(12-08-2015 09:48 AM)bullet Wrote:  You could say the same things about Washington and Jefferson, who owned slaves and about Lincoln, who was a bigot. You have to evaluate people in the context of their times, not based on today's standards. They would have a pretty low opinion of many of our leaders.

Yes, but in their own times, these people were on the right side of history. In all of Washington's lifetime, all the U.S. states that had slaves continued to have slaves, so he was never forced to encounter and respond to the pressures that came up later. When Lincoln was assassinated, he had already moved things in the right direction, even if some of his views if expressed today would make even Trump blush. Then you've got this guy, who was surrounded by people who supported integration over segregation, and who used his position at the university and then his public fame to go out of his way to advocate the segregationist position. He wasn't even a reflection of contemporary sentiment, since he couldn't win his election for governor against an opponent who supported integration. Historical people can't be judged against modern standards, but they can certainly be judged by their role compared to those around them.