Wilt was pretty good...

Kobe Bryant, the Lakers guard, passed Wilt Chamberlain to move up to fourth place on the National Basketball Association’s all-time scoring list Saturday.

          That’s a tremendous accomplishment. Congratulations to Bryant.

          Truth be told, I’d have Bryant on the bench behind Magic Johnson and Jerry West on my all-time Lakers team (see an earlier blog on that question). Still, Bryant has a spot waiting for him in the pro basketball hall of fame and he’ll be voted in as soon as he is eligible.

          Those of us who saw Chamberlain play get a little steamed when we read some of the garbage on the internet today, written by some real “experts,” who downgrade Wilt’s accomplishments.

          Chamberlain, I read today, played in a league with no real competition in terms of size and talent at the post position.

          Kareem Abdul Jabbar is taller than Chamberlain and they played against each other during the second half of Wilt’s NBA career. Nate Thurmond, who played for the Warriors and other teams, was nearly as tall and every bit as tough.

Bill Russell? Not as tall as Chamberlain, true, but you’d have to say Russell was every bit the athlete that The Big Dipper was. Their rivalry is the stuff of legends.

Chamberlain played on championship teams with both the 76ers and the Lakers. He was an integral part of the Lakers team that won a record 33 straight games, a record recently threatened by the Miami Heat.

I read a column online this morning which said Kobe Bryant’s 81-point performance a few years ago is equal to the NBA-record 100 points Wilt scored against the Knicks one night in Pennsylvania.

Nothing against Bryant, but that’s just plain wrong. I checked with my wife, a retired second grade teacher, on something to be sure and my understanding is correct: 100 is greater than 81.

I guess the difference between those of us who saw Wilt play and those of us who were born too late to see Wilt play is that us old folks know what we saw. The rest of you don’t.

Wilt was terrific. Bryant is terrific. Let’s honor them both.

 

Thanks for reading.

A thin slice of, well, whatever

One of the joys of the study of history is finding the occasional oddity, the little note that contains something that seems to make no sense or at least very little sense. These little notes illustrate how weird life can be.

          Sometimes these small slices of life are perfectly logical but they are weird, none-the-less. Sometimes they are ironic and sometimes they simply reflect how odd things can happen.

          Take, for example, First Sargent John H. Robinson, whose name appears on the July 7, 1862 Muster Roll of Company A, Fifth Battalion of Hilliard’s Legion, a Confederate unit during the American Civil War. Robinson, a note on the muster sheet says, was mustered in by mistake. The note continues, “Sent to Richmond. Belongs to Company C, 14^th Alabama Regiment.”

          Wouldn’t you like to hear the back story on that? How does a soldier get counted on a muster roll by mistake? It is particularly odd that a First Sargent, the fifth ranking officer in the company, could somehow be counted on a muster roll by mistake.

          Company A was originally known as The David Clopton Rangers before it was folded into the Legion. Later in 1862, the entire Fifth Battalion was split from the Legion and merged with another cavalry regiment to form the 10^th Confederate Cavalry Regiment. Many of those men did not survive the war.

          Privates John M. Harris and George W. McGehee, both from Company A of the 5^th Battalion, were dead by the time the muster was counted. McGehee died five days before the muster. Harris was simply noted as, “Dead.”

          William Bristol or Pristol or Pricket (the muster rolls are hard to read sometimes), a 22-year-old private in the Fifth Battalion’s B Company, died the previous May 11.

          Most of the Legion men joined the Confederate Army for one year of service. Before their year was up, the Confederate government decided the term would instead be three years.

          You understand how that happened: Most political leaders on both sides of the conflict expected a short military struggle. Before the first year was up, it was obvious the violence would continue for a while. The soldiers were stuck with extra duty.

          Letters home from Confederate soldiers reflect that some of them were very unhappy about being forced to serve for the additional time. They complained about losing their freedom. These same soldiers were fighting to save slavery.

          Davis Wheted, a private from Talladega County, Alabama, enlisted in the Fifth Battalion’s Company C at age 61. Must have been an interesting conversation in that family when Wheted enlisted.

Robert Craft enlisted at 56 years of age. He also was from Talladega County and served in Company E.

Private James M. Adams of Company A enlisted at 50. The next name on the Company A roster is that of 22-year-old Joel J. Adams. Both were from Chambers County, Alabama and they could well have been father and son.

