Statue of Abe Lincoln: "...a slap in the face of a lot of brave men..."

The Cincinnati Enquirer ^ | Friday, December 27, 2002 | AP

[yankeedame]

Friday, December 27, 2002

Lincoln statue won't be embraced by all

The Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. - Abraham Lincoln is returning to the capital of the Confederacy, much to the chagrin of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Five days before the Civil War ended in April 1865, the president and his youngest child, Tad, traveled to still-smoldering Richmond soon after Southern forces abandoned the city in flames. On April 5, 2003, the 138th anniversary of that visit, a bronze statue of the pair commissioned by the United States Historical Society will be unveiled at the Civil War Visitor Center of the National Park Service.

"Here is a national hero, a small boy, and a beautiful city by the James River, all united again," said Robert Kline, chairman of the nonprofit group society, which works on behalf of museums and other groups on projects of historic and artistic value. "This time Lincoln's in Richmond for all time."

Richmond, home to towering statues of Confederacy figures including Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart, was abandoned after Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant attacked on April 2, 1965.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans view the Lincoln statue as "a slap in the face of a lot of brave men and women who went through four years of unbelievable hell fighting an invasion of Virginia led by President Lincoln," Brag Bowling, the SCV Virginia commander, said Thursday. The group had only recently learned of the statue, and had no immediate plans to protest.

The life-size statue by sculptor David Frech will show Lincoln and his son on a bench against a granite wall. The words "To Bind Up The Nation's Wounds" will be etched into a capstone.

[CyberCowboy777]

I said a battle was going on for 20 years IN government and in the society as a whole. Not "with government support" as you say I said.

Yes - the tide of change came over the Atlantic and many who searched for a way to remove slavery from the US were influenced by the pattern laid out in England.

Yes - the argument over a national bank was included in the fabric of the time especially during Van Buren's and Jackson's administrations. Expansion of slavery was bigger after Harrison.

Your other comments are filled with revisionist interpretations that have been debated before, I do not want go round and round concerning the meanings of events. I do not have the time nor do I want to commit the intellectual resources.

I came to this thread and said that I believe the South lost because it did not abolish slavery. I also believe God sided with the North because of the South's inclusion of the preservation of slavery in it's creation of the CSA and secession. I stand by these simple statements.

[wardaddy]

1) Slavery would have ended in my view probably within 50 years at most more or less along the same lines as it did in Brasil, Cuba, and Southern Africa (by whites and coloreds of blacks that is)


2) Blacks would have probably been reduced as citizens to varying degrees and many may have emigrated to the North (if allowed in) but the end result would not have been much different than it played out anyhow. War, Reconstruction, Empty Freedom, Suppressed Freedom, Eventual Victim Status Freedom.....all segregated for the most part whether intentional or not. I see little difference in the reality and the hypothetical here except in the beginning....as in slavery ended earlier no doubt because of the WBTS.

3)The USA would have been worse off arguably.. divided. I wish the war had not been fought. Hotheads prevailed on both sides...it was unecessary and cemented the centralized federal power .....forever.

I can't speak for all Southerners on this thread but mainly I resent two things:

1) Yankees nearly always preaching to us from their flawed perch about how to regard our particular history.

2) Yankees always preaching to us from their hypocritical perch about RACE when most Yankees hardly even know a black person much less have not lived their entire lives in social engineering experiements with very large ...even majority numbers of blacks in our communities. I have lived in the North. It is every bit as segregated as the South if not more so. Why do Yankees think they have any answers?

race relations in the South are good...not so good...and even downright ugly on occasion. However if you take the outside do gooder agitators out of the equation today, Southerners of all colors can solve their own damn regional problems by themselves...Thank You Very Much. You guys may all go tend to your own problems of a social/cultural nature and keep on watching Cosby Show re-runs and believing that gives you a comprehensive view on "Race in America"...lol

If all that makes me a racist in your eyes then so be it. This forum has infinitely more whiny crybaby race slanderers than it will ever have serious white supremacist racists. Overt white racism is a near myth today. There are more overt black racists at your average Farakhan rally than all the overt white racists in the country combined in my view.

