February 8th

It's been hard to get back to blogging regularly with all the snow days and 4 day weeks, but I'm going to try extra hard to blog everyday from now on.
In history lately we've been learning about slavery, and all the issues that came with it. Such issues include disputes between free states and slave states, and violent abolitionists, like John Brown, who is a both a hero and a villain depending on which side of the country you ask.
I like learning about slavery because it is something we've grown up learning about, so it's not confusing at all. I think it's interesting how Southerners thought of slaves as property instead of humans, and even the Supreme Court tended to give rights to owners over the rights of humanity. The slaves must have felt so hopeless since even the national government of America, where "all men are created equal", thought of them as nothing more than a cotton picking machine.
Today in class we learned about John Brown, a devout anti-slavery activist who did everything in his power to end slavery. He prayed to God that he would end slavery in the United States, or die trying, which is what happened. I think he went about ending slavery in the stupidest way, he drew too much attention and thus, he was executed along with other activists. If I were John Brown, I would have thought the whole situation through a lot more, but maybe it's good that he drew so much attention. John Brown's Raid is considered the event that started the Civil War, one of the biggest events in US history. The Civil War ended slavery, so does that mean that, in theory, John Brown did end slavery in the long run? I believe so, and that's why I voted him as a hero who achieved his goal during our activity in class. I just dont see how he could be a villain when he was trying to help a surpressed group of people to freedom. Even though he killed some people in the process, the people he killed were the real villains for treating fellow humans so horribly.