Once in a while you find an officer that decided to leave the hardships of service life. Officers resign from the Army. Sometimes you find Privates who also decide to leave the difficulties inherent in fighting a war. These privates are called, “deserters.”

Your loyal blogger notes that, rather than deserting, you have instead resigned yourselves to finishing this blog.

 

For that reason, it says here, thanks for reading.

That's a Mother Nature no-no

Today is Monday, March 25, 2013. It is snowing here in Tallmadge, Ohio. Winter is hanging in there. The cold weather refuses to go away.

          The thing is, I am sure it is my fault. I forgot to send the memo to Mother Nature, reminding her that the weather is supposed to improve here after the end of February. Warmer weather is supposed to appear as March progresses.

          I guess the old girl is devoted to tradition. We’ve seen no warming trend here in northeastern Ohio. No sign of Spring. I guess the rule must be no memo, no heat.

          As this is my first year in Ohio, I was under the impression that someone hereabouts was already in charge of the Mother memo and that I would not have to take up the task. Obviously, I was wrong on that score. We had two inches of snow overnight here and expect another inch before noon today.

          And so, on the off chance that she reads this blog and with the utmost respect, I submit the following memo to Mother Nature:

 

Mother Nature,

          It is with the greatest of pleasures that I send you the annual memorandum that the weather is supposed to change now. Please remember to turn down the A/C and begin cranking the heater. As we have already had the first day of Spring, I am sure you will not mind giving the furnace a little extra nudge.

          Your snow is a beautiful thing, but my wife has grown tired of using her new snow shovel on the driveway. I delight in football weather, but the baseball season is upon us and we’d like to see some games played in places other than Arizona and Florida.

          Hoping that this memo finds you in the best of health and humor, I remain yours truly,

 

Speedylee

 

P.S. Thanks for reading.

 

Bad time to have Cabin Fever

                Brigadier General Archibald Gracie commanded a group of Confederate soldiers from April of 1862 until Gracie’s death in the Petersburg trenches in 1864. That group of soldiers was comprised of changing regiments during the ebb and flow of Confederate fortunes in ’62 and ’63, but when Gracie led his brigade toward the sound of gunfire during the Battle of Chickamauga on September 20, 1863, his command included Hilliard’s Legion of Alabama Volunteers, the 43^rd Alabama Infantry Regiment and the 63^rd Tennessee Infantry Regiment.

The upper reaches of Hill 1 at Horseshoe Ridge with
the marker for Gracie's Brigade.

          Briefly, late in the afternoon of the second day of the engagement several regiments of the Union’s Army of the Cumberland were perched on the edge of Horseshoe Ridge and those Union fighters had gamely hung on and fended off a major Confederate effort to push the bluecoats off the Ridge.

          It was a bloody, awful fight for both sides. The Union commander, General William S. Rosecrans, had already fled the battlefield after a Confederate breakthrough. The Confederate commander, General Braxton Bragg, had retired to his headquarters believing the battle lost.

          Most of Gracie’s men were seeing combat for the first time, but they managed to overcome the tremendous Federal defense and doggedly pushed up the hillside. Gracie’s men forced the Federals to give up the informal breastworks they created the night before. The Union soldiers backed away to a wooded area behind them and continued their rifle fire at the Confederates.

          It was now about 5 p.m.

          The above is available in any source about Chickamauga. Far as it goes, the above is accurate.

The view come of Gracie's men might have had, looking from the crest of Hill 1 toward Hill 2. Above is an edited
version of what it MAY have looked like in September of 1863. Below is the modern view with the monuments and
parking lot.

          The problem is that the story is incomplete. There is more.

          We know now that a small number of Confederate soldiers did more than just reach the Federal breastworks. Some Confederates crossed through or over the works and gained access to the top of Hill 1 on Horseshoe Ridge.

          For those unfamiliar with the battle, Hill 1 was the right-most of the three hills on Horseshoe Ridge (as one looks uphill) and Gracie’s men made up the right-most attacking force at the time of their charge up the side of the Ridge. Other Confederate commands had tried and failed to reach the edge of the Ridge earlier in the day.

          The hillside was, as it is today, lined with trees. But unlike today, it was packed with the corpses of the Southerners who had failed to reach the top when Gracie’s men arrived. Small fires, sparked by small arms fire, flickered and the smoke from the fires added to the atmosphere.



The cabin marking the approximate location of the Snodgrass home is
just visible to the left of center. The view is from the top of Hill 1.

