On Thomas Paine...

He is your greatest countryman dude. An American not knowing much of him is tantamount to an Indian not knowing Mahatma Gandhi.

 

My mind is my own church.


--- Thomas Paine

 

He's pretty much only in American history books.

 

He deserves more than that.

 

A) the civil war was NOT fought over slavery, it was fought over the domination of the federal government over state's rights. Slavery was the issue that best exemplified this. It could as easily have been tariffs or export taxes.
B) Lincoln did NOT free the slaves to be a nice person, the origional Emancipation Proclemation was worded to only free the slaves of southerners who fought against the union, but because this would likely to be shot down in the courts, he changed it to include all slaves.
C) Altough Lincoln was an avid abolitionist, he didn't think that blacks were equally human as he was. some quotes:
"You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other 2 races. Even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. you are cut off from many of the advantages which the other race enjoys. It is better for us both to be separated."-Abraham Lincoln, during a meeting with free Negro leaders, at the White House, August, 1862



"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races-that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the 2 races living together on terms of social or political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion that I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position that the Negro should be denied everything.



". . . Notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the Negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence-the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects-certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."-Abraham Lincoln, debating with Douglas in Illinois, 1858

D) Hero worship means that we will incorrectly remeber history (thus making it less useful when it repeats itself)