Should slave owners be removed from the dollar bill?

What?

Just a silly word me and a couple of buddies use. I take full responsibility.

K, jason.

When I was stationed at Walter Reed AMC, I visited all the touristy places to go in DC. I visited Arlington Cemetery on one 4th of July. Among the thousands of tombs, graves, headstones, mausoleums and etc., they had sort of an exhibit of some of Robert E. Lee's home and memorabilia.

I was almost ill with resentment at the honor bestowed upon him. It just about crushed what little patriotism and pride in country I had been able to muster up that day.

So yes, I think about the schziphrenia that is inherent in our celebrations and honors for the founding fathers of our "freedom". It is just part and parcel with the nationwide cognitive dissonance that makes it possible for one to hear discussions about why we are or are not ready for a black president, on the same day one hears discussions about race no longer "being a factor" in everyday life. It's the same thing that causes our country to expect allegiance from women and people of color when somehow the country still can't pay them the same amount of money for the same work.

I just think that mounting some kind of offensive against the symbols of that mass schizophrenia - the persons pictured on currency, for example - is not a efficient use of precious energies and time.

Why not just support Obama instead? (sorry, couldn't help it)

Well said.
I am not in a position to respond right now but well said.

Arlington had been the home of George Washington Parke Custis. He was a grandson of Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, and had been raised at Mount Vernon by George and Martha. He was a descendant of Daniel Parke, who had married a daughter of "King" Carter, once the wealthiest man in Virginia, and of John Custis (his son Daniel Parke Custis was Martha's first husband) who was also wealthy and influential. He inherited a considerable fortune, which George Washington had carefully preserved for him. John Custis' father had had an estate in England named Arlington, and therefore, John Custis named his estate on Virginia's eastern shore Arlington. That was why G. W. P. Custis named his estate Arlington.

He had only one child who survived to adulthood, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, who married Robert Edward Lee. Therefore, when G. W. P. Custis died in 1857, Lee became the executor of his estate, as it was the custom in those days that a husband governed and had control of his wife's property.

It may have disgusted you, but as Arlington house was the only home that Lee had known since his father had fled the United States as a defaulted debtor, it is understandable why there would be momentos of Lee at Arlington. What a shame that the Federal government seized his home and put a cemetary there--very likely their only true purpose was to ruin your day.

I'm not that deluded, Set. But it did put a damper on a rare bout of flag waving for me - guess its just perspective.

The issue of slavery and the "heroes" of our early republic is complicated. Long before our revolution, Washington came to the conclusion that the tobacco monoculture was ruinous--it ruined the soil and it ruined tobacco planters financially due to the exploitation of the London merchants; and he came to the conclusion that slavery was not an efficient means to conduct agriculture. He diversified his agricultural base, promoting the production of cash crops such as wheat and hemp which could be sold locally, and he sought ways to ameliorate the slavery situation. This was in the era of the French and Indian War, after he had resigned his commission, and when he married Martha Dandridge Custis. He had inherited about slaves from his father and half-brother, and Martha brought a few slaves with her, which were not actually her property, because the estate of her deceased first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, had entailed the property to the benefit of their two surviving children, Patsy and Jacky. Jacky (John Custis) died just after the battle of Yorktown, during which he had served as an aide to Washington. John Custis was the father of George Washington Parke Custis. All of the Custis children bore the name Parke, which was the result of yet another entail in the estate of Daniel Parke.

Washington employed about 190 slaves at Mount Vernon. He was disturbed both by the moral issue of slavery, as well as the practical issue of the low value of slave labor. Many of his slaves were trained in trades, and, so long as they should a good work ethic, were paid wages for their skilled labor, with a small fee deducted for their support--Washington otherwise employed free white labor in skilled trades. Some biographers have claimed that the wage scheme stimulated slaves paid a wage to work hard and well, other biographers have denied that the scheme was ever implemented. Washington wanted to manumit (free) his slaves after his death, and for Martha's slaves to be freed after her death. However, he was haunted by the idea that this would give the slaves a motive to murder Martha after he was gone. So he set up a scheme to pay pensions to their slaves. He died in 1799, but his estate paid pensions to the former slaves until the 1830s, at least according to Douglas Southall Freeman, who is considered Washington's definitive biographer. By the time of his death, the number of slaves at Mount Vernon had increased to 300 or more, largely due to the birth rate, although some slaves were, apparently, purchased. Washington's relationship to his slaves was further complicated by the fact that he expected so much of them, and of his white employees as well. He expected them to work "from sun to sun," and to accomplish something--and he also applied that standard to his white employees. Although there were so comments by foreign visitors about the "shocking" conditions in which is slaves were housed (specifically made by a Polish visitor), overwhelmingly, these visitors commented that Washington's slaves were better treated, better fed, better clothed and better housed than were other slaves in Virginia. Washington was always torn between his ideals, and his obsession with getting the most out of his resources, and in the end, he largely viewed his slaves as resources, just as he did his horses and cattle, and just as he did his hired white men.