As for passive racism as they now call folks who identify to some degree within their own race on occasion....I have found nowhere on this planet where that aspect of human nature is not to be found....period.


BTW...I have never said the South was right,but it's considerably more complex of an issue than slavery alone. Why I wonder are so many folks...even so called conservatives so damn preoccupied with all things "black"?

[Johnny Shear]

Are you prepared to personally come down here and occupy us so we'll "behave" according to your lofty wishes?

What you don't mention is the fact that there are more than likely a vast majority of people who live "Down There" who agree that honoring President Lincoln is a GOOD THING. Unfortunately, like with most things, the most passionate (And in this case most vocal) are usually the minority.

So...You're already "Occupied". Now you just need to "Behave" before that majority decides to rise-up and shut your minority traps for good.

There is NOTHING wrong with "Southern Pride". It's the "Southern Hatred" that's the problem. And until you get rid of it, "Soutern Pride" will forever be tainted.

[CyberCowboy777]

You leave out so much :~)

"The monstrous injustice of slavery... deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world- enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites- causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty."


Abraham Lincoln had long regarded slavery an evil. In a speech in Peoria, Illinois, in 1854, he had declared that all national legislation should be framed on the principle that slavery was to be restricted and eventually abolished. He contended also that the principle of popular sovereignty was false, for slavery in the western territories was the concern not only of the local inhabitants but of the United States as a whole. This speech made him widely known throughout the growing west.

In 1858, Lincoln opposed Stephen A. Douglas for election to the U. S. Senate from Illinois. In the first paragraph of his opening campaign speech, on June 17, Lincoln struck the keynote of American history for the seven years to follow:

". house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided."

Lincoln and Douglas engaged in a series of seven debates in the ensuing months of 1858. Senator Douglas, a sturdy five-footer known as the "little giant," had an enviable reputation as an orator, but he met his match in Lincoln, who eloquently challenged the concept of popular sovereignty. In the end, although Douglas won the election by a small margin, Lincoln had achieved stature as a national figure.

Lincoln delivered masterful addresses for the Union and for the democratic idea. He was not an abolitionist, but he regarded slavery as an injustice and an evil, and uncompromisingly opposed its extension.

He stoutly opposed the policy of Stephen A. Douglas and particularly the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In a speech at Springfield, repeated at Peoria, he attacked the compromises concerning the question of slavery in the territories and invoked the democratic ideals contained in the Declaration of Independence.

In fact, as early as 1837, as an Illinois State legislator, Lincoln had officially expressed his belief that "the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy." To make the point as clearly as possible, let us simply site the Republican Party Platform of 1860 upon which Lincoln was elected President.

Resolved…

1.) That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom; That as our Republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that "no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to Slavery in any Territory of the United States.

2.) That we brand the recent re-opening of the African slave-trade, under the cover of our national flag, aided by perversions of judicial power, as a crime against humanity and a burning shame to our country and age; and we call upon congress to take prompt and efficient measures for the total and final suppression of that execrable traffic.

Address at Cooper Institute, New York City
Abraham Lincoln
February 27, 1860
http://www.founding.com/library/lbody.cfm?id=488&parent=63

Kansas-Nebraska Act
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0827030.html

Other sources
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0859297.html
http://www.geocities.com/thomas_rooney2001/Slavery.html

[wardaddy]

I hereby cordially invite you to come to Nashville TN and personally shut my minority trap.

Unlike you I do not hide behind my profile page.

Talk is cheap and your wolf tickets are worthless.

Why not tell me more about thy noble self, peckerhead? Quit sqawking and pretending to be a friend of Southerners and let's just get right down to it. You do have something to say about yourself don't you? Think real hard while you make up your imaginary FR persona fakir.

What a pussy...typical all talk know it all Yankee holier than thou filha do puta.

