After Confederate statues fall, is Lincoln Memorial next?

https://www.reporternews.com ^ | March 9, 2019 | Jerry Patterson

[NKP_Vet]

“In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any country.” — Robert E. Lee 1856

Could Gen. Robert E.l Lee’s sentiments deter the “tear down those monuments” crowd?

Probably not.

Given their current success in removing monuments to Confederate generals, ignorant politicians and those whose hobby is going through life seeking to be offended, soon will run out of things to be offended by. Why not broaden the list of "offensive" symbols to include slave owners George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and a host of other founders?

Here in Texas you could add slave owning Texas heroes such as Sam Houston, Jim Bowie and William Travis.

Should we banish from public view all monuments to past historical figures who supported white supremacy, advocated secession or made racist comments?

Consider Abraham Lincoln. In addition to the Lincoln monument in the nation’s capital, there’s probably not a major city in the country without a school, street or park named after Lincoln (Abilene once had Lincoln Middle School).

What do Lincoln's own words tell us about “Honest Abe”, "the Great Emancipator?"

During one of the famous 1858 debates with Sen. Stephen Douglas, Lincoln explained to the crowd: “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 . . . I am not now nor have ever been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people . . . there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be a position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

Lincoln's prejudices weren’t limited to blacks.

During another debate with Douglas, Lincoln opined: “I understand that the people of Mexico are most decidedly a race of mongrels . . . there’s not one person there out of eight who is pure white”.

In Lincoln's 1861 inaugural address, he endorsed a constitutional amendment, known as the Corwin Amendment, which would forever protect slavery where it existed, telling the audience: “I have no objection to its (Corwin Amendment) being made express and irrevocable”. Lincoln's goal was to save the Union, writing to abolitionist Horace Greeley: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it”.

Virtually all white men of that time were white supremacists. Lincoln was no exception, and his comments belie his reputation.

Was Lincoln opposed to secession?

Consider his remarks he made in Congress on January 12, 1848: “Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one which suits them better. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much territory as they inhabit.” This is exactly what the seceding states did in 1861.

Another discomforting fact for today’s advocates of political correctness: In 2011 I sponsored a commemorative license plate for Buffalo soldiers, iconic black U.S. cavalrymen who served on the frontier. Couldn’t today's Native Americans claim buffalo soldiers participated in a genocidal war against an entire race of people - the American Plains Indians – enslaving them on reservations?

If we’re going to measure Confederates of 150 years ago by today’s standards, shouldn’t we do the same with Lincoln?

Today, it's Confederates. Who’s next? Buffalo soldiers? Our nation’s founders? Our Texas heroes? The possibilities are limitless.

Jerry Patterson is a former Texas land commissioner, state senator and retired Marine Vietnam veteran.

[ALASKA]

And then what? Amerigo Vespuci enslaved humans and sold them. Do we change the name of walk our country? The name of two continents? The mob is evil.

[x]

Fredrick Douglass changed his mind about Lincoln because he believed Lincoln changed his mind about African-Americans. I could supply the quotes, but it's easy to find them if you want to look for them.

I never said Lincoln believed in racial equality. I said he didn't. But he was never as racist as most of his countrymen, and his true feelings about race were far more complicated than your oversimplifications.

You didn't address the quote I gave:

My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desire to do, and I have only to say, let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man, this race and that race, and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position, discarding our standard that we have left us. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.

It was from an speech Lincoln gave to abolitionists on July 10, 1858. Stephen Douglas repeatedly referred to that speech and quoted from it in his debates with Lincoln, so that Lincoln, to avoid losing the election had to disassociate himself more forcefully from the idea of racial equality than he ordinarily would have. That accounts for some of his remarks in his own speeches at the debates, so that the meaning behind those remarks is not necessarily to be taken at face value.

Here is another quote from the speech to the abolitionists:

I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it! [Voices—”me” “no one,” &c.] If it is not true let us tear it out! [cries of “no, no,”] let us stick to it then, [cheers] let us stand firmly by it then. [Applause.]

And another:

So I say in relation to the principle that all men are created equal, let it be as nearly reached as we can. If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature.

I notice that you also have never responded to the fact that Southern planters wanted to keep the freed slaves on their plantations because they needed the labor and they used debt and other devices to do so.

