Let's Adopt Abraham Lincoln

[Pryderi]

Seriously. I believe Lincoln, if alive today, would argue that he isn't leaving the Republican party that the Republican party left him.

I think it would fun to watch the Republicans start foaming at the mouth and defend their racism at the same time.

[MsUnderstood]

1. I don't think lincoln is a good exampe of a non racist republican

On October 16, 1854 Lincoln's speech on the Kansas – Nebraska Act: “What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the greater mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded.” (translation those people can never be our equals).


On June 26, 1857 Lincoln respondig to the Dred Scott decision, “Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and, at the same time, favorable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be.” (translation send the africans back to africa)

When lincoln "freed the slaves" he only freed slaves in the states against the north in the civil war.

The civil war president was as good a racist as any white man in his time and if he were alive today would be happy to send the mexicans back to their country.

[Pryderi]

2. I never knew that about Abraham Lincoln.

[noonwitch]

4. First and foremost, he was a lawyer

He was able to defend both sides of an issue, no matter how hideous one side is by modern standards. Slavery was actually considered a debatable issue in his time.

His words in the Emancipation Proclamation, and in the Gettysburg Address, are the ones he is always remembered for.

[Pryderi]

5. True. I can't see the Republicans impugning Abe. They're always bragging

that they are the "Party of Lincoln".

[saltpoint]

12. Agree with you that they wouldn't do it, but I stil love your idea.

And the sooner the better.

[sandnsea]

11. Not quite that simple

Here's the speech, I didn't find those exact words in it. The speech, taken as a whole, make it clear Lincoln did not support slavery. Other parts of the speech, where he challenges the belief that negroes were the same as hogs, makes it clear that he was not a racist. It is just wrong to try to understand historic figures only through the eyes of modern culture and knowledge. It would be like calling Darwin a literal idiot because he didn't get every aspect of evolution correct. Whether science or social change, it comes in steps and Lincoln took huge steps in his day that he didn't have to take.

http://www.vlib.us/amdocs/texts/kansas.html

[erpowers]

16. Wrong

You are wrong about not judging "historic figures only through the eyes of modern culture and knowledge". It was wrong to hate blacks in his time and it is wrong to hate them now. You are way off base trying to compare Darwin and Lincoln. You do not seems to find any speeches or writings in which Darwin claims not to truly believe in evolution. People go around acting like Lincoln just loved the slaves and wanted an end to slavery. That is not the case. He did many things that show an opposite side of this view. On many occasions Lincoln wrote to people saying he did not want to end slavery. In addition, the Emanicaption Proclamation was issued near the very end of the Civil War and did not free one single slave. It just seems that people do not want to give up the Lincoln myth. Finally, I would also like to point out that Martin Van Buren, a Democrat, called for the complete end of slavery years before Lincoln came on the sceen. So if Lincoln truly wanted to end slavery he could have come out for the end of slavery.

[sandnsea]

33. Not wrong

That speech, in itself, makes it clear he did not support slavery and did not hate blacks. That is revisionism that many southerners use to justify their claim that the war wasn't about slavery. Do you know that? His priority was keeping the union together, that's true. Second priority was to keep slavery from spreading into other states, making it even harder to end. Not to mention, not even all of the north supported ending slavery for their own racist and economic reasons. Yes, you do have to look at what he was up against in THAT time.

Other remarks,

"The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves."
--From the August 15, 1855 Letter to George Robertson
"You know I dislike slavery; and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it."
--From the August 24, 1855 Letter to Joshua Speed

"The slave-breeders and slave-traders, are a small, odious and detested class, among you; and yet in politics, they dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely your masters, as you are the master of your own negroes."
--From the August 24, 1855 Letter to Joshua Speed

"I believe this Government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free."
--From the June 16, 1858 House Divided Speech

"This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave."
--From the April 6, 1859 Letter to Henry Pierce

"One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended."
--From the March 4, 1861 Inaugural Address

"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling."
--From the April 4, 1864 Letter to Albert Hodges

"One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war."
--From the March 4, 1865 Inaugural Address

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/quotes.htm

[erpowers]

34. Not You Don't

You do not have to look at what a person was up against. Many people in Lincoln's time came out completely against slavery. If Lincoln wanted to end slavery he could have done so the first day he was elected. Lincoln was a white supremacist and a segregionist. Maybe you should go back and read the whole of those speeches and then put the whole of those speeches so we can see all that Lincoln said. As I said before Lincoln, on many occasions, said he had no intention of ending slavery. On other occasions he said that he felt black were inferior to whites and that blacks should not be allowed to marry white people.

