Although he had defended slavery as an Alabama Congressman and had served the Confederacy, Curry spent much of his later years as an advocate of education for freed slaves and spoke out against lynching. As agent for the Peabody Fund, he threatened to deny support to Southern communities that refused to educate their black children on the ground that blacks paid little or nothing in taxes. His advocacy, however, was carefully couched and calibrated not to offend either the white Southern aristocracy to which he belonged or the Northern philanthropists who sponsored his activities.

In the progression of American people toward freedom, the contributions of one person whose life was central to that struggle have long been ignored: Harriet Robinson Scott, "Mrs. Dred Scott."

A moderate on the slavery issue, in 1850 he twice opposed the radicals at the Nashville Convention and supported the Compromise of 1850. In 1852 he vainly sought the Democratic nomination for the vice presidency. He failed in 1856 in a second bid for nomination for the vice presidency, and in 1857 he lost out in a campaign for the Senate.

Blow took an early interest in the emerging Free Soil movement in the late 1840s. Dred Scott was raised in the Blow family home as a child, and in 1846 Blow and other members of his family helped finance Scott's initial suit for freedom in the Missouri courts. Blow was elected as a Whig to the Missouri Senate in 1854. In the legislature he joined with Frank Blair (1821-1875) and B. Gratz Brown to promote the idea of compensated emancipation of Missouri's slaves and their colonization elsewhere to remove them as competition for free white labor.

A Virginia aristocrat and fascinating conversationalist, Seddon was a man of dedication and will. He left his mark on southern history. Lee and Seddon were President Davis's most trusted military advisers, and the three men worked closely together. A former secretary of war during the administration of President Franklin Pierce, Davis controlled the southern armies and took a strong interest in the conduct of the War Department, scrutinizing Seddon's activities more than those of other cabinet officials. Seddon never publicly criticized this vigilance and always deferred to his superior.

The attack on Fort Pillow, 12 April 1864, was the battle that brought his name to the attention of the U.S. Congress and to the northern press.