
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose… pic.twitter.com/5Yws8aIfDp
I wonder what their "Hamilton" that taught them that was. Twain said that if the novels of Walter Scott hadn't been written there wouldn't have been a Civil War. New England's mythology was that there wasn't slavery here and no one benefitted from it here. Or that was the mythology when I was going to school. I once got into it with a, no doubt Ken Burns motivated fan of Lawrence Joshua Chamberlain who was a pretty vicious governor of Maine for four terms (two year, I believe). I read a speculation that he was rendered impotent due to his war injuries and it made him grouchy so he wanted to start using the gallows that had been, de facto, abolished since the 1830s or so. One particularly grisly hanging and one dubious one led to the abolition of the death penalty here as a result of his enthusiasm for it.
ReplyDeleteHistory based on history is so much more interesting and useful than fiction is. And you don't generally get it from film or video or novels.