I Am American (southern)

@onestarrynight: right i mean half our early presidents including the very first owned slaves. and want to know a secret there was black slave owners too. including the first slave owner in va.

@onestarrynight: Go to a different school? Seriously? I went to Jefferson Davis High School. I'm white. I hated that it glorifies a slave owner but I'm in a public school and I'm zoned to it. Maybe your riches let you go to school wherever you want but most of us don't get that. Changing the name of the school doesn't mean we forget history. It means we make a choice to not celebrate someone who's life's work was holding a few million of my neighbors ancestors as slaves. Sure not every slave owner was a horrible person but remember that Sally Hemings was Thomas Jefferson's property. That means she didn't have a choice. That's not only slave holding but it's rape. Does the Declaration of Independence outweigh years of rape and slavery? Who knows. Someone smarter than me can figure it out maybe. All men are created equal, my ass. I'd rather celebrate someone like William Wilburforce, thanks.

@luckylidia: so should we rename everything named after jefferson or washington too. and the civil wasnt about slavery btw.

@Mountainlady16: No, it wasn't about slavery, it was about ignorance. If any of the southerners had actually read the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, they'd have come across that Fifth Amendment thing...something the NRA gun freaks could do these days. If slaves really were property, like SCOTUS said in Dred Scott, then before the government freed any of them, they'd have to be paid fair market price for them. Just like if anyone wanted to take guns today. The government didn't have then and doesn't have now the money for that kind of thing so the Civil War was a complete exercise is futile, ignorant idiocy. That's what I get for listening in my University history classes. I read the constitution. Now, I'm sure you're going to rant about some government does what government wants kind of thing but remember that's why we have courts and a House and a Senate to prevent things like that from happening.

As for renaming places...some should some shouldn't. Washington, Jefferson, Madison and the rest, heck no, they're founding fathers. But the rebels, the traitors to their country, especially the people who rebelled in a power grab that was constitutionally unnecessary...get rid of them. Just like we don't celebrate Benedict Arnold...or did you go go Benedict Arnold Elementary School?

@luckylidia: no i went to a private mennonite school. and the whole taking guns away is also against the 2nd ammendment. the war was about states right lincoln made it about slavery. states rights an issue that is still happening today though now its about thing like gay marriage laws and education. you were just ranting about thomas jefferson and his slave sleeping together. if you want to talk about the people that screwed over another race lets rename anything named for andrew jackson and Grant too. or does only blacks matter