Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

'Idiot,' 'Yahoo,' 'Original Gorilla': How Lincoln Was Dissed in His Day
The Atlantic ^ | June 2013 | Mark Bowden

Posted on 10/04/2019 11:30:12 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege

Sure, we revere Lincoln today, but in his lifetime the bile poured on him from every quarter makes today’s Internet vitriol seem dainty. His ancestry was routinely impugned, his lack of formal learning ridiculed, his appearance maligned, and his morality assailed. We take for granted, of course, the scornful outpouring from the Confederate states...But the vituperation wasn’t limited to enemies of the Union. The North was ever at his heels...

Yes, his sure-footed leadership during this country’s most-difficult days was accompanied by a fair amount of praise, but also by a steady stream of abuse—in editorials, speeches, journals, and private letters—from those on his own side, those dedicated to the very causes he so ably championed.

George Templeton Strong, a prominent New York lawyer and diarist, wrote that Lincoln was “a barbarian, Scythian, yahoo, or gorilla.” Henry Ward Beecher, the Connecticut-born preacher and abolitionist, often ridiculed Lincoln in his newspaper, The Independent (New York), rebuking him for his lack of refinement and calling him “an unshapely man.” Other Northern newspapers openly called for his assassination long before John Wilkes Booth pulled the trigger. He was called a coward, “an idiot,” and “the original gorilla” by none other than the commanding general of his armies, George McClellan.

One of Lincoln’s lasting achievements was ending American slavery. Yet Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the famous abolitionist, called Lincoln “Dishonest Abe” in a letter she wrote to Wendell Phillips in 1864, a year after Lincoln had freed the slaves in rebel states and only months before he would engineer the Thirteenth Amendment. She bemoaned the “incapacity and rottenness” of his administration to Susan B. Anthony, worked to deny him renomination, and swore to Phillips that if he “is reelected I shall immediately leave the country for the Fijee Islands.”

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: abrahamlincoln; history; impeachment; lincoln; media; trump
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-30 last
Comment #21 Removed by Moderator

To: BenLurkin

Wow the progeny of NeverLincolners


22 posted on 10/04/2019 1:34:05 PM PDT by Phil DiBasquette
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

And yet the Constitution survives.


23 posted on 10/04/2019 1:44:07 PM PDT by rockrr ( Everything is different now...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: rockrr

If you say so.


24 posted on 10/04/2019 2:26:06 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire. Or both.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: CondoleezzaProtege

The Atlantic is a rag...


25 posted on 10/04/2019 3:02:29 PM PDT by ldish (Have had enough...you??????)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DiogenesLamp
You think Johnson pressured the army to do that? Lincoln made his purpose clear before he died.

And continued to do it from the grave. We get it.

On the other hand, do you think the Southern states did that voluntarily? I find that hard to believe, because the long standing narrative was that they fought a war or something to preserve slavery, so it strikes me as implausible that they would simply give up something they supposedly sacrificed so many people to protect.

Yes because in 1865 the Southern state legislatures that voted to ratify were made up primarily of Unionists. The former Rebs didn't begin to infest them until after the rebellion was over.

26 posted on 10/04/2019 3:04:07 PM PDT by DoodleDawg
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: BillyBoy

Quite true.


27 posted on 10/04/2019 3:21:39 PM PDT by Skooz (Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: CondoleezzaProtege

Bunch of jerques.


28 posted on 10/04/2019 4:24:29 PM PDT by TBP (Progressives lack compassion and tolerance. Their self-aggrandizement is all that matters.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CondoleezzaProtege

Lincoln was an anticonstitutional tyrant.


29 posted on 10/04/2019 6:45:44 PM PDT by FLT-bird
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: USS Alaska

So the federal government abides by the enumerated powers clause today?
He destroyed the constitution.


30 posted on 10/05/2019 5:01:48 AM PDT by axxmann (If McCain is conservative then I'm a freakin' anarchist.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-30 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson