summing up Re: MDDM hist. refs re non-Intervention, W & G & Martha

[Terrance]

Otto wrote:
> 
> All your really mighty fine links seem to present a GW that has been (at
> times) indeed a little ahead of his time. And that's how Pynchon presents
> him, compared to the only other slave-holder in the novel. That it remains
> an oscillating image, undecideable, is ok to me. That's how the lesson we
> can draw out of history very often is. In the GW-case we have seen that
> neither uncritical patriotic hagiography nor simple moralistic condemnation
> are appropriate. People like him (who should've known better) remain a
> mystery to me.
> 
> Otto

Why should he have known better? Known what? Should he have known that
slavery was 
wrong? And what should he have done? 

Are the novel's "historical" characters to be given some sort of litmus
test to determine where they stood on the issues surrounding slavery?
Why didn't they know better? Why did they act so inconsistently? How
about..., the religious.... 



How does one go about freeing slaves? Is this too naive? I guess it is,
but freeing slaves, while no mystery from our enlightened POV, was no
simple matter for people at the time. What do you do with slaves that
are too old or too young to fend for themselves? This was only one of
the  issues debated at the time. 

Again, I suggest _Quakers and Slavery in America_ by Thomas E. Drake

Ben and Tom pass the historical litmus test. George doesn't. The links
that Doug provided this time are better support for Jbore's position
than Doug's. Maybe Paul is correct, Doug seems to playing some sort of
joke. I kinda admire that myself. Anyways, way back yonder Doug provided
the links that show how Washington used his power to frustrate and limit
the Quaker anti-slavery movement. 

Ben Franklin (not sure he gets zapped by Pynchon either, just can't see
how the founding fathers are being dissed in this novel)  was
progressive on the slave questions early on, printing "abolitionist's"
books as early as 1729. By 1759 he was arguing that slavery should end
because it was stunting the growth of the economy. During the
revolutionary period, Franklin and Jefferson called for an end of
slavery. In 1784 Franklin became honorary president of the Society for
the Relief of Freed Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. Franklin was
also the President of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and he
introduced a petition against slavery as delegate to the First
Constitutional Convention. Franklin's last public act before his death
was the publication of a parody defending himself and Quakers for their
positions on the slavery questions.