U sir called John C Breckenridge the vice president of the confederacy he was not he was the vice president of the United States Alexander Stevenson was the vice president of the confederacy. When you tell one lie how many others do you tail if you get called at one? How reliable is your information?
While calling out Mr. Sher for this incorrect assertion he made in this lecture was proper--he made several mistakes--I am not sure it was appropriate to assert he lied. However, Mr. Sher's clumsy research was just one deficiency. Perhaps his first mistake was to view 19th Century "history" through the filter of 20th or 21st Century eyes. His presentation was rife with political correctness. Instead of objectively reporting that political viewpoints held in Canada, the U.S. or anywhere else on the globe during that era was, as in any time in recorded history, complex and often seemingly bipolar, he simply concludes that convictions of the times were morally wrong and were later remedied (in true Orwellian fashion) by the removal of statues. One example: his castigation of Canadians and Americans who supported secession by the South while deprecating slavery. In the first place, slavery had been abolished in the British Empire several decades beforehand. Next, Mr. Sher conveniently forgets the mid-19th Century world was awash in an emerging phenomenon known as "nationalism". Hence, while he chastises the South for its political action, he ignores the presence of this same urge in his homeland which produced the desired result in 1867. Another example: while he excoriates Canadian officials for their "protection" of the St. Albans raiders--albeit demonstrative of their adherence to a policy of official neutrality-- Mr. Sher says nothing about the later reimbursement from Canadian coffers of those American banks which were robbed. As for any support Booth may have received from Confederates, American ex pats in Montreal or any Canadian nationals, Mr. Sher offers no evidence whatsoever--only innuendo and the offer of an American post-assassination headline as "proof". That Booth contemplated murder when he visited Montreal in October 1864 is preposterous: the overwhelming evidence demonstrates his plan was abduction of Lincoln who was to be held for ransom for the exchange of Confederate POWs. The evidence is very persuasive Confederate officialdom had no knowledge of this plan (see Sam Arnold's letter to Booth of March 27, 1865). Murder was not entertained by the actor until the fall of Richmond and history (real or faked by the likes of Charles Dunham) has not left us with a scintilla of evidence demonstrating Confederate complicity therein.
U sir called John C Breckenridge the vice president of the confederacy he was not he was the vice president of the United States Alexander Stevenson was the vice president of the confederacy. When you tell one lie how many others do you tail if you get called at one? How reliable is your information?
While calling out Mr. Sher for this incorrect assertion he made in this lecture was proper--he made several mistakes--I am not sure it was appropriate to assert he lied. However, Mr. Sher's clumsy research was just one deficiency. Perhaps his first mistake was to view 19th Century "history" through the filter of 20th or 21st Century eyes. His presentation was rife with political correctness. Instead of objectively reporting that political viewpoints held in Canada, the U.S. or anywhere else on the globe during that era was, as in any time in recorded history, complex and often seemingly bipolar, he simply concludes that convictions of the times were morally wrong and were later remedied (in true Orwellian fashion) by the removal of statues. One example: his castigation of Canadians and Americans who supported secession by the South while deprecating slavery. In the first place, slavery had been abolished in the British Empire several decades beforehand. Next, Mr. Sher conveniently forgets the mid-19th Century world was awash in an emerging phenomenon known as "nationalism". Hence, while he chastises the South for its political action, he ignores the presence of this same urge in his homeland which produced the desired result in 1867. Another example: while he excoriates Canadian officials for their "protection" of the St. Albans raiders--albeit demonstrative of their adherence to a policy of official neutrality-- Mr. Sher says nothing about the later reimbursement from Canadian coffers of those American banks which were robbed. As for any support Booth may have received from Confederates, American ex pats in Montreal or any Canadian nationals, Mr. Sher offers no evidence whatsoever--only innuendo and the offer of an American post-assassination headline as "proof". That Booth contemplated murder when he visited Montreal in October 1864 is preposterous: the overwhelming evidence demonstrates his plan was abduction of Lincoln who was to be held for ransom for the exchange of Confederate POWs. The evidence is very persuasive Confederate officialdom had no knowledge of this plan (see Sam Arnold's letter to Booth of March 27, 1865). Murder was not entertained by the actor until the fall of Richmond and history (real or faked by the likes of Charles Dunham) has not left us with a scintilla of evidence demonstrating Confederate complicity therein.