EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

DUTY

 In high school I was taught that the most famous general of the American army in our Civil War, the army that fought to end slavery, owned slaves. I was taught that the most famous general in the insurrectionist army, the army that fought to preserve slavery, never owned slaves.

That was partly true and partly false.

General Ulysses S. Grant was given a slave by his father-in-law. He freed him before the Civil War.

Robert E. Lee actually did own slaves. Most famously though, he managed over 200 that his wife inherited from her father. His “management” included the whipping of recalcitrant humans under his care.

One can research all of this further if one chooses. My state doesn’t allow it to be taught.

For today, let us consider a comment I read once. Lee confided to someone that slaves would encounter no problems if they simply did their duty.

Their duty.

Now what exactly was the duty of a person who was worked, for minimal sustenance, often less, from when “it was light enough to see until it was too dark to see?”

What was the duty of a person who was not allowed to learn to read or write for fear by the owner that the slave might “become like one of us?”

What was the duty of the person whose children were torn away, sold to strangers, and carried to a faraway place by the omnipotent owner?

I would say that the duty of that person would be to take every opportunity, despite every danger, and despite the myth of “The Lost Cause” to run as far away from that evil owner as possible.

Duty.

Bullshit.