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Celebrity Gossip
Whingeing about how the rich don't do enough for the rest of society has officially made Bruce Springsteen a billionnaire. He can now reasonably be held responsible for redistributing his own wealth. He is, however, still slightly less wealthy than either Jay-Z or Taylor Swift.
History
A little reminder that our Civil War was not a simple expression of a simple disagreement on the question of slavery. At the time it was highly nuanced. Very highly.
Lincoln freed the slaves--more as an act of war than as a humanitarian act toward Black Americans, a delegation of whom he received politely enough, as President, but then assured of a "mutual antipathy" between "the races." He was said to have loathed slavery, but there is also a mysterious incident in his biography where, as I recall summarizing it in a report in grade five, he "took a job on a boat, selling." What he was selling, biographers have searched in vain to find any record of anyone ever saying. It was likely to have been slaves. He had no Black friends and never seemed to want any. He does seem to have sincerely tried to act "with malice toward none, with charity toward all," and should always be given due credit for that. But where there is no malice, there can still be revulsion. Lincoln was born and brought up a "poor White" Southerner, and that demographic group were generally known for their detestation of slaves whom they saw as undercutting them in competition for jobs.
Lee, on the other hand, had an "up close and personal" view of slavery. On general principles he opposed it. His wife inherited some slaves. Lee had no use for them and wished he could afford to emancipate them, though when notified that these slaves thought they were already free and were travelling freely on their own he ordered that they be whipped, as a way to show good neighborly intentions. His feelings, too, appear to have been more concerned with the state of White society than with the rights denied to Black Americans. Lee was not a hater, nor does he seem to have been oppressed by fear. He saw clearly that slavery, as practiced in the United States, was unethical, immoral, and also extremely unprofitable. If he had been richer he might have been motivated to do something about slavery because it was unprofitable.
If circumstances had pushed them into different positions it's possible to imagine Lee at least trying plans, or trying to revive President Monroe's plans, to end slavery and repatriate slaves of African descent--and Lincoln tolerating slavery in order to get along with rich political sponsors. Read their letters and see.
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