DCUM Vote: Greatest American of All Time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Alexander Hamilton. Guy was a flat out baller.

Perfect example of how fake history is. Read his life story, it's obviously wildly embellished.

I’ve read Robert Chernow’s biography. What parts were embellished?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m shocked at all the posters mentioning Mr. Rogers. He’s a tv character. You can’t remotely compare him to FDR, Harriet Tubman, and Lincoln. He also gave me the creeps. I wouldn’t be surprised if his name comes up in the Epstein files.

You know nothing about him. He was a truly kind and thoughtful person that made a huge difference for a lot of children. There’s probably someone similar behind Sesame Street that deserves similar accolades but they dont have the same name recognition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lincoln gets way too much credit. He happened to be the President at a time when inevitable change was happening. He arguably caused the war itself, or made it more costly. The emancipation proclamation was a military tactic. Slavery was going to end regardless.

Harriet Tubman is the better answer here.

There's always someone who wants to make this argument but it's hard to justify. If you spend enough time reading Lincoln's speeches, the run up to the Civil War, the aftermath, it's hard to see another person at the time who could have done what Lincoln did. The war was horrendous but it was not started by Lincoln, it was started by Lincoln's staunch no more spread of slavery position that caused the South to abandon all pretenses at principals along with irrational paranoia. The argument that slavery was going to die out anyway is laughable to anyone aware of the mood and beliefs of 1860, which followed several decades of widespread spread of slavery and the slave based cotton economy. Slavery in 1860 would have seemed more permanent than in 1810. The moral values espoused by Lincoln were at the heart of what America was supposed to mean, more than just a political state. His argument won, and the US we have today is because of it.

Lincoln also showed a remarkable growth during the war years in his attitude towards not just slavery but racial issues. His deep conviction in the core promise of the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equally, no exceptions, no carve outs, is what triumphed, and that is why he remains the greatest American.

+1

Also adding on to this — the actual stories about Lincoln’s friendship with Frederick Douglass and the respect with which he treated him are very impressive and really make me like Lincoln more.

He also was pretty good towards the Irish immigrants that fought for the Union, at a time period when many Americans considered the Irish immigrants to be …. Let’s just say not welcome. There were generals that openly thought the Irish units should just be used as cannon fodder because, well, they were Irish so who cared.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Lot's of great ones here, except Teddy Roosevelt and the bot troll from this morning.

I think for the finalists, in addition to Lincoln, FDR, MLK, Mr Rogers, Harriet Tubman, we could add Jane Addams and Eleanor Roosevelt. And maybe not overall but of our time, John Lewis.

I think Japanese internment & the continuation of Mexican repatriation which included 40-60 percent American citizens despite its less violent nature plus the choice to develop the nuclear bomb is too great a horrific mark on far's legacy. politicians are all dirty and nasty in oneway or other, his personal character also left a lot to be desired.

my vote: tubman, Frederick douglass, jane Addams, mr rogers.

FDR gets a lot of love for the CCC, government sponsored socialism.

I've been working on talking through stuff like this with my older kid. They talked about President's Day. We talked about how people are complicated and it's okay to talk about the good and bad people did. So Washington was a crucial figure in US History but also owned slaves (I'm not ready to dig into Jefferson with him yet).

My granddad absolutely loved FDR because his policies lifted my grandparents out of poverty post Great Depression. My great uncle was one of the Bonus Army demonstrators. But my best friend's grandmother and her family was interned during WWII for being part Japanese.

With respect to Washington and slaves, you are judging him by a modern set of morals. Yes, Washington did have personal concerns about owning slaves, but did not free them during his lifetime. In some cases, he wasn't legally allowed to free the slaves. However, what if he did? What awaited these slaves as free men in Virginia? They couldn't own land, and likely couldn't work either. Washington didn't have enough cash to send them up north either. Being largely uneducated, employment in the North would have been menial jobs. It was a practical solution to a difficult problem.

This is a b!!ch-a$$ take. Lots of abolitionists had been opposing the slave trade and slave ownership for hundreds of years already, many at great personal cost to life and fortune. You know what Washington could have done? He could have given them freaking land, that's what. He was rich as fck and could have afforded to do so.

