Agreed; including the addendum in your second post. I have tried for years to wrap my 20th/21st century mind around the dichotomy of slavery and freedom. I understand all the arguments about the 17th/18th/19th century mindset about the mental capacity of blacks, held at the time even by Lincoln, but it is hard. Thomas Jefferson, in his heart, meant that ALL men were created equal when he wrote the Declaration. He wrote later that he feared the Judgement of God upon us for the imposition of slavery, but he kept his and used them as everyone around him, perhaps even fathering children with Sally Hemings. When she went to France with Jefferson, she could have declared her freedom, but did not. She returned to Virginia and remained his slave. General John Gordon, of Georgia, wrote in his memoir of the war that there were many trees in the forest of causes for the war, but that slavery was the tallest. I have always thought that a good analogy. Stan