Annette Gordon-Reed:
Yes, I think people do have that feeling. And that’s one of the things that historians try to disabuse students of, that they’re choices that people make.
They made the choice to have Texas as a slaveholders republic. They made a choice to say, OK, slavery is over and — they could have said, I should say, slavery is over. Now we’re going to incorporate these people who have worked here, worked among us, and are as much a part of this land as we are, and we’re going to go forward in a different way.
But they didn’t make that decision. There was recalcitrance. And they fought. And those were choices. So, I think that’s empowering. To me, I think it’s empowering, because it means that we can make choices.