Listen, I'm actually a very conservative, right-wing kind of person on many issues. But these ridiculous founding father slaveholding apologies are ridiculous. There is still billions of dollars of family wealth floating around the south in white plantation families as a result of their investing slave labor. Reparations could be made on a forensic accounting basis. We know where the wealth came from, and we know the enslaved ancestors who created it, in many cases.

Point me to this billions of dollars of family wealth in the south in white plantation families in 2026.

In 1860, the vast majority of southern wealth was tied up in land and slaves. The slaves were freed without compensation and the value of land collapsed. A staggering amount of real estate traded hands after the war due to the devastation of the post war southern economy. Keep in mind plantation wealth was barely a generation old, two at most, for large swathes of the South in 1860. Even for those who managed to hold on to land after the war, a persistent agricultural depression and the globalization of the cotton market in the 1870s onward meant land value remained deeply depressed. Lands went back to nature, sold for taxes, lost at foreclosure auctions. Previously few planters survived intact.

Other people, not directly tied to the old plantation classes, did manage to revive agriculture and become large land holders, but the idea there is some kind of class descended from planters worth billions today is flat out laughable and deeply wrong and ignorant.

If you truly want to believe what you wrote, you can't be too careful what you read. All the evidence is against your hysterical take.
https://theconversation.com/many-wealthy-members-of-congress-are-descendants-of-rich-slaveholders-study-demonstrates-the-enduring-legacy-of-slavery-239077

Not seeing the billions.

Of its 535 members, 100 were descendants of slaveholders, including Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Legislators whose ancestors were large slaveholders – defined in our study as owning 16 or more slaves– have a current median net worth five times larger than their peers whose ancestors were not slaveholders: $5.6 million vs. $1.1 million. These results remained largely the same after accounting for age, race and education.

Statistics for Congress aren't going to apply to the general population. You aren't going to find that 1 of every 5 people in the South are multimillionaires.

Sometimes I have difficulty with the low level of analysis on DCUM. This is one of those times.

Listen you f*ckng fool. 100 slaveholder descendants in congress times median (surplus) net worth of $4.5 million is $450 million in slavery-correlated surplus wealth in Congress alone! Just 100 people!

Again, you are assuming, quite boldly, that the wealth distribution in the South is reflective of the distribution found in Congress. That's extremely unrealistic. And $450 million is enough to give every Black person in the US $45.

DP, but PP did not say this. Neither did PP say Elizabeth Warren is worth billions. The point was the billions of dollars (now compounded) in slaveholding-derived wealth throughout the south.

OK, let's say there is $10 billion in the South that could be seized. That's $200 each Black population in the US. We need to find some more billions.

No, let's not say $10 billion. What a trivial amount. As PP demonstrated, the excess is about $450 million in 100 people in Congress alone.

We do need to find some more billions. It's certainly there in the former slaveholding families of the South.

So, there is $450 million in excess wealth for every 100 people?

No, why would you think that? No one has put that forward as an argument except you.

Someone seems to think the wealth distribution in Congress is a useful statistic when it comes to estimating the wealth of the general population in the South.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m shocked at all the posters mentioning Mr. Rogers. He’s a tv character. You can’t remotely compare him to FDR, Harriet Tubman, and Lincoln. He also gave me the creeps. I wouldn’t be surprised if his name comes up in the Epstein files.

You know nothing about him. He was a truly kind and thoughtful person that made a huge difference for a lot of children. There’s probably someone similar behind Sesame Street that deserves similar accolades but they dont have the same name recognition.

She’s probably just a fool that believes every guy that works with children is a creep.

[Anonymous]

My dog is American and he is awesome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Was Harriett Tubman a spy and if so, does that negate the good she did?

She was a spy and that is part of the good work she did! She spied for the Union army!!!

[Anonymous]

I rented a Maybach this weekend in NYC. So I pick me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The clear answer is Abraham Lincoln. Saved the country, gave it a renewed sense of purpose and ended slavery for once and for all. Most of the other great Americans were particular to their time or cause, but Lincoln really does transcend all of them.

One could say George Washington because we probably wouldn’t have a country if not for him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The clear answer is Abraham Lincoln. Saved the country, gave it a renewed sense of purpose and ended slavery for once and for all. Most of the other great Americans were particular to their time or cause, but Lincoln really does transcend all of them.