          Atop the Ridge and to the right of the right-most Gracie man was the home of the Snodgrass family. Its approximate location is marked today by a small cabin. The Snodgrass home was used as a hospital for wounded Union men during the battle.

The Tennessee regiment was Gracie’s right-most unit and the 63rd immediately fouled up by marching directly into the cannon fire of a Union artillery unit in a cornfield adjacent to and at almost a 90-degree angle to the Ridge. Pinned down, the 63^rd was not part of the charge up the hillside.

          But the Legion and the 43^rd eventually pushed the Union men away from the berm of the hill.

          At that time, shortly after arriving at the front end of the breastworks, a smattering of men from the Legion’s First Battalion went over the works and scampered about atop the Ridge. The unabated gunfire from both sides made the exposed top of the Ridge a terribly dangerous place to be and we know that at least one of the Confeds who risked the Ridge was wounded.

The Snodgrass cabin may have been the goal of the Confederate men who climbed over the works. Evidence collected by this researcher indicates that at least one of Gracie’s men made it as far as the Snodgrass home. If the cabin was the goal, it was a bad time to come down with Cabin Fever.

We believe the men that risked their lives to rush about in the area of the Snodgrass home were in search of food. Confederate soldiers did not eat well or often. It stands to reason that the Snodgrass home had a vegetable garden and that garden may have been another temptation for the hungry men of Bragg’s Army of Tennessee.

          One of the Confederate Ridge runners was wounded shortly after stopping to snag a pumpkin. Later that night, after his wound was dressed, he ate the gourd and was known afterwards as ‘Pumpkin’ by his mates.

          The men of the Legion have never gotten the credit they deserve. If I ever get my book published, maybe I can fix that.

 

          In the meantime, thanks for reading.

The real March Madness

March 22, 2013: Spring in Ohio

Pick 'em

          A long time ago, in a community far, far away, your loyal blogger was a sportswriter covering the fortunes of the Imperial Valley College Arabs men’s basketball program for the Imperial Valley Press. IVC is located in southeastern California’s Imperial County and the basketball team is popular in the agriculturally rich region.

          Jeff Deyo coached the Arabs in those years. A very personable guy, Deyo turned out winning teams at IVC and made it fun to cover his squad.

          One day, Deyo posted a piece of paper on the outside of his office door. Printed on the paper was the bracket for the annual Riverside City College holiday basketball tournament, a 16-team gathering of some of the best junior college teams in the state. Basketball junkies flocked to the RCC tournament every season because the competition was so good.

          Scouts and coaches from four-year schools attended the tournament and it was a terrific indicator for which teams might advance from the southern region to the state championship tournament later in the season.

          A close examination of the bracket posted on Deyo’s door revealed his prediction that IVC would win the tournament. Not too surprising that a coach would publically predict success for his own team, really. It was surprising that Deyo filled out every slot, including the loser’s bracket for teams that lost a game during the tournament.

          And, a few weeks later, it was amazing to see that not only did IVC win the tournament, Deyo had every game right. Every game.

          Fast forward a few decades to this week when yours truly was challenged to fill out the 64-team bracket for the 2013 NCAA Division I mens basketball tournament in a free, online contest.

          No question about it, I needed help. How could any person, crazy or sane, possibly predict every game in the tournament? Where was Jeff Deyo when I needed him?

          Logically, you pick the favorites in the first round. But how do you pick the game between the eighth and ninth seeds? The seventh and tenth? No clue here.

          Maybe you try to weigh the traditional strength of a given school’s conference. Maybe you try to listen to the talking heads on television. Maybe you flip a coin. Maybe you take a blind stab.

           By the time the process got to the third round, this prognosticator reached the point where March Madness became a medical condition. Downstairs, Mrs. Leeway could hear odd sounds coming from our office. She heard shouts of, “I don’t know!” and, “Who are these guys?”

          When the selection proceedings reached the Final Four, things began to get ugly. Okay, uglier. The contest rules dictate that in case of a tie, contestants must predict the final score of the national championship game.

          Really? The score? The score of a game between two teams that no logical human would ever expect to meet for the national title?

          As they say on NCIS, “That’s just Ducky.”

          The bracket completed and submitted, your exhausted but loyal blogger slumped back in his chair and took a deep breath.

          “Might have been easier,” I muttered to myself, “if I had seen more than three games this year.”