[Johnny Shear]

What in the world are you going-on about? You're the one who issued the challenge...I just gave you the facts about the majority population that surrounds you...That's "Non-Kooks" to you, sizzle chest.

And what's the definition of "Yankee" to people like you? The non-toothless?

[wardaddy]

LOL.....another "open minded"(about everything but Southerners) Yankee...your prejudice is showing.....doesn't take much to provoke your true colors does it?

Pistols at dawn?..I promise to tie one hand behind my back in the sense of fairness.

[Senator Pardek]

Pistols at dawn?..I promise to tie one hand behind my back in the sense of fairness.

Having two hands free did not help The Rebels. I suggest you think twice. So does History.

[Johnny Shear]

YOU "provoking true colors"?

Have you seen your last outburst? (Post #283) Or was that just some government conspiracy of northern aggression to mearly make you look like a Whack-Job?

[WhiskeyPapa]

I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races ... nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes..."--lincoln, Sept 1858, Douglass debates

In 1865, President Lincoln DID support those things. That is why Booth shot him.

"it is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers."

4/11/65

President Lincoln had been preparing the way for full rights for blacks for a year. You've seen these letters before and you still stick to your half truths.

Private

General Hunter

Executive Mansion

Washington D.C. April 1, 1863

My dear Sir:

I am glad to see the accounts of your colored force at Jacksonville, Florida. I see the enemy are driving at them fiercely, as is to be expected. It is mportant to the enemy that such a force shall not take shape, and grow, and thrive, in the south; and in precisely the same proportion, it is important to us that it shall. Hence the utmost caution and viglilance is necessary on our part. The enemy will make extra efforts to destroy them; and we should do the same to perserve and increase them.

Yours truly

A. Lincoln

_________________________________________________________

Hon. Andrew Johnson

Executive Mansion,

My dear Sir:

Washington, March 26, 1863.

I am told you have at least thought of raising a negro military force. In my opinion the country now needs no specific thing so much as some man of your ability, and position, to go to this work. When I speak of your position, I mean that of an eminent citizen of a slave-state, and himself a slave- holder. The colored population is the great available and yet unavailed of, force for restoring the Union. The bare sight of fifty thousand armed, and drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi, would end the rebellion at once. And who doubts that we can present that sight, if we but take hold in earnest? If you have been thinking of it please do not dismiss the thought.

Yours truly

Private

March 13, 1864

Executive Mansion

Washington

Hon. Michael Hahn

My dear sir,

I congratulate you on having fixed your name in history as the first free-state Governor of Louisiana. Now you are about to have a convention which among other things, will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest for your private consideration, whether some of the colored people may not be let in -- as for instance the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in oyr ranks. They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewell of liberty within the family of freedom. But this is only a suggestion, not to the public, but to you alone.

Yours truly

__________________________________________________

Prsident Lincoln was a great and good man, and your lies are easily exposed.

Walt

[Cogadh na Sith]

Are you prepared to personally come down here and occupy us so we'll "behave" according to your lofty wishes?

I don't care how you behave. Strap a suicide bomb on and blow up the Lincoln Monument for all I care...

The victors get to erect the statues. That's my whole point and really my only point from the beginning. It happens the world over.

Right or wrong, the victors get to erect the statues, Saddam (hell, we 'won' Gulf War I--but because we didn't occupy Bagdad, he erects the statues), Kim Il Sung, Ho Chi Minh, Lincoln, Don Juan de Onate, Robert the Bruce.

Why would that ancient worldwide rule be repealed for the Southern US? I don't get it....

Don't you think that as a purported "conservative" that you have enough unfinished business at home in blue zone land?

Now how am I going to get Mexican Nationals whose families have lived in New Mexico for 300 years before it became a state to respect American culture, mores and laws if modern day Southerners won't, Huh?

All this Neo-Johnny Reb stuff is nice, but what will you say when the Southwestern US wants to secede as 'Aztlan'? Hmmmm?

