Gone With The Wind Reflection

 Gone With the Wind is a beautiful tribute to the world it was when it was filmed. It shows the relationships between the different sets of characters beautifully. 

The relationships between the African American nannies, household workers, and the white children really shined through. You saw Scarlett watch some of the AA workers she grew up with going to war for their state. She was visually distraught watching them walk away. 

The background of the war and the way of life were portrayed perfectly. The character development and the development of friendships were very strong. 

Scarlett starts off as a bit of an entitled brat who is in love with Ashley Wilkes. She thinks that Ashley will choose her over his cousin Melanie Hamilton. When she goes to this event she thinks that she can change his mind, and make him choose her. 

When he clearly shows no interest in her she tries to make him jealous by deciding to marry Melanie’s brother, Charles. At the end of the party, Ashley and Scarlett have a chat. 

She tells him she loves him. He tells her he can’t be with her. After he leaves the room, Scarlett realizes she is not in the room alone. Rhett, a man at the party tries to woo her. She has no interest. 

So Scarlett and Charles choose to get married before he heads off for war. But soon after the war begins Charles dies from measles. Scarlett is now widowed. 

At a charity event, Scarlett runs into Rhett while she’s still in mourning. They decide to dance together and that is uncommon for a lady in mourning. 

I really like the development of Rhett and Scarlett's relationship. Rhett comes and visits every couple of months during the war, and they connect every time. 

I also like the development of Melanie and Scarlett's friendship. Even though Scarlett is still in love with Ashley, she still chooses to watch after and keep Melanie safe. Scarlett even helps Melanie give birth to her son. 

The biggest change was probably Scarlett's character. She starts off as someone you would hate. But becomes a character with a purpose. 

She helps all the injured men, while she is all alone without her family. The biggest moment is when she brings them all back home safely to find that the person she missed the most passed away while she was gone. She went from being a weak character to a brave and strong-willed one.

Links:

Gone with the Wind | Plot, Cast, Awards, & Facts | Britannica

WarnerBros.com | Gone with the Wind | Movies

Bleeding Kansas EOTO #1

 Bleeding Kansas was the deadly outcome of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. 

The act “instituted a policy known as popular sovereignty in the Kansas Territory, allowing the settlers to decide by vote whether the territory would be admitted to the Union as a slave or free state”. 

People on both sides flooded the territory in order to sway the outcome. This would lead to violent, and deadly clashes. 

“During Bleeding Kansas, murder, mayhem, destruction and psychological warfare became a code of conduct in Eastern Kansas and Western Missouri”. 

A well-known example is the massacre in May 1856. This was at Pottawatomie Creek, “where John Brown and his five sons killed pro-slavery advocates”.

Fort Scott was used to trouble and violence. But in 1858 everything intensified. “The residents of Fort Scott were predominately pro-slavers, while Free-Staters and abolitionists dominated the surrounding countryside. Radicals of each faction terrorized the town throughout the Bleeding Kansas era”. 

In 1858 James Montgomery became a leader of the Free State forces. He was involved in multiple violent attacks. 

“In April of 1858, Montgomery and his men fought U.S. troops stationed at Fort Scott in the battle of Paint Creek. One soldier was killed in this encounter”.

“In May of 1858, Montgomery and his men drove pro-slavery forces from Linn County. In retaliation, 11 Free-Staters were pulled out of their homes, taken to a ravine and shot down. This incident, known as the Marais des Cygnes Massacre, was rumored to have been plotted in the Western Hotel”.

All this violence caught the governor's attention. “On June 15, 1858, he held a meeting at the Western Hotel in order to settle political unrest. While this meeting nearly devolved into a riot, it was successful. Peace and quiet reigned for a brief five-month period”.

Montgomery struck again in December of 1858. He ‘rescued’ Benjamin Rice, a Free-Stater. He had been jailed for murder, but Montgomery thought he was jailed illegally so he went and rescued him. 

Having all different sides in one area led to three distinct political groups, pro-slavery, Free-Staters, and abolitionists. 

“The anti-slavery forces prevailed as Kansas entered into the Union a free state on January 29, 1861. This turbulence illustrated the beginning of the terrifying bloodshed that was to come during the Civil War”.

Links:

Bleeding Kansas (U.S. National Park Service)

Blog Post: Abraham Lincoln

 I am Abraham Lincoln. Most people know me as the 16th president of the United States, and the person who delivered the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. 

I was born on February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both uneducated, and I somehow learned how to read, write, and cipher.

My mother passed away when I was 10. My father moved to Indiana when I was 8 years old. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. 

When I came of age I made extraordinary efforts to attain knowledge while working on a farm, splitting rails for fences, and keeping a store in New Salem, Illinois. I was a captain in the Black Hawk War. 