          Curious? I picked Kansas, I think.

          Thanks for reading.

         

Unforgettable

          There are some things you never forget.

          We always remember our first car, first book by an author we eventually come to follow and our first kiss. Remember your first rock concert? How about your first trip to a big league ballpark?

          Your loyal blogger has never forgotten his first stock car race. It was the first race of any kind I saw in person and it was a life changer. Looking back at it now, the stats testify that it was really a heckuva show.

          It was November 24, 1974 at Ontario Motor Speedway in California, a race in what we now call NASCAR’s Cup division and believe me when I tell you, the stars were there.

          You want to talk about a Hall of Fame front row? Richard Petty started on the pole and the guy on the outside was A.J. Foyt. Petty’s pole-winning lap was clocked at 149.94 mph around Ontario’s 2.5-mile oval.

          A lot of people don’t remember the Ontario track, which is a shame. It was built to be a duplicate of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s racing venue and I guess it was pretty close to the original. The Ontario track benefited from better weather than Indy, obviously, and could hold races at the end of the year. That November event was the final race of the season for what was then called the Grand National Series.

          I sat in the grandstand nearest the first turn, in the section closest to the start/finish line, and you need to understand that when those dudes went running by after taking the green flag, my life changed. The cars themselves were preceded a rolling noise (which sounded a bit like an earthquake). Then the field came screaming by, just coming up toward full song, the 40 cars lined up by twos all bumper-to-bumper-to-bumper.

          Petty and Foyt leading them.

          How competitive was this race? Bobby Allison started fourth and he led the first lap. Got by both Petty and Foyt to lead lap one.

          I remember vividly that newspaper articles leading up to the race said that the heavy stock cars would not be able to pass in the flat corners the way the Indy cars could at Ontario and the stock cars would find it especially impossible to pass on the outside on Ontario’s relatively flat corners.

          Stock car racers, the media opined, put on a great show on the steeply-banked tracks in the South. But the passing at Ontario would have to be done on the straights. There was no way around it, so to speak.

          And I believe to this day that the reason A.J. Foyt passed Bobby Allison on the outside of turn one during the start of the second lap of that race was to be sure everyone understood that when Super Tex heard something was impossible, he went and did it anyway. By passing Allison in turn one, Foyt could be sure that everyone saw him do the impossible.

          Again.

          In all, there were 39 official passes for the lead that day and probably twice that many unofficial lead changes. An unofficial lead change comes when a driver passes another to take the lead but is not leading at the start/finish line, where the leader is officially recorded.

          The official leader list is pretty impressive. The first few were Allison, Foyt, David Pearson, Foyt again and Petty, then Foyt and Cale Yarborough. Petty eventually went out with an engine problem. Foyt and Allison went at it for the lead toward the end of the race before Foyt had to pit unexpectedly (I don’t remember why he had to pull in) and Foyt lost ground. Allison led the last 31 laps and won the race, only to have NASCAR discover that he had illegal rocker arms.

          Allison kept the win and NASCAR fined him a hefty sum.

          The leader averaged 134.963 mph for the 500-mile distance. The average speed was fast because there were only three caution periods and they combined for just total 17 laps. That’s just 8.5 percent of the race completed under the caution flag, a terrific 91.5 percent of the race under green flag conditions. All in all, a great show.

Yours truly has attended hundreds, if not thousands, of races since then at dirt tracks, short tracks, road courses, street races for Indy cars and F-1 cars, street races for stock cars, drag races, off road races for both cars and motorcycles. Even speedway bikes, which are really cool. Basically, I’ve seen everything from a 24-hour sports car race to a 3.8-second drag race.

But in all that time I don’t think I’ve seen a better race than that NASCAR show at Ontario in 1974.

 

Thanks for reading.

Civil War Soldiers: In sickness and in health

          We’ll never know the exact number of casualties suffered during the American Civil War. See this blog, November 2, 2012: Numbers, Numbers, Numbers. But one assumption that appears to be ironclad is that more soldiers were felled by disease than by warfare.

          The intent here is not to delineate all the different reasons for this. Readers interested are encouraged to read Bell Irvin Wiley’s The Life of Johnny Reb, The Common Soldier of the Confederacy. Chapter XIII, The Deadliest Foe, helps the reader understand all the issues. Wiley also wrote The Life of Billy Yank, which your loyal blogger has yet to read.

