New Book on Lincoln's Racial Views

[SouthernSteel]

Well Willard, I think we are in agreement on quite a few things. I do appreciate from the discussion my sort of synthesis about the point you pointed out above. I finally have a bit of clarity about that lack of middle ground, rather than just feeling like it's all branding. But boy I felt like an outsider at Penn State.

And Seal, who invited you? You do have a unique talent for butting in and making yourself the center of attention. Honestly, I wouldn't take many, if any, of those folks, though there are good and bad in all those places (including TX, but by and large I would take Texans over the lot, though I am biased). The funny thing is that these days most of those folks wouldn't fight together anyway. It's much more of a rural/urban divide now than it ever was before. Some of the most conservative people I've ever met were from Wisconsin, etc. and I don't think they'd side with someone from NJ on really anything.

Ironically, this argument is exactly one that took place during the Civil War, as regards the health of soldiers from rural vs urban areas. In the context of the miasmatic theory of disease (yes, I know, boring, and yes, I know, I always bring it up), doctors of the time argued whether a man who had lived in a large city his whole life would make a better soldier than a strapping lad from the country. Was it better to have lived amidst filth and bad air or to have grown up out in the clean, fresh country air? The answer is some of both, and I will only elaborate at someone's request, rather than bore the lot of you any more.