When Martha died, the entailed portion of the Custis estate which devolved upon George Washington Parke Custis included 1100 acres which Washington had purchased with estate funds, and located to the northwest of Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon itself passed on to John Augustine Washington's son, George's nephew. G. W. P. Custis began construction of Arlington House, which was largely completed by 1804, but which had additions and renovations until 1818. His only surviving child, as i mentioned, was Mary Custis.

Robert Lee was the son of a man already famous in the United States before he was born--Henry Lee, known as "Light Horse Harry" Lee, and a veteran and hero of the Revolution. Henry Lee gave the eulogy at Washington's funeral, describing Washington as "First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen." But, by the time Robert Lee was born in 1807, Henry Lee was deeply in debt from failed investments, and could no longer trade upon his prestige as a war hero, or his pedigree among the first families of Virginia. Robert's father died when he (Robert) was 11 years of age, and he thereafter lived (largely in Alexandria) in the homes of various relatives, until he went off to the United States Military Academy. He was a distant cousin of Mary Custis through her mother, and they are often described as "childhood sweethearts." By the time they married, Mary was the sole heir of G. W. P. Custis.

Lee never owned a slave in his life, although it is claimed that he owned about a half dozen slaves--but his was when he was a minor child, and before his father's assets were seized as a defaulted debtor. His contact with slavery came about because G. W. P. Custis had given property and slaves to Lee's sons, and because Lee became the executor of Custis' estate. He was required by the terms of Custis' will to free all the slaves as soon as practicable, and no later than five years after Custis' death. As G. W. P. Custis died in 1857, and Lee was then stationed in Texas, little was accomplished toward that end when the Civil War intervened. The estate was actually encumbered with debts, and it appears that Lee attempted to work the slaves for the five year period in order to earn enough to pay the debts of the estate. He was forced to take a two year leave of absence from the army in order to attempt to order the affairs of the Custis estate. It is highly unlikely, however, that the claim (which is central to the Lee hagiography) that he was opposed to slavery is true. Lee had slaves who absconded from the Custis estates whipped, and there is at least one letter of his to his son Rooney in which he describes the defiance of the Custis slaves, and the necessity he was therefore under to call in the county constable to imprison and punish them.

I won't even start on Jefferson, i've written too much already and have other things to do. I don't seek to whitewash Washington, and wish only to point out that this issue is not as simple as either the critics or the apologists would seem to want to make it. In the case of Lee, he only really came into contact with slaves when he became the executor of his father-in-law's will, and then he did no better than those around him in Virginia, and perhaps worse than many. He wasn't very good at it, and at the age of 50, and after an adult life in which the army had been his only real home, he was ill-equipped to deal with the slaves and the issue of slavery, and i personally think he did badly.

Nice essay, Set. I enjoyed reading it. Most contentious issues aren't, ".. as simple as either the critics or the apologists would seem to want to make it".

In this group however, I believe Jefferson stands out - mostly for the gap between the principles he so eloquently expressed in the Declaration, & in his many other writings and pronouncements, and the grasping, unyielding manner in which he managed his own affairs, including his treatment of his slaves - not even any consideration of manumission there.

If this suggests, as i suspect it does, that slavery had much to do with the success of this country, that is completely false.

The first Africans appeared in the English colonies in 1609, when a Dutch captain who had been blown off course by a storm in the middle passage made landfall at Jamestown, and attempted to sell slaves to the colonists. He failed miserably, because there was not yet any real agricultural establishment, and the colonists did well if they just barely managed to feed themselves, never mind feeding any slaves. He eventually left behind those whose condition was so poor for them to likely survive, and left on a night tide for the West Indies.

Slavery only slowly established itself in the mainland colonies, and was largely promoted by the English, in the form of West Indian planters who wanted to make a profit selling off some of their own slaves. The tobacco monoculture was what eventually helped to establish slavery. But the tobacco monoculture could hardly be described as contributing to the nation's success. The tobacco was sent to factors (agents) in London, who were to sell it at the best price they could get, and to apply the proceeds to the purchases of the plantation owners of goods in England. They shamelessly robbed their clients. They certainly got the best price they could for tobacco, but they also reported to the plantation owners whatever price they wanted to, and they charged them exorbitant prices for shoddy goods which they shipped back to them. The planters in North America were chronically in debt to the London merchants, which was the reason that Washington diversified into other cash crops, and spent most of the rest of his life paying off the debts to the London factors.

The tobacco monoculture quickly exhausted the soil. For as long as land could be had cheaply, rich planters could acquire more land, move in slaves, clear the land, and start new fields. But the period in which this was possible was brief. In the 1660s, after Charles Stuart was restored to the English throne as King Charles II, he began paying off debts to those who had supported his father in the civil wars by giving them land in the New World. In the case of Virginia, he gave nearly half the colony to Lord Fairfax, leading to endless law suits and failed land claims, and providing endless employment for lawyers. This was in the period when slavery was only taking off slowly. In North Carolina, most of the settlers were French Huguenots and Scots-Irish Presbyterians originally, and they were not likely to be slave owners. Maryland had a growing slave population, but it was also the colony to which the most convicts were transported, and until very late in its history as a colony, there were likely to be as many white convicts employed as African slaves. At the time of the Revolution, it is estimated that about 35% of the population of Maryland were convicts or ticket-of-leave men and women, or their children. South Carolina came up with two big cash crops, indigo and rice. The rice was sold in the West Indies to feed the slaves there.