We said the same things for years when PC Revisionists applied late 20th and 21st century standards of morality to Confederate leaders from 150+ years ago. Well goose, gander etc. If we're gonna do that for one side then we need to do it equally for the other.

But Confederate leaders were already condemned by the standards of their own time. It was post-war revisionism that made people forget that. I don't deny that Lincoln and most Northerners look awful on race by today's standards. I do oppose trying to make them look worse than they were at the time by holding them up to standards they were barely (or not at all aware of).

Look, I'm not up at 4 in the morning for the fun of it. Going on line helps me to forget stuff I'm going through right now. But I'm not in any mood to carry on some interminable argument about nothing with everything else going on now. So I'm going to stop responding now. I've got too much going on in the real world to bother with this endless, unresolvable garbage. I posted to point out mistakes that you made and now I have done that and expressed my own point of view which you have ignored or found unconvincing. No need to drag things out.

[DoodleDawg]

jeffersondem knows it wasn’t Lee; he was quoting Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church.

I know where the quote is from. With jeffersondem one can never be sure.

[BroJoeK]

x: "In the 1860 census there were over 7,000 Blacks in Illinois and over 6,000 in Michigan.
Whoever was enforcing the laws wasn't trying very hard."

In round numbers, populations of freed-blacks between 1820 and 1860 grew:

1. 200% in the South (Lower, Upper & Border)
2. 100% in the North East (Maine through Connecticut)
3. 200% in Middle Atlantic states (NY, NJ & PA)
4. 1,000% in the Mid-West (Ohio through Illinois & Minnesota)

By 1860 there were nearly 500,000 freed-blacks, half in the South, half in the North.
Some Northern states did allow freedmen to vote, though it's not clear exactly which, when or how many actually did vote.

Thomas Jefferson proposed the first plan for compensated emancipation and recolonization of freedmen to Africa.
Compensated emancipation was rejected by slaveholders, but recolonization did become US Federal government official policy.

In 1819 Congress first appropriated $100,000 for recolonization of freed blacks to Africa and over the following 40 years about 13,000 sailed & settled in Liberia.
During the Civil War another 20,000 freed-blacks volunteered for recolonization in Panama or Haiti, but both projects failed and none eventually did recolonize.

So recolonizing had a long history but was never practical or even much desired by former slaves themselves.

Lincoln, like Jefferson, thought recolonizing a good idea until practical experience proved otherwise, then he finally abandoned it.
When he discussed it in the White House with black leaders they lead him to understand that's not what they wanted.

What they wanted were the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments -- full citizenship, here, not far away recolonization.

1. American Colonization Society

2. Abraham Lincoln and the Politics of Black Colonization

3. US Freed Black populations 1790 to 1860

4. Lincoln's White House Meeting with Black Leaders, August 14, 1862

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "Wasn’t it Lee that wrote: 'Slaves, obey your earthly masters . . .'
Or, am I thinking about someone else?"

Well... "thinking" rather loosely describes what goes on in jeffersondem's head...

But yes, Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6 and Colossians 5.
However, you find a more enlightening discussion in Romans 6, where Paul reminds us we can all be slaves -- to sin, and we can escape such slavery by obedience ("slavery") to Christ.

And least we harbor any doubts about this: the Bible itself is violently opposed to slavery for God's people.
That's what the Exodus is all about and that point strongly reinforced in Jeremiah 34.
So Saul of Tarsus is not condoning slavery, but rather telling us to offer slave-like obedience to Christ.

As for RE Lee's views on slavery, they seem to rather closely follow our Founders like a Jefferson or Madison:

Or even George Washington himself:

"Cheerfully" seems an odd word here, but Lee chose it, unlike our many Lost Cause defenders.

[OIFVeteran]

Are you actually admitting that Lincoln was against slavery? Wow. Never thought I would see the day.

[OIFVeteran]

No, not even close. Look at the last sentence in his letter to Horace Greeley.

“I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.”

Yours,
A. Lincoln

You can’t find any confederate leader who believed that. Most believed that slavery was actually a positive good.
Now did Lincoln believe that there should be political equality between the races? No. At least not at first. But few but the more radical abolitionist believed that.

If you look on it as a scale of moral right and wrong from 0 to 10. You would have the confederate leaders at the bottom or 0. They believed that blacks were ordained by God to be slaves. The radical abolitionist at the top of the scale believing all men were created equal and should have equal rights at a 10. Lincoln would probably fall somewhere at a 7 or 8.

