Civil War Quilt Block Nine—Birds in the Air

So this is what I have been doing, because I do have the cloth for it. Week number nine's block in Barbara Brackman's Civil War Quilt-a-Long was Birds in the Air, which Brackman uses to remind us of the Abolitionist Societies in the northern states. It was a tricky one, though it certainly looks simple, because it is divided into three, while the blocks are (supposed to be) eight inches square, which isn't very friendly to being divided by three.

Here's my version:



I used that blue as background thinking it was blue for the sky; then I thought oh the white dot-dash lines could represent rain, so that works. But then I thought, well it doesn't usually rain out of a blue sky does it? Anyway the brown with flowers worked well for the fertile Earth.

I gotta say I love love love the quilt by Deborah Coates (made somewhere around 1830-1860) she uses to illustrate the Birds in the Air pattern; the colors are just gorgeous, I think.

She also includes an anti-Abolitionist ad, I guess you'd call it, from a paper dated 1837. I'll try to get the formatting close to the original, because it really gets kinda ridiculously shouty about the whole thing:

OUTRAGE.

Fellow Citizens,

AN

ABOLITIONIST,

of the most revolting character is among you, exciting the feelings of the North against the South. A seditious Lecture is to be delivered

THIS EVENING,

at 7 o'clock, at the Presbyterian Church in Cannon-street.
You are requested to attend and unite in putting down and silencing by peaceable means this tool of evil and fanaticism.
Let the rights of the States guaranteed by the Constitution be protected.

February 27, 1837. The Union forever!

See now here's the thing. I'm pretty sure I've heard the same kind of bullshit arguments about states' rights being used in the present day to further other varieties of bigotry like say outlawing or refusing to even consider gay marriage. Funny to see the same old same old, you know? They really don't have any better arguments.

And I mean, honestly? Wanting to free the slaves was 'evil'? That was said with a straight face?

I know, I do know better. People say all kinds of bigoted things and believe it comes from a place of love. It is, obviously, nothing new.