'Free State of Jones' went beyond that. It got into how the South wasn't as homogenous as we thought it was - or even the North for that matter, where we like to assume everyone wanted to free the slaves and they were all abolitionists. It actually shows how complex these ideologies were on both sides.
What a terrible thing could be freedom. Trees were free when they were uprooted by the wind; ships were free when they were torn from their moorings; men were free when they were cast out of their homes—free to starve, free to perish of cold and hunger.
I was in favour of the death penalty, and disposed to regard abolitionists as people whose hearts were bigger than their heads. Four years of close study of the subject gradually dispelled that feeling. In the end I became convinced that the abolitionists were right in their conclusions...and that far from the sentimental approach leading into their camp and the rational one into that of the supporters, it was the other way about.
It's not a bad thing for independent traders to come into a high street to mix things up, but what shouldn't happen is that the traders who were there before are priced out.
The abolitionists were not like the rugged people out West, and they were not like John Brown, either. They were people who made speeches and did politics.
I don't believe Trump or Cruz are fair traders. I think they are probably both free traders.
Some of my ancestors were religious dissenters who came to America over three hundred years ago. Others were abolitionists in New England in the eighteen forties and fifties.
What has been imposed on religion is not religion itself but the custom of those who have been converted to it. I think that the most atrocious of all of this is Islam. They were in the slave trade before Islam. The Arabs were natural slave traders. They were the people who were called on to conquer us, unfortunately.
People who were also traders were also men of Sufism, as we see around Java, people who were outwardly trading but were also men of very high spiritual character. Otherwise no trader would be able to convert a person from one religion to another. It was because they were men of spiritual character.
Within a few months in 2008, household finances were crushed as asset values fell, millions of jobs were lost, countless credit cards were canceled, and thousands of homes were foreclosed on.
There were thousands and thousands of forms of joy in the world, but that all were essentially one and the same, namely, the joy of being able to love.
Thousands of years ago, civilizations flourished in Africa which suffer not at all by comparison with those of other continents. In those centuries, Africans were politically free and economically independent. Their social patterns were their own and their cultures truly indigenous.
I was set free because the negotiations were successful, because there were people lobbying for my freedom, and because hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Rome for my freedom.
The slaves were simply turned loose without any property. They were easily recognizable. They were black. They were suddenly free to go exploring.
My best mates when I was 19 were all in their 30s. I used to go to all their house parties, and they were crazier than the guys who were 17, 18. They were so much more liberated than the people who were apparently shackle-free.
Christian abolitionists gave their lives by the hundreds of thousands to end slavery.