Posted on 07/27/2003 5:08:19 PM PDT by thatdewd
Edited on 05/07/2004 6:46:56 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The writer is a circuit judge who lives in Kuttawa, Ky.
KUTTAWA, Ky. - The Courier Journal, at the behest of its columnist John David Dyche, has called for the removal of the Jefferson Davis statue in the rotunda of the Kentucky State Capitol. Such a supposedly politically correct viewpoint reflects a shallow, selective and even hypocritical understanding of history.
(Excerpt) Read more at courier-journal.com ...
Note that your quote contained the phrase 'with their consent'. Of course the subject of this post, Jefferson Davis, had much better plans - leave them where they were, in bondage, or forced deportation without their consent to Central and South America. Lincoln's views were positively horrendous by comparison. </sarcasm>
Classic troll. You demand nolu chan demonstrate in Davis what you and other defenders haven't been able to prove about Lincoln.
You're a piece of work.
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No, I would like to see the same level of indignation for the quotes and actions of Jefferson Davis as y'all show for Abraham Lincoln. You want to classify Lincoln as racist, at least as we view racist today? Fine. Given that criteria and the Lincoln quotes available then I certainly can't dispute your findings. Abraham Lincoln was a stone racist.
Now let's look at Jefferson Davis. A man who believed in slavery. A slave owner himself who never once freed a single slave he owned. A man who believed that blacks were fit for nothing other than slavery. A man who went to his grave firm in his belief in the incontestable superiority of the white race over the black race. A man who once advocated the forced removal of free blacks to Central and South America. So how does he stack up against Abraham Lincoln? You want to condemn Lincoln for his racial views? Fine. You want to claim that he is unworthy of respect because he supported emigration of free blacks to Africa and Central America? Teriffic. But apply the same standards to your man, Jeff. Can you do that or will you be sinking down to the same level of trolldom that you label others with?
You could be right about that. It would most likely NOT had the success that the Union has had.
One of these days you might learn to read. From #82, the third such account (the one by Howison):
Another effort was made to move Abraham Lincoln to peace. On the 22nd [of April], a deputation of six members from each of the five Christian Associations of Young Men in Baltimore, headed by Dr. Fuller, and eloquent clergyman of the Baptist church ...That incident is the incident which was written up in the Baltimore Sun on 23 April 1861. And in a second Baltimore Paper the same day. And a third Baltimore paper on the 26th.
It's a separate incident from the other. Made before a man of God. Lincoln DID make such a statement.
Diversionary tactics. But as an aside several of Davis' former slaves wrote to President Davis after the war, and visisted the family. Hardly the actions of someone with a hatred of the man.
Big deal. The Slave Narratives are full of quotes from former slaves speaking well of their former owners. Jeff Davis was no different than the other tens of thousands of humane slave owners. For all we know Lincoln would have made a humane slave owner. Would that save him from your condemnation?
But let's get back to the criteria you judge Lincoln on. Did Davis believe that whites were superior to blacks? Certainly he did, he believed it to the day he died. Did Davis believe in slavery? Yes, and he further believed that it was the proper place for blacks. Did Davis object to Mississippi laws like the ones which outlawed free blacks from entering the state? There is no evidence that I'm aware of that he did object to them. Did Davis beleive in voluntary emigration of free blacks to Africa? I've never heard him say that. Davis believed that blacks belonged where they were, in his cotton fields with title to them in his pocket. According to William Cooper, the only known time where Davis speculated on the end to slavery was prior to the war, and his solution was deporting free blacks to Mexico and Central America. So you Davis was certainly no different in most ways than Abraham Lincoln where race was concern. Will you be crying 'Tear down the statue' now?
Yep --- and while Lincoln wrote this, he already had his draft of the Emancipation Proclamation in his desk drawer and would show it to his cabinet only a week later, and then waited a few more weeks for a Union victory to release it to the world.
What you guys fail to recognize with your shallow cartoon interpretations of history is that early in the war, Lincoln could not make the war all about freeing slaves. He would only have the support of guys like Greely, a radical abolitionist newspaper publisher, who cared and understood little or nothing about the problems Lincoln faced in keeping the Border States, especially Kentucky, loyal to the Union. Greely was a stary-eyed idealist. Lincoln was a realist. Lincoln went only as far as the people would allow him at any point in time. At that point in the war, he still hoped and believed that he could get the rebel states to return to the Union and work a deal to phase out slavery.
Lincoln understood the economic importance of slavery to the south. He understood the social implications of immediately freeing 4 million slaves in the south. He attempted to address both of those legitimate concerns with gradual emancipation, compensation for slave-owners, and the colonization of freed slaves, and both you and radical lefties only damn him for addressing those legitimate concerns and for proceeding with caution trying to avoid what Greely and other radicals saw as the necessary destruction of the south as the only way to end slavery. Yet you so-called southern patriots who claim to condemn slavery as an institution, then condemn the only person at the time who tried to end it without punishing the people who practiced and profited from it while praising men like Davis who championed slavery. That's just twisted.
Fredrick Douglass said it best years later. Early in the war, Douglass criticized Lincoln for being slow to act on slavery, but it was only later that Douglass realized that Lincoln was in fact moving just as fast as the people, and the politics would allow him. If Lincoln could have had his way, the war would have ended immediately with a plan for gradual, compensated emancipation just as he asked in his March 1862 letter to congress. That would have been the best outcome for the North, the South, and even the 4 million slaves. Even in 1865, I think Lincoln would have favored compensation for slave owners, but after the blood and treasure spent in putting down their rebellion, the people would not have stood for it. It was the southern slaveocracy, especially the Calhoon - Davis deep south slaveocrats who refused to consider emancipation in any way, who in fact insisted on expansion of slavery, who caused the war, prolonged the war, and in the end suffered the consequences.
Yep. The blind have eyes, yet cannot see.
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