re: #30 jaunte

Unfortunately he wanted union, but also a continuation of slavery in the south.
civilwarcauses.org

There were a lot of people like that in the South. I was reading a book by/about one of them today: “Parson” Brownlow of eastern Tennessee. He was a Methodist preacher and editor of the principal Unionist newspaper in his part of the state, a region that itself was heavily Unionist. He was a no-holds-barred writer such as Mark Twain immortalized in the story “Journalism in Tennessee.” He would probably have been a success on the Web today.

His position was simple: He supported slavery and abhorred northern abolitionists, but he loved the Union and hated secessionists even more. If there was a choice between slavery and the Union, he would choose the Union. He was imprisoned for treason by the newly seceded state and sentenced to hang, but this was eventually commuted to exile to the North. He returned when Federal forces took Knoxville, and after the war served a term as governor of Tennessee.

The point of all this? Simply that the South, and in 1861 the nation, would have been better off with more men like Sam Houston and Pastor Brownlow, even if they did believe in slavery, because they would put their country before their prejudices. God knows this is a rare enough quality even, or especially, today.