Posted on 02/09/2007 7:22:48 PM PST by ChildOfThe60s
Honest Abe to go on trial - for racism
Daily Sun reports
Thursday, February 08, 2007
AURORA | The Community College of Aurora's professors will stage a mock trail that puts Abraham Lincoln on trial for racism at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 10, at the college's Fine Arts building at 16000 E. CentreTech Parkway.
The trial is free and open to the public. Based on his speeches and written documents, teams for the prosecution and the defense assembled from the Community College of Aurora's criminal justice program and will try Lincoln to determine whether he was a racist and how his beliefs and attitudes influenced the course of the Civil War, Reconstruction and post-war society.
Call 303-739-6600 or visit www.auroralibrary.org.
"I am not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races
It was the mindset in those days, all white people thought that way as many do today.
Yes, in 1865 there was absolutely no racism anywhere, except for Abe Lincoln. Sheesh. The whole basis for the Republican party's foundation was the abolition of slavery. This was lightyears ahead of where the democrats were (and still are).
I think those modern souls who despise Lincoln (either for his take on race or his take on federalism - we have many of the latter on FR) all make the same mistake. They apply a modern yardstick to an era that that passed long before the yardstick was manufactured.
George Will once described Babe Ruth, as the greatest baseball player of them all, in a way that also applies to Lincoln or Washington or many great people of bygone times. Will said it's futile trying to compare athletes who lived through different epochs saying a great one of the past could not compete in later eras. What makes sense is to compare them to their contemporaries. Of Ruth he said: Ruth was Mt. Everest in Kansas.
I believe Lincoln had a goal and saw it as his duty to preserve the United States. I also believe he had problems thrust at him from a menagerie of ostriches that made those of Franklin Roosevelt seem a cake walk by comparison.
The fact that Lincoln functioned at all put him high above most of us on the pedestal. IMHO, along the way, Lincoln became first among equals in the American pantheon.
Indeed. I have to agree with you on the GA. It's one of those works that has survived the crucible of time. Yet I still enjoy reading about it trying to put myself at the fringe of the group. When I put myself in the proper frame of mind, it becomes quite an awesome event.
Maybe the "copperhead democrats" who undermined the civil war should go on trial at the same time.
You got me. Clearly people who "learned how to think for themselves" and attended a private college would never make such a mistake.
I wish I had attended an elite private (i.e. expensive waste of money) college. Then I could have gotten a good job instead of the dead end job I am in now and I could have learned critical thinking skills(/sarcasm). Bu bye.
If you want to know who Lincoln was and what he believed in, read his writings and one of the many biographies written about him. Lincoln had his advisors take polls by going out on the steeet and interviewing citizens. He also read the newspapers, both those that supported him and those against him. He was proud of his liberalism and declared that he was a liberal on many occasions.
I'm sorry that my private college remark offended you. And I'm not being sarcastic when I say that.
I recommend that you look up BEREA COLLEGE. You'll find that it is not the sort of private college you are imagining.
Academically it is considered one of the best in the country. You will also note, when you are (with open mind) learning about it, that it is one of five schools in the country that requires ALL students to work (for the college, at less than minimum wage) the entire time they attend; a large portion of the college infrastructure is actually run by the students. As for being expensive, student costs are covered by scholarship and grants. All students pay on a sliding scale according to their ability. And there is a fairly low upper income limit for admission. IOW, if the student's parents earn over a certain amount (it's not that high, either) they cannot be admitted. I do not make a lot of money. As a matter of fact, had she not gone there I would have been hard pressed to fund a state college. We considered it a great break she was able to get in there.
In as far as this thread relates to racism, the history of Berea College should be of interest to everyone here. It was the first interracial college in the south. It was the most forward thinking institution in its attitude towards and treatment of blacks. Berea has a lot to be proud of in that regard. You should also read about the college's christian heritage and perspective.
My kid can think for herself because she is well equipped with common sense and intelligence. Not because of where she attended college.
If you still feel compelled to respond with more petty, inane sarcasm, you should at least do me (and yourself) the courtesy of learning about this school of which you know nothing and are so demeaning.
You miss a lot when you jump into a discussion with only sarcasm to contribute and make assumptions without knowing the story. Things are often not as they superficially appear to be.
http://www.berea.edu/about/default.asp
If we had the modern reality of slavery in America, the dems would talk about it, make promises, all the while ensuring its livelihood. It would provide them a dependent class they could exploit.
Just like their approach to the horror that exists in the middle east. Lets negotiate and convince the Saddam Hussein's of the world that our way is better, while at the same time supporting the "Saddam" through "oil-for-food" programs.
Why would the Proclamation have influenced England? Hadn't England long since abolished slavery, the slave trade, including in its colonies?
It sounds like I jumped the gun, though you have to admit that your post could come across as elitist in tone. Your post is very interesting and the thought process is reasonable. I will check out the link for Berea. I've never heard of it, but you did a good job of making me interested in it.
I wonder if Senator Byrd is going to be a witness for the prosecution.
I visited the site. Very interesting college! I'm all for the values that the college was founded on and appears to hold dear even today.
moron he preserved the union you rebel redneck
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In 1860 and 1861 the loss of the cotton trade through the blockade (the Anaconda Plan) hurt English manufacturing a great deal. The Confederacy had ambassadors and trade reps in England encouraging them to step in and negotiate a cease fire at best or a military alliance with the South if needed so they could start trade anew. I'm not sure the Union could have coped with that.
Since the war "wasn't about slavery" there was no reason for England to stay neutral. On the other hand, Lincoln knew full well that England could not step in supporting the Confederacy for moral reasons if it meant saving the institution England had outlawed.
If you read the Proclamation, it only affected territory in rebellion, hence people in places like Maryland and Kentucky could keep their slaves. Since Lincoln and the North controlled precious little territory in rebellion, the Proclamation only had affect wherever the Union Army happened to be standing at that time. This fact even caused some serious problems for Sherman and a large number of runaway slaves that followed the Army since it was the only place where they were remotely safe. I believe it was in South Carolina where Sherman crossed a river and left a legion of runaways behind to face a vindictive group of Confederates. This was a catastrophe for the blacks in that episode.
I don't think you can look at the Emancipation Proclamation as a sign that Lincoln abhored the institution. You can, however, look at the rest of his life to catch a glimpse of how he felt about it. Some people said he felt the way he did because, as a youth, his own father treated him as a slave to be sold to other homesteaders to do forced manual labor so the old man could rake in a few pennies.
Whatever the reason, it's utterly silly to indict Lincoln as a racist. He was an emancipator of the first order comparing him to most citizens of that era. He was positively cutting edge as an emancipator among people that had a chance to do anything about the institution.
Thanks, I appreciate your response. And you are correct about how my intitial post sounded (after looking back at it).
I have the habit, as do a lot of us communicating in this manner, of writing only a portion of my thoughts as I am composing a post. One portion of my mind seems to assume the reader will automatically know what I am thinking but leaving out.
I apologize in advance to those that read my posts for the next time I do it.
Glad you did. I hope other FReepers check it out. It is fairly unique in today's higher education. If you are driving down 75 through KY you should allow a couple of hours to visit it.
By 21st Century standards, of course Abraham Lincoln was a racist.
Lincoln was, however, less racist than most people of his day and much less racist than Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are today.
Since the war "wasn't about slavery" there was no reason for England to stay neutral. On the other hand, Lincoln knew full well that England could not step in supporting the Confederacy for moral reasons if it meant saving the institution England had outlawed.
There were three possible outcomes: the Confederacy would either win or lose outright, or reach an accord with the Union to rejoin with slavery. None of those options provided England with a good reason to renounce its neutrality in favor of the Confederacy.
If you read the Proclamation, it only affected territory in rebellion, hence people in places like Maryland and Kentucky could keep their slaves.
Lincoln knew he could not do anything about abolition without a constitutional amendment. He even feared that his Emancipation Proclamation would fail the test of law. Which is why he helped push through the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1864 and 1865, though it was not ratified until after his death. But he deplored slavery and made it well known. His announcement that he would not force the issue if the Confederacy returned simply reflected his priorities of the Union first and slavery second.
Whatever the reason, it's utterly silly to indict Lincoln as a racist. He was an emancipator of the first order comparing him to most citizens of that era. He was positively cutting edge as an emancipator among people that had a chance to do anything about the institution.
I agree completely. Very well said. He believed like almost everyone, that the Africans not only belonged in their homeland, but would want to return. He believed that the two cultures had nothing in common, simply because he had not seen any mixing of the races as we do today. I consider him to be the greatest president given what he did not only to save the Union, but to abolish slavery and lay the foundations for the 14th and 15th Amendments. And he faced the greatest crisis of any president, before or after.
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