Dear Josie, Beej, Tom, WW, and Cousins on the List: I did not apologize for what I had written, but that our discussion had turned into an unwinnable and unproductive argument, and instead of bringing insight and unity as a family/community of American researchers, it was doing the just the opposite. I still believe that people can discuss these things. Here is the difference, Josie. I am not a Southern basher. I am a researcher, and I hope, a teacher and leader toward unity and community for people who have uncommon connection through common ancestral families. It does us no good to divide our contemporary attitudes into North and South. We are simply Americans. Our Northern ancestors moved South. Hiding the shameful things our country did, or even shameful things that our ancestors did, doesn't accomplish anything in trying to rebuild community NOW. How can I bear hatred toward Jackson? I don't. He's dead and gone. It is his acts I despise, just as I despise Slavery and the toll it took upon the American soul, Black and White, North and South. Whether we argue that slavery went on for a very long time in other places and landscapes, (which I agree, it most certainly did, just as maltreatment of women existed and continues.) That doesn't make it right that we practiced it here in America. I greatly admire George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson, and Robert E. Lee. All were slaveholders, and all were still admirable men, if one looks at most of their other actions and behaviors. I simply don't find Jackson a man of conscience, even though he was a good general, and certainly a great hero in the War of 1812. General Pemberton, who lost the Battle of Vicksburg to General Grant, which became the turning point in the South's defeat, was from the fine old Philadelphia Quaker Pemberton family, whose familial conscience was against ALL war. Yet I find him a man of conscience also. Giving the surviving Indians land in Oklahoma does not make it right that their Homelands were taken from fhem in order that Whites could speculate and benefit from its ownership. The Indians believe they sprang from the very soil of their homelands. Moving them was the same as ripping out their souls. They were decimated in the move. Marched without food and water or proper rest, and deliberately subjected to disease and conditions that were designed to kill them off. Genocide. Not just cultural genocide, but genocide. Josie, I know you earnestly believe what you write. My point is not that you are wrong, but these things are simply a matter of how we look differently at these issues. I hope we can come to a point where we blunt the edges of our beliefs, and see that things are not simply this opinion versus that, but there are many many nuances of opinion and interpretations of history. And perhaps see that these differing opinions bind us together also, as they did General Pemberton in his time and place. I don't know that we will ever completely agree, and the point of my apology is that it is pointless (!) to argue on the List in terms of who is right and who is wrong. That defeats everyone. If you want to continue the exchange, however, I will be happy to hear from you via my personal e-mail, not the list. I believe we have much in common in our ancestry and our love of our country. Just as all of us do. Thank you Dear Friend Tom for your positive comments on Riding the Rivers, and Cousin Beej for your comments, I greatly appreciate you. And Also, Dear Friend WW, I hope you will bear with the poorer aspects of List membership as well enjoying the great possitive benefits that come from participating in a community. This is a new kind of community. We are living in a new era. We need to embrace new means of relating to one another and maybe we can do it through embracing new means of family research. That is one of my big goals. As Charlie Brown philosophically said to Lucy one day, "Life is a series of ups and downs." And Lucy screams, "NO! I want nothing but ups! Ups! UPS!" Don't we all! And don't we all know it ain't gonna happen anytime soon! Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn Carolyn McDaniel cmacdee@teleport.com ========================================= To subscribe to the American Crossroads Discussion List: --- Visit American Crossroads --- http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads