Slavery

I BELIEVE I'm entitled to reparations for having to read yet another letter on slavery. At what point do some folks in the African-American community embrace the glorious possibilities of their lives today? Scott Wolf Philadelphia

AS SOON as he learned the ugly truth, the chairman of financial-services giant Wachovia Corp. issued a remorseful nostra culpa. "We are deeply saddened by these findings," Ken Thompson said. "I apologize to all Americans, and especially to African-Americans. " Wachovia acknowledged that it "cannot change the past or atone for the harm that was done. " But it promised to make amends by subsidizing the work of organizations involved in "furthering awareness and education of African-American history.

I THANK Michael Smerconish for spreading the word (May 31) about the archaeological dig at the President's House site at 6th and Market, where George Washington presided from 1790- 1797 with nine of his 316 enslaved Africans from Mount Vernon. Smerconish correctly noted that the dig recently uncovered partial foundations of the bow window, the prototype for today's Oval Office. But in regard to the partial foundations of the walls of the kitchen, he is incorrect in noting that the kitchen had a basement so those blacks could move between it and the main house "without going outside.

RE COUNCILMAN Goode's response to my letter on the slavery-disclosure ordinance: I agree that it was wrong to use slaves as collateral for loans and investments. Slavery was wrong and disgraceful. But the councilman still fails to tell how these disclosures will address discrimination. What do any current discriminatory practices by these institutions have to do with what happened hundreds of years ago? Can't they be investigated for what they are doing now? If I am being investigated for embezzlement, do you also investigate my great-great-great-grandfather?

From the perspective of the late 20th century, the most intriguing aspect of Abraham Lincoln's rise to political power is the combination of his eloquent moralism against the extension of slavery to the Western territories with his willingness to tolerate it in the South. In his 1861 inaugural address, for example, in an effort to save the Union, Lincoln even endorsed a constitutional amendment forbidding Congress from interfering with slavery in the states. The states that had seceded, however, were unimpressed.

RE MINISTER Meritazon's recent op-ed on reparations: First off, sir, study your history before sticking your hand out for something no one alive today was responsible for that happened 300 years ago. The rich African war lords enslaved their own people, then figured a way to make even more money by selling them to anyone willing to pay. Second, don't you know that men, women and children are still forced into slavery every day in...

Re "Multicultural congress pushes for slave memorial at Liberty Bell" (article Aug. 9): A memorial on Independence Mall commemorating those who were enslaved at our first president's Morris Mansion is most suitable. It will also serve as a bridge to the century of slavery in the City of Brotherly Love way before George Washington brought his menservants from Virginia to Philadelphia right after the creation of the American presidency. The truth about slavery in Philadelphia is too often buried.

America's first abolitionist organization was founded in 1775, when a group of Quakers met at the Rising Sun Tavern in Philadelphia. The Quakers had been anti-slavery proponents for some time, having banned its members from enslaving African Americans by the 1770s. From this meeting was borne the Pennsylvania Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. The society was devoted not only to the abolition of slavery, but also to the social and economic improvement of African Americans.

As the nation's first president, George Washington led a young country that had declared "all men are created equal," yet owned 300 slaves, gave slave owners the legal right to recover their runaways, and skirted a Pennsylvania law providing for gradual abolition by sending some of his slaves to Virginia. That dichotomy, at the heart of the President's House exhibit at Independence Mall, was on the minds of those touring the site Sunday on the eve of the federal holiday honoring all U.S. presidents.

On this last day of January in 1865, the House of Representatives passed a proposal for a constitutional ban on slavery. In Steven Spielberg's latest film, Abraham Lincoln is the consummate politician who, in the midst of a great war and facing determined resistance in Congress, made it happen. But before we join the "Why can't President Obama be more like Lincoln?" chorus, it's worth noting that the 13th Amendment was less a great leap forward than a single conflicted step. It reads, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

The entire treatment of slavery in my junior high history books - crack sources of information that they were - consisted of one or two illustrations of nameless black people, in chains, standing on auction blocks or picking cotton. Nary a mention of who the enslaved were, how they felt about their lives, or whether they had any dreams or aspirations. What we were required to memorize was that Abraham Lincoln freed us. Now here we are, 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation (issued Jan. 1, 1863)

In this month marking the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, here's a look at slavery around the world. Match the nation with the year it abolished slavery. 1. Brazil. 2. China. 3. Haiti. 4. Iran. 5. Korea. 6. Mauritania. 7. Portugal. 8. Russia. 9. Saudi Arabia. 10. Zanzibar. a. 1723; serfs in 1861. b. 1761. c. 1804. d. 1888. e. 1894. f. 1897. g. 1906. h. 1928. i. 1962.

On the first day of 1863, as the Civil War raged on, President Lincoln proclaimed all the slaves in the rebellious Confederate states to be "forever free. " With his Emancipation Proclamation, whose 150th anniversary the United States celebrates this week, Lincoln made the end of slavery a Civil War goal. As PBS's ambitious documentary miniseries The Abolitionists shows, Lincoln's words came at the end of a decadeslong antislavery campaign led by a tiny group of activists whose fervor alienated them from the mainstream of American life.

If only we could hustle President Obama and Congress into a screening room and require repeated viewings of Lincoln . And if only we could lock ourselves in there as well, because the smartest film ever made about politics offers nuanced insights about the messy reality of governance, and about a democratic process run by flawed mortals whose noble aims often require ignoble means. The cinematic Abraham Lincoln - rendered life-size yet iconic by Daniel Day-Lewis - says it best.

Failing grade on Civil War David Goldfield deserves a failing grade ("A deadly rush into Civil War," Monday). Southern slave owners took their states out of the Union because they wanted no restrictions on the expansion of slavery. They feared any political evolution that would make a peaceful end to slavery possible. In 1860, Lincoln and the Republican platform recognized the constitutionality of slavery in the states where it already existed, but opposed the creation of any new slave states.

We are marking the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. So what? Most Americans seem indifferent.   That's a pity. The Civil War can tell us a great deal about ourselves, then and now. We have an unfortunate history of plunging into wars for God and democracy that have often made a mockery of both. If we can use this anniversary to learn more about why we rush to war, it will be an exercise worth undertaking. More than 750,000 men died in the Civil War. Extrapolated to today's population, the death toll would be close to 10 million.

SLAVERY IS alive and well. Not the old-time slavery - that is rare, although it exists in a few backwaters of the world. I'm talking about neo-slavery, which goes by the name of "human trafficking," and its reach is global. A lot of people throw the term around, but many don't understand it. Under federal law, at least one of three elements must exist to be considered "human trafficking": force, fraud, coercion. Without at least one of those, it may be exploitation or cruelty, but it is not "human trafficking" under U.S. law. These and other points were put on the table Saturday at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute during a film screening/panel hosted by state Sen. Daylin Leach, a Democrat representing parts of Montgomery and Delaware counties who is best known for having a sense of humor and a reliably liberal voting record.