Historical Mysteries

I came across this info in a 1990 American Heritage magazine about unanswered questions from our history, and I think some of it is worth posting here. First, in the antebellum south were slaves owned by the planters or the bankers? Univ of Texas prof William Goetzmann thinks the bankers did and this "fact" would mean manumission would be controlled by them. The bankers he notes are Brown and Baring Brothers. Second, Edwin Stanton-Lincoln's War Sec't-denied him an escort protection on the night of his assassination. Stanton said the man had additional duties to perform that night but in fact had none. Stanton may also have told General Grant not to accompany Lincoln to Ford's Theater that night. This from a Columbia Univ retired dean Jacques Barzun. Third, a Stanford Prof-George Fredrickson-believes Lincoln had not made up his mind about the future of the freed slave population at the time of his death. He thinks Lincoln may have been a "moderate white supremacist". The decision seems to have been granting "universal manhood suffrage" or deportation to Africa.

Fourth, R. Reagan might have had a hand in the Challenger disaster by pushing a request that the launch take place at the time of his State of the Union address in Jan 1986. This by Charles O'Neill "historian and author". Fifth, Kenneth Galbraith of Harvard Univ wonders why the Reagan admin is not considered the "most corrupt in our history" rather than Harding's admin. He notes the S & L scandal, the "revolving larceny from the Pentagon" and Wedtech (?) for this view.

(Source: "Mysteries of American History" by the editors of American Heritage magazine in the Dec 1990 edition).