The slavery system was on the point of failure by the end of the 18th century, because it simply didn't pay--most planters were rapidly sinking deeper and deeper into debt--when the cotton gin suddenly gave the Southerners a new monoculture to exploit, which was cotton. The worst abuses of slavery in America came with the cotton monoculture, especially after 1815, when Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana were opened to settlement. Speculators would buy up as many slaves as possible as cheaply as possible, and put them to work clearing fields, and planting and harvesting cotton. These slaves were kept in the worst conditions in most cases, as ever existed for slaves in the United States. Those who financed these operations were often absentee landlords and didn't even have to see the suffering humanity they exploited.

But whether it was tobacco or cotton, or indigo and rice, only a handful of people ever profited by it, and the nation did not owe any of its prosperity to slavery. This is one of those myths which arises from a politico-philosophical point of view, in which the more strident American critics of the United States attempt to claim that slavery was cynically exploited for the benefit of the country as a whole. Even among slave owners, the majority were not particularly successful financially. Among free white men and women who were not slave owners, and not wealthy enough to farm on a large scale, slavery was the bane of their existence. The small holder who grew cotton or tobacco, and kept only a few slaves or no slaves at all could only barely get an impoverished living from his efforts, unable to compete with the economies of scale available to the large-scale slave-run plantations, even if those plantations were in hock to the master's eyeballs. The small craftsman--the blacksmith, the carter, the carpenter, the miller--these all had to compete with a market glutted with labor of plantation slave craftsmen who not only worked for their masters, but who were hired out to others to the profit of the slave-owner.

Slavery was never a contributing factor in the success of the United States. The United States succeeded despite slavery, not because of it.

I could not agree more. However, it is well known around here that i entertain a very low opinion of Jefferson. I didn't even tackle him, because it would have required gallons of vitriol, and to quote Samuel Clemens, " . . . a pen warmed up in Hell."

Didn't know that (but probably should have guessed).

I guess it's a good thing I didn't present my observation in a goading manner. :wink:

Hang on there, O'George . . . don't despair . . . the pen is just starting to glow . . . it should be ready soon . . .

Seriously, i have been savaged here by other members because of my comments on Jefferson. And me, such a gentle, retiring member . . . you can imagine my distress.

Well, I don't think the result was quite "savaged". I do recall some of it and even considering much of it unfair (though when the spirit was truly upon you I noted that you gave as much or more than you took.)

Why even some of my own, utterly reasonable and restrained efforts met this response.

However I never thought you outmatched, nor was I really moved to pity.

Yer a hard, cruel man, O'George, so ye are . . .

i think the thread started by jason is like many others : it is a question , isn't it ?
there are many other threads that are questions , but jason's seem to have riled quite a few a2k'ers - i wonder why ?
often someone wants to start a discussion on some subject and it's usually welcomed by most .
do i detect that jason raised a subject "that must not be discussed" ?
is it a bit like "flag burning" ?

all countries have a "skeleton in the closet" , i believe . some skeletons may be considered larger than others - does it depend upon where the viewer sits ?

i also noticed the comment :


i'm wondering where HISTORY ends and MODERN values start - is there are cutoff line somewhere ?
JUST WONDERING .
hbg

I asked her this same question to no avail.
edit: The mistreatment, enslavement and killing of others only recently became criminal?

No, it's because jason starts a thread, and becomes upset when anyone deviates from his very specific agenda one iota.

That is quite constraining and closed minded. But then again, that's probably his intent.

If he won't "allow" others to speak their opinions, no new ideas can be presented. Instead, he calls it slander and argumentative.

jason seems to be a very controlling young man.

I had a conversation with a co-worker of mine on this topic.
He grew irate at the thought of his beloved forefathers being
labeled criminals. He was unable to continue without screaming obscenities and such, so we dropped it, and vowed not to discuss it.

I guess it comes down to this.
Does all the good they've done outweigh the bad?

For some, their cry for freedom and liberty while denying others the same is excusable. While others feel these men were criminals in spite of their accomplishments and nothing more.

I don't see this being a thread that people don't want to discuss because of skeletons in their closet.
That's just another excuse for saying "the white man doesn't want to talk about it"

Most white people didn't even have relatives in this country when slavery was legal.
Their ancestors were busy doing evil in their own country of birth.

How can I possibly feel any responsibility about slavery in the United States, when my relatives didn't even hit Ellis Island until about 1920?

I certainly don't care if the piece of paper I push across the counter to buy a newspaper has a picture of Washington, or Zeppo Marx on it, as long as I leave with my reading material.

What about people who find symbols of the devil on the dollar?
Satan and the Freemasons

Are they saying change the dollar hill, or do they, on the whole, deal with it.


Also, what about black people who themselves have owned slaves throughout the ages?

What about white people who owned white slaves, asians who own slaves, etc.

Should we tear down all statues and monuments of them because of that?

It is just not that important a matter to give any thought too, when there is so much else going on in the world where we can lend a hand.

To get back to the original post....I don't think it's a valid question at all.