Posted on 01/09/2003 8:02:45 PM PST by stainlessbanner
All of our early presidents killed indians.
I don't think that's true for a second. Indians were killed as a part of US government policy under some presidents. Although in some cases the president probably didn't even know about these killings. This occurred from the early to the late 1800's and I strongly disapprove of those things. But George Washington I'm certain was very strongly opposed to that whole mentality. Washington fought side by side with Indians against other Indians in the French & Indian war. When I say side by side I mean side by side. He was a young commander of men who went into the woods and half of his men were Indians. Historians have letters from Washington written to Indians where he praises the Great Spirit and talks about us all being Americans. Let's also not forget that there was a lot of violent conflict between Indians and whites beginning in early 1700's. The bad killings were a two way street in that both Indians and whites did these killings.
As president he had to succeed against the Miami indians to get the British out of the NW Territories, to deter Spain and France, and to get the western settlers support for the new nation.
He thanked god for "Mad Anthony" Wayne.
As white settlement increased, the presidents had to take stronger and stronger measures.
Chief "Little Turtle" is IMHO the main reason we kept a standing federal army instead of reverting to just State militias!
We can only pray it is true
I burst out laughing after the first line, but that's all that I lost. How about you guys?
I think this exact same article has been posted before.
It's not true that Lincoln wanted to pardon Indians to placate europeans. That is ridiculous. You'll note that this whole article has no documentary support.
General Pope...well, President Lincoln can tell it:
"...I received a long telegraphic dispatch from Major General Pope, at St. Paul, Minnesota, simply announcing the names of the persons sentenced to be hanged. I immediately telegraphed to have transcripts of the records in all the cases forwarded to me, which transcripts, however did not reach me until two or three days before the present meeting of Congress. Meantime I received, through telgraphic dispatches and otherwise, appeals in behalf of the condemned, appeals for their execution, and expressions of opinion as to proper policy in regard to them, and to the Indians generally in that vicinity, none of which, as I understand, falls within the scope of your inquiry. After the arrival of the transcripts of records, but before I had sufficient opportunity to examine them, I received a joint letter from one of the senators and two of the representatives from Minnesota, which contains some statements of fact not found in the records of the trials...
Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on the one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other, I caused a careful examination of the records of trials to be made, in view of first ordering the execution of such as had been proved guilty of violating females. Contrary to my expectations, only two of this class were found. I then directed a further examination of all who were proven to have particpated in massacres, as distinquished from participation in battles. This class numbered forty, and included the two convicted of female violation. One of the number is strongly recomended by the commission which tried them, for comutation to ten years' imprisonment. I have ordered the other thirty-nine to be executed on Friday, the 19th. instant."
A. Lincoln
If you read the Kunhardt's picture biography you'll see a photo of a note in Lincoln's own hand where he wrote out the names of Indians codemned to death in the Minnesota uprisings--not out of cruelty, but to prevent the wrong men from being hanged.
Walt
I burst out laughing after the first line, but that's all that I lost. How about you guys?
Yeah, definitely going to throw in the towel over this unsupported crap.
Walt
Why do you post this crap?
"In Chapter Five, "Ghosts of the Dead Habeas Corpus," Neely explores the creators of over 4,000 records of Confederate political prisoners, a shadowy semi-official group of civilians working for the War Department known as the habeas corpus commissioners. With virtually no supervision or guidelines, these lawyers reviewed the cases of the civilian prisoners in Confederate military prisons, deciding whether to release them, send them to a civilian court for trial, or make no decision (leaving the prisoner in jail indefinitely). Neely concludes that, effectively, many of these commissioners served as "mobilization officer[s]," putting disloyal civilians in military service if possible and otherwise keeping them out of the way (p. 93). The commissioners' reports remained hidden "in plain sight" for many years as ordinary letters to the Secretary of War with no reference to their contents (p. 82). They serve as Neely's main sources for the second half of the book.
Part Three, "Dissent," reinterprets Southern opposition to the Confederacy in light of the commissioners' records. In Chapter Six on East Tennessee, Neely rejects previous explanations of upland resistance as stemming from economic hardship and resistance to conscription, pointing out that such opposition began in 1861, before either became an issue.
Chapter Seven on Western Virginia and North Carolina argues that the records of the Confederate government and the habeas corpus commissioners show "evidence of political repression" of anti-secessionists (p. 132).
Chapter Eight, "A Provincial Society at War," builds on Carl Degler's _The Other South_ to examine civil liberties among the marginalized peoples of the South (including African Americans, pacifists, and Northern-born "alien enemies"), arguing that "by the end of the war the[ir] civil liberties ... were definitely deteriorating" (p. 150).
In Part Four, "Jefferson Davis and History," Neely rejects the characterization of Davis as a defender of civil liberties that he claims historians have largely accepted, pointing out that despite his attacks on Lincoln's tyrannical behavior, Confederate military prisons had civilian inmates from the start of the war.
In Chapter Nine, "Jefferson Davis and History," Neely convincingly argues that Lincoln and Davis both set their initial policy on civil liberties based on their attempt to win over the border states. Lincoln embraced restrictions on individual liberty to hold on to what the Union already controlled, while Davis spoke of sacred civil liberties in order to persuade the border states to secede as well. As the North invaded, however, Davis sacrificed individual rights to hold on to what remained of the Confederacy."
-- From the ACW Moderated newsgroup.
Walt
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