[OIFVeteran]

Nice post. It’s amazing to me how anyone can read Lincoln’s words and not see how much he detested slavery. He was a great man and the Lost losers on this thread aren’t fit to hold his shoes.

[BroJoeK]

X: " Look, I'm not up at 4 in the morning for the fun of it. "

I am, it's my favorite time of day.
At 4:00 AM anything is possible for this day.

But I wish you all the best in whatever challenges you face.
Your contributions here are hugely valuable and much appreciated -- by some of us at least. ;-)

Have a great day, sir.

[jeffersondem]

“The radical abolitionist at the top of the (moral) scale believing all men were created equal and should have equal rights at a 10.”

That is an interesting comment.

To help better understand your calibration, where do you rank John Brown and those that funded his murder raids?

[NKP_Vet]

All 13 Original Colonies had slaves. Every one of them. A southerner was no more “racist” than the uppity New Englanders, who looked down their noses at Southerners since the founding of the country and still do.

[OIFVeteran]

I rank him at a 10. He was willing to lay down his life to free other people.
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
John 15:3

[jeffersondem]

“I rank him at a 10. He was willing to lay down his life to free other people.”

He was also willing to murder innocent people. And he did murder innocent people. But I asked a direct question and received a direct answer.

I guess it really is true: one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "Using this quote, and the others you cite, a case can be made that Lincoln had in his heart the desire to overthrow the pro-slavery provisions of the United States Constitution.
As an educated man, he must have known he could not get the votes to over-throw the pro-slavery U.S. Constitution peacefully.
What Lincoln would need was a pretext."

No, that might be said of the 1856 Republican presidential candidate, John C. Fremont, who lost to Doughfaced James Buchanan.
Fremont was a true-blue abolitionist, but Republicans selected Lincoln in 1860 precisely because, in Republican terms, Lincoln was more moderate.
Lincoln hated slavery and opposed its expansion, but did not intend to overthrow the Constitution's protections in states where slavery was lawful.

(This listing of American Abolitionists includes Fremont, but not Lincoln)

The choice then to provide Lincoln "pretexts" was entirely with Confederates -- first in secession, then in provoking, starting, declaring & waging war against the Union, even in Union states.
These Confederate acts provided the Union with military justifications regarding "Contraband of War", confiscations of Confederate property, prohibitions on returning fugitive Confederate slaves, emancipation and, eventually, the 13th, 14th & 15th amendments.

Of course, jeffersondem likes that word "pretext", as in Gulf of Tonkin, but the fact is that Lincoln delayed taking actions against Confederate slavery until the military justifications were vastly more than mere "pretext".

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "I guess it really is true: one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter."

I think jeffersondem well knows better, but enjoys this too much to resist.

John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry resulted in six killed civilians -- including two slaves and one freed-black -- nine wounded, plus a marine killed & nine more wounded, so I rank Brown a terrorist, regardless of his allegedly noble intentions.

We might note here that Lincoln had nothing good to say about him.

We might also ask if our Founding freedom fighters took any such actions before Brits started hostilities against them?
Answer: no.

So freedom fighters are not terrorists unless they engage in unprovoked terrorism, such as Brown's.

[DoodleDawg]

He was also willing to murder innocent people. And he did murder innocent people.

Really? When?

[FLT-bird]

Fredrick Douglass changed his mind about Lincoln because he believed Lincoln changed his mind about African-Americans. I could supply the quotes, but it's easy to find them if you want to look for them.

Ah the famous "oh but he channnnnnged" excuse. There is no evidence for it. He was still trying to deport Blacks until the last year or so of his life. His sarcastic remake that they would have to "root hog or die" came in his last year of life. That was entirely consistent with what he'd said before.

I never said Lincoln believed in racial equality. I said he didn't. But he was never as racist as most of his countrymen, and his true feelings about race were far more complicated than your oversimplifications.

He was never as racist as his countrymen? Again, there is zero evidence to support this claim and considerable evidence to support the claim that he was extremely racist.

You didn't address the quote I gave:

My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desire to do, and I have only to say, let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man, this race and that race, and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position, discarding our standard that we have left us. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.

