re: History Debate: Ulysses S. Grant vs. Robert E. Lee

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What's bizarre is anyone understating it.

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I don't think he is understating it personally. I think he is trying to discuss slavery more from an 1860's mentality.

While it's true many people viewed slavery as evil then, even those who viewed it as evil probably did not view it as negatively as we do today. We are a generation raised and conditioned to think and feel this way.

Leading up to the 1860's, slavery was a commonplace institution throughout the world. Think of it this way:

How would a white plantation owner who owned slaves have been treated in public in the 1830's? How would a white corporate exec be treated if he owned 50 black slaves today by comparison?

The discussion of societal impacts of slavery before the war eventually gets bogged down in issues of perspective. How we feel about slavery today doesn't have much bearing on discussing how people reacted to slavery 170 years ago.