One could say George Washington because we probably wouldn’t have a country if not for him.

Canada has a country. I did a deep dive into the American revolution a couple of years ago and even though I started as pretty rah-rah American revolution, I ended up questioning whether it was worth it. The amount of death and the futility of most of the battles was really astounding. Just lots of young men dying frozen in fields or dysentery or infections. I knew there were some hard times but if you really read or listen to a detailed history that does a full play by play of all the battles….it gets overwhelming. I ended up astounded that desertion rates (which were high) were not even higher.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Lot's of great ones here, except Teddy Roosevelt and the bot troll from this morning.

I think for the finalists, in addition to Lincoln, FDR, MLK, Mr Rogers, Harriet Tubman, we could add Jane Addams and Eleanor Roosevelt. And maybe not overall but of our time, John Lewis.

I think Japanese internment & the continuation of Mexican repatriation which included 40-60 percent American citizens despite its less violent nature plus the choice to develop the nuclear bomb is too great a horrific mark on far's legacy. politicians are all dirty and nasty in oneway or other, his personal character also left a lot to be desired.

my vote: tubman, Frederick douglass, jane Addams, mr rogers.

FDR gets a lot of love for the CCC, government sponsored socialism.

I've been working on talking through stuff like this with my older kid. They talked about President's Day. We talked about how people are complicated and it's okay to talk about the good and bad people did. So Washington was a crucial figure in US History but also owned slaves (I'm not ready to dig into Jefferson with him yet).

My granddad absolutely loved FDR because his policies lifted my grandparents out of poverty post Great Depression. My great uncle was one of the Bonus Army demonstrators. But my best friend's grandmother and her family was interned during WWII for being part Japanese.

With respect to Washington and slaves, you are judging him by a modern set of morals. Yes, Washington did have personal concerns about owning slaves, but did not free them during his lifetime. In some cases, he wasn't legally allowed to free the slaves. However, what if he did? What awaited these slaves as free men in Virginia? They couldn't own land, and likely couldn't work either. Washington didn't have enough cash to send them up north either. Being largely uneducated, employment in the North would have been menial jobs. It was a practical solution to a difficult problem.

This is a b!!ch-a$$ take. Lots of abolitionists had been opposing the slave trade and slave ownership for hundreds of years already, many at great personal cost to life and fortune. You know what Washington could have done? He could have given them freaking land, that's what. He was rich as fck and could have afforded to do so.

Listen, I'm actually a very conservative, right-wing kind of person on many issues. But these ridiculous founding father slaveholding apologies are ridiculous. There is still billions of dollars of family wealth floating around the south in white plantation families as a result of their investing slave labor. Reparations could be made on a forensic accounting basis. We know where the wealth came from, and we know the enslaved ancestors who created it, in many cases.

Point me to this billions of dollars of family wealth in the south in white plantation families in 2026.

In 1860, the vast majority of southern wealth was tied up in land and slaves. The slaves were freed without compensation and the value of land collapsed. A staggering amount of real estate traded hands after the war due to the devastation of the post war southern economy. Keep in mind plantation wealth was barely a generation old, two at most, for large swathes of the South in 1860. Even for those who managed to hold on to land after the war, a persistent agricultural depression and the globalization of the cotton market in the 1870s onward meant land value remained deeply depressed. Lands went back to nature, sold for taxes, lost at foreclosure auctions. Previously few planters survived intact.

Other people, not directly tied to the old plantation classes, did manage to revive agriculture and become large land holders, but the idea there is some kind of class descended from planters worth billions today is flat out laughable and deeply wrong and ignorant.

If you truly want to believe what you wrote, you can't be too careful what you read. All the evidence is against your hysterical take.
https://theconversation.com/many-wealthy-members-of-congress-are-descendants-of-rich-slaveholders-study-demonstrates-the-enduring-legacy-of-slavery-239077

Not seeing the billions.

Of its 535 members, 100 were descendants of slaveholders, including Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Legislators whose ancestors were large slaveholders – defined in our study as owning 16 or more slaves– have a current median net worth five times larger than their peers whose ancestors were not slaveholders: $5.6 million vs. $1.1 million. These results remained largely the same after accounting for age, race and education.

