We are being assaulted on all sides today by people ignorant of
our history, which is actually their history as well. They seek to remove all
symbols of “hate” and “oppression” from our landscape without truly knowing
what those symbols actually stood for. Maybe it is time for a little history
lesson.
The man revered as the freer of slaves, may not have been quite
the hero of the Black man so many think he was, although he will always be
considered a great president, perhaps because all the facts are not always
declared openly.
In The Collected Works of Abraham
Lincoln, we see a side of Lincoln that
is never shown us, his human side, and his racist side, if we were allowed to
use todays vernacular to be applied to yesterday. It bears acknowledgement in
today’s climate.
He wrote, for instance: “Free them [i.e. the slaves] and make them politically and
socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this . . . . We cannot
then make them equals.” (vol. II, p. 256)
And: “What I would most desire would be the separation of the
white and black races.” (vol. II, p. 521)
And there is this: “I have no purpose to introduce political and
social equality between the white and black races . . . . I, as well as Judge
Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior
position. I have never said anything to the contrary.” (vol. III, p, 16)
And this: “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 nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of
negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white
people.” (vol. III, pp. 145-146)
And this: “I will to the very last stand by the law of this
state [Illinois], which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes.” (vol.
III, p. 146)
And this: “Senator Douglas remarked . . . that . . . this
government was made for the white people and not for the negroes. Why, in point
of mere fact, I think so too.” (vol. II, p. 281)
Today Lincoln would be slammed as a racist of the utmost degree.
The Civil War, with Abraham Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief of the
Union Army, was certainly not fought to free slaves, as we are told by so many
today ignorant of their own history.
He supported the Illinois Constitution, which in 1848 was
amended to prohibit the immigration of black people into the state.
In a speech he once said, “Let us be brought to believe it is
morally right, and . . . favorable to . . . our interest, to transfer the
African to his native clime.” (vol. II, p. 409) He wanted Blacks to be deported
back to Africa, not given rights or citizenship.
In Lincoln’s first inaugural address of March 4, 1861, Lincoln probably
made the most powerful defense of slavery ever made by an American politician.
In it, Lincoln denies having any intention to interfere with Southern slavery.
He also declared his support for the federal Fugitive Slave Clause of the
Constitution which compelled citizens of non-slave states to capture runaway
slaves. He also supported the Corwin Amendment, a constitutional amendment that
would have prohibited the federal government from interfering in Southern
slavery trade or practice forever.
At the end of his inaugural address Lincoln said, “I understand
a proposed amendment to the Constitution . . . has passed Congress, to the
effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic
institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service [slaves].
To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to
speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision
to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”
Lincoln’s purpose was not to abolish slavery but to merely not allow its
expansion into new territories where it was not yet practiced. The three reasons
were that 1 (Keeping slaves out would have kept Blacks out, which was the goal.
2) Whites did not want to compete for jobs with Blacks, and 3) Blacks might
shift the balance and disrupt the political system giving Democrats, who owned
the salves, more power during elections because although a Black was not
considered a whole person, he stated that five slaves would count as three
persons in the census.
The Emancipation Proclamation we all remember but know so little
about, was considered a “wartime measure” and was to be considered valid only
during wartime. It also only applied to “rebel territory” and specifically
exempted certain areas of the South by name that were under already under
control of the Union Army, such as most of Louisiana and entire states like
West Virginia, the last slave state to enter the union. Some historians actually believe that it “actually freed no one”.
The Proclamation was
designed to incite the slaves in Southern states to rise up but it did not have
that effect. Slavery was finally put to an end in 1866 by the Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution, a provision that Lincoln refused to raise
support for.
There was great concern about collecting tariffs and tax money
however and some states threatened to secede of it. There were lines being draw
between the North and the South over sales taxes for clothing, shoes, farm
tools and manufacturing parts the South bought from the North. This almost caused
a war of secession in the late 1820s. When the civil War actually begun, the
U.S. Senate issued a War Aims Resolution that said: “[T]his war is not waged .
. . in any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of conquest or subjugation,
or purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established
institutions of those [Southern] states, but to defend . . . the Constitution,
and to preserve the Union . . .” By “established institutions” of the Southern
states the Senate meant slavery.
The Civil War was waged for economic reasons, and not over
slavery at all. People who today want to destroy Confederate statues because
they think they represent oppression of the Blacks which brought about our
country’s civil war, are buying into the Liberal lie that is designed to
further disrupt and divide America. They have attached themselves to a cause
that does not exist except in their own imagination.
But that seems good enough for them. After all, it takes time to
study and understand history. It takes time and effort they do not want to
spend and destroying things is so much easier than working to erase the
prejudices and laziness that permeates the Liberal mind today.
Our history IS our history, good or bad, and it is a lesson to
learn from if we take the opportunity to expand beyond the meager amount of
knowledge that has satisfied us thus far.
This time in our history saw blood flow and it saw the writ of
Habeas Corpus (the regulation that forbids use of federal soldiers on our land
against our countries own people) violated by the Union Army. According to one
historian over 300 newspapers that opposed Lincoln were shuttered. Sounds like
a violation of the First Amendment to me.
So, in fairness, the Civil War was not about Southern slavery at
all. States like Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York, used
slaves to build slave ships that sailed from New York Harbor, as well as
Hartford, Providence, and Boston harbors. There were slaves in New York City as
late as 1853.
Someone needs to inform the ignorant destructionists that seek
to destroy symbols of our history, that they are misguided and they need to go
back home and behave themselves.
Maybe there are a few coloring books to color and puppies to pet
to soothe their angst left over from the Hillary Clinton election loss that
they can make good use of. And getting a hold of a good used school book from a
decade when the truth was still taught in our schools, might help too.