It was from an speech Lincoln gave to abolitionists on July 10, 1858. Stephen Douglas repeatedly referred to that speech and quoted from it in his debates with Lincoln, so that Lincoln, to avoid losing the election had to disassociate himself more forcefully from the idea of racial equality than he ordinarily would have. That accounts for some of his remarks in his own speeches at the debates, so that the meaning behind those remarks is not necessarily to be taken at face value.

Here is another quote from the speech to the abolitionists:

I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it! [Voices—”me” “no one,” &c.] If it is not true let us tear it out! [cries of “no, no,”] let us stick to it then, [cheers] let us stand firmly by it then. [Applause.]

And another: So I say in relation to the principle that all men are created equal, let it be as nearly reached as we can. If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature.

That Lincoln was a very slick lawyer and corporate lobbyist who was naturally suited to be a weasel-like politician who told audiences what he thought they wanted to hear in order to gain their support I do not doubt. That he was however anything but a convinced die-hard racist I very much do doubt.

You see, he was perfectly happy to orchestrate passage of the Corwin Amendment through the Northern Dominated Congress and through several state governments....the constitutional amendment which would have expressly protected slavery effectively forever AFTER making such statements. He was also only too happy to commit ethnic cleansing and genocide against native people after giving those speeches. So much for all men being created equal.

I notice that you also have never responded to the fact that Southern planters wanted to keep the freed slaves on their plantations because they needed the labor and they used debt and other devices to do so.

sure they did. What of it? The system that became standard after the war was sharecropping. There wasn't much actual money to lend to anyone - especially not after the crushingly high Morrill Tariff which tripled tariff rates and left them in place until well into the 20th century and not after the crushingly high taxes corrupt carpet bagger governments imposed before promptly stealing everything in sight.

But Confederate leaders were already condemned by the standards of their own time. It was post-war revisionism that made people forget that.

But they weren't and this is just the standard false Union propaganda.

I don't deny that Lincoln and most Northerners look awful on race by today's standards. I do oppose trying to make them look worse than they were at the time by holding them up to standards they were barely (or not at all aware of).

Ah So NOW presentism is bad. NOW its unfair, ridiculous etc to compare people who were products of their time to moral standards of over a century and a half later. I see. As the old expression goes "ya came to jesus a little late".

Look, I'm not up at 4 in the morning for the fun of it. Going on line helps me to forget stuff I'm going through right now. But I'm not in any mood to carry on some interminable argument about nothing with everything else going on now. So I'm going to stop responding now. I've got too much going on in the real world to bother with this endless, unresolvable garbage. I posted to point out mistakes that you made and now I have done that and expressed my own point of view which you have ignored or found unconvincing. No need to drag things out.

I'd say I did not make mistakes and you did but I can respect that you've consistently been honest, not trolling and have not resorted to the ad hominem. I hope whatever difficulties you are dealing with soon pass.

[FLT-bird]

I can see I’m going to need to adopt another canned response in this thread.....as you proceed to obsess over me about 150 more times even after I’ve made clear I’m not going to allow you to waste hours of my day every day no matter how desperately you try.

[FLT-bird]

You can’t find any confederate leader who believed that. Most believed that slavery was actually a positive good. He believed it so much he orchestrated passage of a constitutional amendment which would have expressly protected slavery effectively forever.

Now did Lincoln believe that there should be political equality between the races? No. At least not at first. But few but the more radical abolitionist believed that. True....then again that a man was a man of his time or that he was more moderate than most or that he treated those around him kindly has never been a defense when the PC Revisionists were attacking Southern figures. Seems rather unbalanced to show such understanding for only one side while showing none for the other.

If you look on it as a scale of moral right and wrong from 0 to 10. You would have the confederate leaders at the bottom or 0. They believed that blacks were ordained by God to be slaves. The radical abolitionist at the top of the scale believing all men were created equal and should have equal rights at a 10. Lincoln would probably fall somewhere at a 7 or 8.

here is where you are wrong. Firstly the Confederates were far from a monolith. There were several prominent Confederates who were quite willing to abolish slavery. There were several like Lee who saw it as a moral evil. As for abolitionists, they were a tiny minority in the North and got trounced in election after election they had so little support. As for Lincoln he'd fall near the bottom of the scale given he started the bloodiest war in American history, trashed the constitution, was willing to enshrine slavery effectively forever in the constitution, committed all sorts of war crimes and committed genocide and ethnic cleansing against native people.

[rockrr]

Why don’t you cut to the chase and just go away? It would be far more effective.