Statistics for Congress aren't going to apply to the general population. You aren't going to find that 1 of every 5 people in the South are multimillionaires.

Sometimes I have difficulty with the low level of analysis on DCUM. This is one of those times.

Listen you f*ckng fool. 100 slaveholder descendants in congress times median (surplus) net worth of $4.5 million is $450 million in slavery-correlated surplus wealth in Congress alone! Just 100 people!

Again, you are assuming, quite boldly, that the wealth distribution in the South is reflective of the distribution found in Congress. That's extremely unrealistic. And $450 million is enough to give every Black person in the US $45.

DP, but PP did not say this. Neither did PP say Elizabeth Warren is worth billions. The point was the billions of dollars (now compounded) in slaveholding-derived wealth throughout the south.

And where is this slaveholding derived wealth? Please point me to it.

But suspect you can't. Because it doesn't exist in any meaningful sense.

For people with difficulty comprehending history, here is a simple explanation. Assume you are an established planter in 1860 with 100 slaves and 1,000 acres (a distinct minority along planters to have so many slaves but let's just stick with this number). Value of slaves could be 150k, value of land 50k (land was cheap, it was labor aka slaves that was barrier to entry). Planters generated wealth through reinvestment in slaves and land, often borrowing against next year's crops (debt was extremely common). Still, let's say you also have 50k in financial reserves you keep in securities and investments. Altogether, in 1860 you are worth 200k, a wealthy man.

By 1865, the bulk of your wealth is gone, poof, overnight. 150k worth of slaves who are now free. The value of your land has collapsed at least by half, down to maybe 25k. What about your 50k in securities? Depends on what you did with it during the war. Some kept it safely tied up in northern banks. Many did not, investing it in confederate bonds and confederate cash. Which means in 1865 it's poof, gone with the wind. Suddenly, the rich man of 1860 is facing bankruptcy as can't pay the taxes on his thousand acres, so he needs to sell parts, then more, then even more of it.

That's how an economy is devastated. And the South was economically devastated.

Incidentally, more "slave wealth" survived from investments prior the war into Northern industries. And some of those industries remain today in some form or guise. But not so much in the south. Ironic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I rented a Maybach this weekend in NYC. So I pick me.

Cool. How much was it, and what was it like?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lot's of great ones here, except Teddy Roosevelt and the bot troll from this morning.

I think for the finalists, in addition to Lincoln, FDR, MLK, Mr Rogers, Harriet Tubman, we could add Jane Addams and Eleanor Roosevelt. And maybe not overall but of our time, John Lewis.

I think Japanese internment & the continuation of Mexican repatriation which included 40-60 percent American citizens despite its less violent nature plus the choice to develop the nuclear bomb is too great a horrific mark on far's legacy. politicians are all dirty and nasty in oneway or other, his personal character also left a lot to be desired.

my vote: tubman, Frederick douglass, jane Addams, mr rogers.

FDR gets a lot of love for the CCC, government sponsored socialism.

I've been working on talking through stuff like this with my older kid. They talked about President's Day. We talked about how people are complicated and it's okay to talk about the good and bad people did. So Washington was a crucial figure in US History but also owned slaves (I'm not ready to dig into Jefferson with him yet).

My granddad absolutely loved FDR because his policies lifted my grandparents out of poverty post Great Depression. My great uncle was one of the Bonus Army demonstrators. But my best friend's grandmother and her family was interned during WWII for being part Japanese.

With respect to Washington and slaves, you are judging him by a modern set of morals. Yes, Washington did have personal concerns about owning slaves, but did not free them during his lifetime. In some cases, he wasn't legally allowed to free the slaves. However, what if he did? What awaited these slaves as free men in Virginia? They couldn't own land, and likely couldn't work either. Washington didn't have enough cash to send them up north either. Being largely uneducated, employment in the North would have been menial jobs. It was a practical solution to a difficult problem.

This is a b!!ch-a$$ take. Lots of abolitionists had been opposing the slave trade and slave ownership for hundreds of years already, many at great personal cost to life and fortune. You know what Washington could have done? He could have given them freaking land, that's what. He was rich as fck and could have afforded to do so.

