Right. Since there were relatively few militant abolitionists, it's impossible for anybody else to have been one.
Sometimes, the groupthink here is appalling.
Which groupthink is that, Joe? That every one who projects their selves back into history would take the right side on controversial issues according to contemporary (21st cent) mores?
Anyway, my point is that militant abolitionists were rare birds & most were netted at Harper's Ferry. The statistical likelihood of some random guy being a militant does approach zero...as does the likelihood of any of us having their selves and psyches transported to 1860 America.
FWIW, I am not a great fan of Lincoln, but I think the Civil War justified. After the rebel states withdrew from the Union, they no longer had US Constitutional protection and were a foreign state with repugnant practices, much under-utilized agricultural land, and weak political leadership. They were similar to the Indian tribes that way and got/merited similar treatment. I lay awake at night with my heart bleeding for neither.
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[tongue_in_cheek]As long as we're claiming the credit to fight evils conquered long before any of us had any chance to fight them (and will never bear any inconvenience for our actions), I'd like it to be known that:
1. If I were in Germany in the late 1930s, I would be against Nazism.
2. If I were in Madrid, Spain, in 1492, I would be a philosemite.
3. If I were in the Garden of Eden, I would slap Adam and Eve upside the head before they ate THAT fruit and
club smite the serpent with a bough from a fig tree, thus averting all sin for all time.
Y'all can thank me by sending money or dancing bears via Fedex.[/tongue_in_cheek]