          Records for Federal Army medical care seem to be better organized than those for the Confederates, but the most easily available Confederate records paint a picture that is difficult to imagine from the perspective of the 21^st Century. Still, the picture is there, painted in words that are perfectly clear.

          The story of one Confederate unit helps to illustrate the point.

          Hilliard’s Legion was formed in early 1862 by George Washington Hilliard, a well-known Alabama political figure. There were originally three battalions of infantry, one artillery battalion and a cavalry battalion in the Legion. As soon as it was formed, the cavalry arm of the Legion was transferred elsewhere in the Confederate States Army.

          Company B of the third Battalion was formed independently of Hilliard’s efforts but was added to the Legion on April 7, 1862. In June of that year, Company B was stationed in Knoxville, Tennessee.

          June of 1862 was a difficult month for the men of Company B of the Third Battalion of Hilliard’s Legion. Records indicate that a strain of the Measles and other illnesses went through the company, leaving misery and death behind.

          According to notes found among the Muster Rolls for the company, eight soldiers died of disease between June 7 and June 28 that year. Joseph Graves, James M. Graves, Green B. Knowles and Irwin Raley all died June 7, 1862. Raley and the Graves all seem to have succumbed to the Measles, while Knowles was lost to something termed ‘Brain Fever,’ by the record keepers.

          Knowles, at 53, was the eldest of the bunch by far. Joseph Graves was 23 when he passed on and the other two were teenagers. All were privates.

          Van B. Tomma (age 22) died on June 12 of unlisted causes and Joseph H. Bartlett (23) perished two days later. James B. Cox was lost to the Measles on June 28.

          Both Federal and Confederate armies suffered from disease during the war. The Legion was not unique. For that reason, you have to understand the impact that illness had on both sides before you can really understand the war.

          Even non-fatal illnesses impacted the course of the war. It is more difficult to estimate the impact of illnesses survived than it is to figure out how many died. Again, from the same Company B, three men were found on the rolls at Fairgrounds Hospital 2, possibly in Montgomery, Alabama late in October of (presumably) 1863.

          Sergeant R. Blamn and Corporal J.W. Jernagan were under care because they suffered from chronic dysentery and Private Thomas Dixon (or Dickson) was struggling with diarrhea, which was a very common ailment during the war.

          Consider this: Shortly after the Legion was formed and after the cavalry battalion was whisked away, the Legion’s four remaining battalions consisted of about 3,000 men. When the Legion marched toward the Federal guns at Chickamauga as part of General Archibald Gracie’s brigade more than a year later, it was the first combat experience for the command.

          On that date, September 20, 1863, the Legion had an effective strength of 2,003, according to the Confederate reports. Thus, nearly a third of the Legion’s original strength was lost between April 7, 1862 and September 20, 1863, all due to non-combat issues.

          For the individual soldier, fighting a war is all about survival. During America’s War Between the States, the fight to survive extended to non-combat periods in each army’s quarters.

          Thanks for reading.

For the want of video, some greatness was lost

          ESPN has declared Vincent “Bo” Jackson as the greatest athlete of all time.

          In a related development, ESPN has decided that no athlete active before 1980 was any good at all.

          Jackson was a tremendous athlete, a football and baseball all-star. One of the great sporting stories of all time. From everything I’ve ever heard, he’s a nice guy.

          I covered the Raiders during the time he played in the NFL and I was in the press box in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum the day he suffered his severe hip injury. It was an ugly thing to see. I bring this up to illustrate that I understand what a tremendous athlete Jackson was in his best days.

          But the greatest of all time?

          According to the piece I read about the announcement, someone created a matrix (wow!) to determine the list of greats. The determining factors included things very difficult to quantify.

          You would think that multiple sport athletes would have a big edge on single-sport guys (more on the term ‘guys’ in a moment) and they did.

          NFL all-timer Jim Brown was matched up in the final round of eliminations against Jackson. Brown was a great lacrosse player as well as the best running back of all time and deserved to be on the list.

          Somehow, Michael Jordan is in final 16. Some call Jordan the best basketball player of all-time (I do not) but one thing nobody has ever called Jordan is a great baseball player. When he played minor league ball, I think he was placed on a double-A team but the only reason he made it that far was the fact that he purchased the team’s bus. I’m not sure what other sport in which Jordan was a superstar.