I married Mary Todd and had four boys, only one of whom lived to maturity. 

I spent eight years in the Illinois legislature and rode the circuit of courts for many years. From 1834 to 1840, I held a seat in the Illinois legislature. At the same time, I practiced law in Illinois, and at that time I became one of the state’s most renowned lawyers. 

I first entered national politics in 1847 while serving a single term in Congress. I was a part of the Whig Party but later changed to the Republican Party. 

In the fall of 1854, I gave a three-hour speech in Peoria, Illinois. I presented more clearly than ever my moral, legal, and economic opposition to slavery—and then I admitted that I didn’t know exactly what should be done about it within the current political system. 

In 1858 I ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator. I lost the election, but in debating with Douglas I gained a national reputation that won me the Republican nomination for President in 1860. In 1860 I was nominated at the Republican National Convention to be the party’s presidential candidate and I embarked on a presidential campaign that I would win. 

When I became president I did not have any position towards slavery. I once said, Abraham Lincoln, “I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.” 

Abe Lincoln Quote, “I have said a hundred times, and I have now no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the slave States, and interfere with the question of slavery at all”.

Abe Lincoln Quote, “I say that we must not interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists, because the constitution forbids it, and the general welfare does not require us to do so”.

One of the solutions that I talked about was, “My first impulse would be to free all the slaves and send them to Liberia, to their own native land”. NPR-Transcript

At this point, I do not really see black people as an intrinsic part of American society. They are a kind of an alien group who have been uprooted from their own society and unjustly brought across the ocean.

On January 1, 1863, I issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy. This is my most famous speech and is still talked about to this day. 

I was shot while sitting in Ford’s Theater by John Wilkes Booth, on the night of April 14, 1865.  I died on the morning of April 15, 1865. 

Blog Post #1: The Supreme Court

 The Supreme Court is the most important in the United States, and it remains the most powerful judicial body on Earth. 

I learned a lot by watching the videos. The court poses for a new picture every time a new justice arrives. In all of American history, there have only been just over one hundred justices. 

John Marshall was a lawyer from Virginia and was the first chief justice of the Supreme Court. Behind John Marshall's statue in today's court building are inscribed the words of his opinion, in the case of Marbury v. Madison, “Never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding”. 

My most important takeaway from the videos is that, the Supreme Court tells the president, congress, and the states what they may or may not do. They are trained in law, but they deal with human dilemmas. 

The most surprising thing I learned was that the court receives more than seven thousand cases a year, yet they only accept about one hundred every year. Every case that is accepted is taken to the justices once a week. 

Each justice is assisted by a small staff of law clerks and secretaries, but each decision is for the justice to make. 

The court hears the cases in public. Lawyers from each side have thirty minutes to have an oral argument with the justices. A few days after they hear the case, the nine of them meet in their conference room alone. 

When they come to a decision a justice from the majority side writes an opinion piece, explaining the legal reasons for the decision. 

The first draft takes about four weeks to complete. That is sent to all the justices, and they can rewrite the piece or add their own opinions. Revisions and adjustments may go on for months.

The court's tradition is to announce decisions and release opinions for all current cases by the end of the term in late June.

The video changed my view on the Supreme Court. I always thought the Supreme Court was just a bunch of people in power, making decisions that they think are best for their view. 

I now realize that it is a lot of work to come to a decision, and sometimes people change their views based on what they research. It takes a lot more time and energy than I initially thought.

Arguments Against Slavery Using the Bible

When the Bible was written, it is unclear if the authors considered slavery in the context the world used in the future. 

In the Colossians chapter, verse 4:1, “Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, realizing that you too have a Master in heaven”. When it was written it shows that having a slave does not make you their leader, because every slaveholder has a leader in heaven. The authors used various scriptures to show how a slave should treat their slaveholder, and how the slaveholder should treat his slave. 

In Eph 6:5-8, it says “Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ, not only when being watched, as currying favor, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, willingly serving the Lord and not human beings, knowing that each will be requited from the Lord for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free”. The slaves are being told to do good things because they will be requited for the good actions they put into the world. The Bible does not only talk about how slaves should act. 

There are also verses for the slaveholders, and verses that can be acted upon by both parties. In some cases, the verses, the writing is not meant to be literal but is meant to be metaphorical. Like in John 13:14, “If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet”. If someone does a good deed, then you should do a good deed. 

In John 15:15, “I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father”. John is basically saying that if they were slaves, they would have no idea what their master was doing to them. 

In the end, the authors never gave a clear objective as to how they felt about slavery. This just shows you that how you read and interpret it can affect how people do things when they base it on religion.