They actually have a greater historical claim on that land than the southern whites have on The South.

Will you respect their right to secede on the same cultural grounds that the South wanted to secede on?

Do you believe it would be just and right for US troops to fight to retain half of NM, Arizonal, Cal and Southern Texas if they want to secede and become the state of 'Aztlan'?

I think the Johnny Rebs would be more Unionist than any Yankee on this one...

[wardaddy]

Not this Johnny Reb (lol)...please take Kali with you when you leave.

[wardaddy]

We kicked your Yankee butts damn good considering....

And quit trying to make friends around here...it's not becoming of you.

[wardaddy]

Glad you've dropped all pretense about what you are.

Now, how about some background info John Brown incarnate sir?

[billbears]

4/11/65--President Lincoln had been preparing the way for full rights for blacks for a year. You've seen these letters before and you still stick to your half truths.

Hmmm...a year you say Walt? Well that would put it sometime into '64. Easily explainable as pandering to his new base after he picked up the ending of slavery as a rallying cry in late '62/early '63. Sorry Walt, no dice. You're using post Emancipation Proclamation data to explain his attack on the South in '61. You and I both know, as evidenced by his Inaugural Address in '61 he could care less. But good tactic. Just like a liberal (of which you readily have admitted in the past). Keep twisting. But the rope's running out. Your idol is being outed slowly but surely

[thatdewd]

In 1865, President Lincoln DID support those things.

There is nothing in your quotes that supports your contention that Lincoln supported full rights for blacks. Quite the opposite. More than once in those quotes he singles out "the very intelligent", a racist exclusion that clearly denotes his belief that the average black was inferior and unworthy of rights, and also "those who serve our cause as soldiers", another racist method of selective enfranchisement because he omits the average black man and only offers it as a pet reward to a selected group. If Lincoln was not a racist (like most people on both sides were), he would not have endorsed those insulting "intelligence" guidelines and selective enfranchisement recommendations. Your quotes prove the opposite of what you propose.

[billbears]

Whiskey Papa defends President Lincoln along these same lines MUCH better than I ever could. He seems to speak from knowledge and documeted facts.

LOLOLOL!!! Funniest thing I've read in at least a few weeks. Pulling data from AOL newsgroups and picking up talking points from Asa Gordon and Ed Sebasta is no defense. Rather it verifies exactly who is defending lincoln. Do a search on those two and you might want to revise your opinion. Also anything from McPherson has to be taken with a block of salt considering some of his ties. And we'll not even go certain people's stellar voting record for Democrats over the past few national elections. Sorry, but no dice.

[WhiskeyPapa]

There is nothing in your quotes that supports your contention that Lincoln supported full rights for blacks. Quite the opposite. More than once in those quotes he singles out "the very intelligent", a racist exclusion that clearly denotes his belief that the average black was inferior and unworthy of rights, and also "those who serve our cause as soldiers", another racist method of selective enfranchisement because he omits the average black man and only offers it as a pet reward to a selected group. If Lincoln was not a racist (like most people on both sides were), he would not have endorsed those insulting "intelligence" guidelines and selective enfranchisement recommendations. Your quotes prove the opposite of what you propose.

John Wilkes Booth didn't take that from Lincoln's comments.

He said it meant "nigger citizenship."

But maybe he was more objective than you.

What Prsident Lincoln was doing was what he had done with great success throughout his presidency. He was feeling out what people --would-- accept.

Lincoln also said:

"When you give the Negro these rights, when you put a gun in his hands, it prophesies something more: it foretells that he is to have the full enjoyment of his liberty and his manhood."

I'm sure you can rationalize that away too.

Walt

[unspun]

Lincoln lead the United States of America to victory over an evil perversion of America.

His image can be put wherever the USA decides and true Americans can love to see it.

[unspun]

It's tough to talk sense to people who don't understand that the understanding of honest men and true leaders is developed over time (even influenced by God).