          Kirk Gibson was a college football star and had a Hall of Fame Major League Baseball career. He was a truly great clutch player in the brightest of spotlights, yet his matrix wasn’t good enough to make the top 16.

          Dale Earnhardt is on the list but A.J. Foyt is not. Yikes!

          You know who else made this list? Tony Hawk, the skateboarder. Jackie Robinson is on the list of 16 finalists and I understand that because he was a college football star when he wasn’t playing baseball at UCLA. But why is Tiger Woods on the list?

          And darnitall, where is Babe Didrikson Zaharias? She won two gold medals and one silver medal in the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. She led a team to the AAU national amateur basketball championship in 1931. She set five world records on the same day during an AAU meet in ’31. Then she moved on to golf, winning the US Amateur and British Ladies Open before turning professional. The only opponent that ever beat the Babe was cancer.

          I have a question for the fine individuals at ESPN, the ones who created the matrix to rate all the athletes of all time (this vast matrix must include some kind of algorithm, right?): Have they ever heard of a guy named Thorpe? Jim Thorpe?

          He won both the decathlon and pentathlon in the 1912 Olympic Games. When the king of Sweden said to Thorpe, “You sir are the greatest athlete in the world,” the King was working without a matrix. Thorpe, who did not have his algorithm with him that day, still managed to reply, “Thanks, King.”

          Thorpe was a great football player, though his best days were behind him by the time the forerunner to the National Football League was founded. By today’s standard, he’d still be a great punter or drop-kicking field goal specialist.

          Thorpe played major league baseball too. In six seasons, he had a career average of .252, playing mostly outfield. That’s better than Jordan did in double A ball. In his final year in the majors, Thorpe hit .327 for Boston’s National League team, hitting seven doubles, three triples and a home run, driving in 16 runs in 159 at bats.

          There is very little film of Thorpe and even less video, so the folks at ESPN might not have heard of him. They stuck to what their matrix told them (and to guys they had film of), which is a shame.

          Bo Jackson was a phenomenal athlete, perhaps the most remarkable of his era.

          But the greatest of all time? I think Bo knows better.

 

          Thanks for reading.

Kicking the can: An end-over-end boot to no end

                The American Civil War was very little more than the continued maturation of our Constitution. As such, it serves as the ultimate example of what happens when our legislators elect to kick the can of decision making down the road.

          The framers of the Constitution did not eliminate slavery and the matter festered until the majority of southern states started pulling out of the Union to form the Confederacy in 1860.

          The Civil War started with the bombardment of Fort Sumter in April of 1861, sure. But the war came about because the framers of the Constitution put the matter of slavery on the back burner in order to get the document ratified.

          You could argue the decision to get the Constitution ratified was of paramount importance and all other considerations were of lesser importance. Many of the founders felt that way, obviously, and when you consider the question, you have to try to assume a 1780s mentality.

          If you give the Framers of the Constitution a pass for not addressing slavery during the period when the Constitution was written and voted into law, fine. But there was no serious effort to rid the young nation of the scourge of slavery through the end of the 18^th century and no serious legislative attempt to get the job done through the middle of the 19^th century, either.

          Now, I’m pretty sure we all agree that wars are bad and should be avoided when possible, but I am positive that we all agree that the institution of slavery is even worse.

          And that takes us to the 1860s and the War Between the States. The conflict has been termed by some historians the first modern war. The carnage was awful. More than half a million Americans lost their lives, some of them civilians. Some towns on both sides lost an entire generation of young men.

          But slavery ended.

          The war brought death, destruction and suffering. It cost families their fathers, husbands, brothers and sons. Many of the survivors carried wounds for the remainder of their lives and they frequently had to carry those wounds on crutches or in empty sleeves.

          But the practice of slavery was made illegal in the United States of America.

          It is argued here that slavery would have existed in some form well into the 20th century without the coming of the Civil War. Congress did not have enough votes to eliminate the vile practice of enslavement before the war started and it probably wouldn’t have had enough votes for decades to come.

          Go back and read your history. Study the era. Two states where slavery was still legal, Maryland and Kentucky, remained loyal to the Union. If every Congressman from every free state voted to end slavery before the war, they would not have had enough votes to pass the law and we can assume that at least some representatives from free states would have voted to maintain the status quo.

          Thankfully, we’ll never know how long the practice of slavery would have lasted in the United States without the violence of our Civil War. But we do have a prime example of what happens when you kick the can down the road: Nothing good.

          Thanks for reading.