One of my kids’ English/Humanities teachers ( can’t remember the kid or the year or the teacher) had the Gettysburg Address parsed in a diagram on the wall during the back-to-school night for parents. It’s crazy cool. Parses perfectly, but boy is it complicated.
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They’ll ignore it completely, of course. Or Project Veritas will create some obscene twist.
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A military court found 303 of them guilty for slaughtering an estimated 800 settlers and sentenced them all to death. Lincoln reviewed the case and commuted the sentences of 264 of them.
He had to make more difficult decisions than any other president in history x 10. And from all accounts, these decisions and responsibilities weighed incredibly hard on him.
AKA they justifiably used force to defend their land from genocidal invaders.
How many Americans were killed by the Confederates that Lincoln chose not to punish? What differentiated their case apart from Whiteness and a total lack of valid justification?
As I said: by the standards of US Presidents, Lincoln was one of the best.
But that is a very low bar.
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And within 6 months:
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation
Lincoln’s personal qualities and beliefs and flaws I think get mixed up with his being the person who was able to see through the war and the end of slavery without the country coming apart. Same with Washington and the revolution/setting up of the country. If either of these people were not there to do this stuff, you realize that you get very different, unknowable outcomes. (Reading about the revolution, it’s like a drinking game, “if Washington wasn’t there, then…” It’s rly striking, though of course 20/20 hindsight.)
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What would you have done if you were President during this time period? Commute all of the Native American sentences, execute all of the Southern military men, and withdrawn all citizenry from the Continent to head back to England?
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Not sought the leadership of a genocidal white supremacist plutocracy in the first place, and instead worked to overthrow it. As other people of the time did.
Lincoln was not opposed to the Confederacy because he was anti-racist. Like most White Americans of the time, abolitionists included, he was a White Supremacist.
His opposition to slavery, such as it was, was primarily based in his belief that the institution of slavery was harmful to White America.
His main goal was not to end slavery; his main goal was to preserve the United States. And early White America was not a good thing.
The Confederacy was a monstrous evil, on par with Nazi Germany.
But the 19th Century United States was only marginally better.
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Here is a good summary of Lincoln the interactions that he had with Native Americans before his Presidency. I’m not using it to counter anything that you’re saying- just that it gives a good perspective on the time and how he operated within it.
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Interesting stuff, thanks, including:
Ultimately, it is clear that Lincoln viewed Native Americans as simultaneously foreign and respectable.
Oh, the irony…
The description of his grandfather’s killing by indigenous people weird at this part:
The surreptitious nature of the attack and the lack of any context for the violence underscored an appreciation for the tenuous nature of frontier life and the inherent threat of living in close proximity to Native Americans during this period.
Settler colonialism that steals land and kills people or pushes them away isn’t an explanatory “context”?
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I think it’s entirely possible for someone such as Lincoln to evolve as a person during their time in public service.
For example, early in his career, when accused of working towards equality, Lincoln stated, “I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office… there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.”
Seven years later, he was entertaining Frederick Douglass in the White House and stating in public speeches that Black army veterans should be entitled to full and equal compensation and that all African Americans should be given the right to vote and participate in public office. He was killed for it, but he did state it, and in the South.
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Is it time to take the jackhammers to Mount Rushmore yet? Just Lincoln, or all four?
Paint them with anti-facial-recognition patterns. Just to remind the rest of us to do so, too. Resist from on high.
For perspective: Every US president since at least 1950, and most prior, have found themselves committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Our gov’t seems structured for that necessity. Congress won’t declare war; military are sent anyway. Nobody is watching so the military commits atrocities. Any Demo president will unavoidably commit heinous acts, bet on it.
I aced an International Relations course some time back. The major takeaways:
Morality has no place in international relations – because:
A leader ignoring their constituents will soon be ousted.
‘Constituents’ are those that installed a leader. Strong interests will force a leader to go criminal or be removed. That’s how it works.
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tldr: Empires gotta empire.
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AKA Mt Crazy Horse, AKA part of the sacred Black Hills, stolen from the Lakota in violation of the Treaty of Fort Laramie and defaced for the purpose of creating a tourist trap for white people.
It’s Lakota land; it’s their call as to what to do with it.
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Sarah Vowell said something to the effect of “Who was he kidding? The speech is one of the main reasons we DO remember what happened. We need a Guernica to remember Guernica.”
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