Listen, I'm actually a very conservative, right-wing kind of person on many issues. But these ridiculous founding father slaveholding apologies are ridiculous. There is still billions of dollars of family wealth floating around the south in white plantation families as a result of their investing slave labor. Reparations could be made on a forensic accounting basis. We know where the wealth came from, and we know the enslaved ancestors who created it, in many cases.

Point me to this billions of dollars of family wealth in the south in white plantation families in 2026.

In 1860, the vast majority of southern wealth was tied up in land and slaves. The slaves were freed without compensation and the value of land collapsed. A staggering amount of real estate traded hands after the war due to the devastation of the post war southern economy. Keep in mind plantation wealth was barely a generation old, two at most, for large swathes of the South in 1860. Even for those who managed to hold on to land after the war, a persistent agricultural depression and the globalization of the cotton market in the 1870s onward meant land value remained deeply depressed. Lands went back to nature, sold for taxes, lost at foreclosure auctions. Previously few planters survived intact.

Other people, not directly tied to the old plantation classes, did manage to revive agriculture and become large land holders, but the idea there is some kind of class descended from planters worth billions today is flat out laughable and deeply wrong and ignorant.

If you truly want to believe what you wrote, you can't be too careful what you read. All the evidence is against your hysterical take.
https://theconversation.com/many-wealthy-members-of-congress-are-descendants-of-rich-slaveholders-study-demonstrates-the-enduring-legacy-of-slavery-239077

Not seeing the billions.

Of its 535 members, 100 were descendants of slaveholders, including Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Legislators whose ancestors were large slaveholders – defined in our study as owning 16 or more slaves– have a current median net worth five times larger than their peers whose ancestors were not slaveholders: $5.6 million vs. $1.1 million. These results remained largely the same after accounting for age, race and education.

Statistics for Congress aren't going to apply to the general population. You aren't going to find that 1 of every 5 people in the South are multimillionaires.

Sometimes I have difficulty with the low level of analysis on DCUM. This is one of those times.

Listen you f*ckng fool. 100 slaveholder descendants in congress times median (surplus) net worth of $4.5 million is $450 million in slavery-correlated surplus wealth in Congress alone! Just 100 people!

Again, you are assuming, quite boldly, that the wealth distribution in the South is reflective of the distribution found in Congress. That's extremely unrealistic. And $450 million is enough to give every Black person in the US $45.

DP, but PP did not say this. Neither did PP say Elizabeth Warren is worth billions. The point was the billions of dollars (now compounded) in slaveholding-derived wealth throughout the south.

And where is this slaveholding derived wealth? Please point me to it.

But suspect you can't. Because it doesn't exist in any meaningful sense.

For people with difficulty comprehending history, here is a simple explanation. Assume you are an established planter in 1860 with 100 slaves and 1,000 acres (a distinct minority along planters to have so many slaves but let's just stick with this number). Value of slaves could be 150k, value of land 50k (land was cheap, it was labor aka slaves that was barrier to entry). Planters generated wealth through reinvestment in slaves and land, often borrowing against next year's crops (debt was extremely common). Still, let's say you also have 50k in financial reserves you keep in securities and investments. Altogether, in 1860 you are worth 200k, a wealthy man.

By 1865, the bulk of your wealth is gone, poof, overnight. 150k worth of slaves who are now free. The value of your land has collapsed at least by half, down to maybe 25k. What about your 50k in securities? Depends on what you did with it during the war. Some kept it safely tied up in northern banks. Many did not, investing it in confederate bonds and confederate cash. Which means in 1865 it's poof, gone with the wind. Suddenly, the rich man of 1860 is facing bankruptcy as can't pay the taxes on his thousand acres, so he needs to sell parts, then more, then even more of it.

That's how an economy is devastated. And the South was economically devastated.

Incidentally, more "slave wealth" survived from investments prior the war into Northern industries. And some of those industries remain today in some form or guise. But not so much in the south. Ironic.

There still isn't enough wealth floating around. Around 2% of U.S. households have over $4-$5 million of wealth. That's much, much lower than the 100 out of 500 as measured by looking at Congressional legislators.

Estimates are that the top 2% control about 1/3 of the nation's wealth. That's $60T. Assuming 1 of 5 families benefited from holding slaves, that's $230,000 for each Black person in the US. Is that going to build generational wealth?