I guess it’s not yet the 9th April in the US so we get to commemorate this great moment before the Americans do.

The odd thing for someone my age is that the Democrats were the party of slavery and the Republicans the party of freedom. It is still the case now. If you would like to see the racist past of the United States laid bare, you need only look at the policies of Woodrow Wilson and then at Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was Lincoln who fought the Civil War and Eisenhower who began the desegregation of schools in the American south. And then there are, you know, George Wallace, Lester Maddox and Bull Connor, Democrats all. The solid south was the Democrat south of segregation.

Freedom leaves you alone to live your own life. Tempting individuals into dependence on the state is the opposite.

LET ME JUST ADD THIS: Grant ended up being one of the great presidents, finally bringing “reconstruction” to an end and doing much more than he is usually given credit for. Here is a quote that I think helps capture his greatness:

Grant also revealed that he struggled to reconcile his respect for brave and dedicated Southern soldiers, including Lee, from his complete contempt for the depraved institution — slavery — that had induced them to take up arms against their own nation in the first place.

“I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly,” he wrote, “and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.”