There were those who felt that whites and blacks should be allowed to mix. Even in Louisiana after slavery a number of white men openly (you could say openly in that they bought them gifts and that is how people know the black women were somehow dating white men) started dating white men. What stopped this practice was that so many white men were starting to buy black women gifts that some people got angry and put a stop to the practice. So Lincoln could have come out completely against slavery if he wanted to. He just did not want to. Even if he would have had a hard time coming out against slavery he should still be judged as a white supremacist and segregionist if he made comments promoting the idea that whites were superior to blacks and that blacks and whites should not mix.

[sandnsea]

35. That's ridiculous

I posted an entire speech, the whole thing was against slavery, argument after argument. He obliterated every argument in support of slavery and slave laws. I posted a bunch of quotes. None of it is good enough for you. The man was NOT a white supremacist or a segregationist. You complain that he didn't end slavery immediately, but ignore the fact that he didn't expand it to the rest of the country either, which is what the southerners wanted. When he took office, his goal was to keep the country together, not provoke the south into a war.

Read the speech. Six years before he was elected. He was very clear in his opposition to slavery and the equality of the races.

"When the white man governs himself, and also governs another man, that is more than self-government--that is despotism."

"What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without the other's consent."

http://www.vlib.us/amdocs/texts/kansas.html

[brentspeak]

7. "As good a racist as any white man in his time"??

How many racist white men in Lincoln's time were willing to lay down their lives in the course of granting emancipation for the slaves?

[MsUnderstood]

8. well he didn't give his life in exchange for the slaves

Well he didn't give his life in exchange for the slaves. He freed the slaves and an assasian killed Lincoln because of his actions. It wasn't like he said "Oh lord take me and let my people go".

And he did BELIEVE that the black people were inferior to white people. . .which was a pretty common belief in that time period. So when I say he was as good of a racist as any white man in his time I mean that he held a very common belief in his time period that a) Men were the superior gender and b) White men were the superior race.

Again he didn't EMANCIPATE all the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation, only the slaves of the rebelling states. And if you recall, once the slaves were "freed" it took another 100 years to gain equal rights. Most historical speculators say that Lincoln, had he lived, would have gone very very easy on the south.

[maine_raptor]

9. Better read your History again.

Allow me to quote Frederick Douglass, who said that Lincoln was "the first great man that I talked with in the United States freely, who in no single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself, of the difference of color."

Douglass also said that in conversations with Lincoln he felt that there was an "entire freedom from popular prejudice against the colored race."

Yes Lincoln would have "gone easy on the South" when compared to what many of the Radical Republicans of his day wanted. Read his Second inaugural Address. However as part of his "conditions" for re-union, he required that the newly re-joined states ratify the 13th Amendment which outlawed slavery.

Unfortunately, we'll never know how he would have reacted to the denial of the Freeman's rights. He was dead and buried by the time that issue came to the front.

[saltpoint]

17. I accept Mr. Douglass' interpretation of Lincoln's character.

I think the slams on the character of Abraham Lincoln in this thead are unwarranted horseshit.

In support of my vehement defense of a great man I offer this link:

http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=oid%3A11074

--and from it this excerpt:

_ _ _

As to the latest fashion in Lincoln revisionism, which seeks to portray him as a racist, on its face the charge is offensive to anyone who decries anachronistic moral judgments. To call Lincoln a racist is like branding Eleanor of Aquitaine elitist or criticizing Socrates for being un-Christian. Miller persuasively argues that the fight in which Lincoln was engaged was not the contemporary struggle over racial equality but the battle against the extension of the institution of human slavery. And while Lincoln did not argue for the social equality of black slaves, he made the most eloquent and powerful case ever advanced for their humanity.

_ _ _

Let us not Swiftboat great men.

Loved your post, Maine_Raptor. Bravo. Douglass is among my very favorite folks ever.

[WildEyedLiberal]

36. Yes, he would have - and it would have been better for the blacks

The Republicans in Congress usurped Andrew Johnson's authority and instituted a very harsh policy of Reconstruction for the South - a harsh policy which led to an immense backlash in the South, engendered pro-Confederate, anti-North sentiment, and directly contributed to the founding of groups to protect "white Southern heritage" such as the KKK.

Yes, Lincoln would have gone easier on the South had he lived, and Southern blacks would have fared better for it. It is simply never good policy to implement punitive, vindictive policies against a nation that has just lost a war, because it does nothing but cause seething resentment and hatred. See the Treaty of Versailles for a prime example. If only the Allied powers had "gone easier" on Germany in 1919, the conditions enabling Hitler's rise to power might never have materialized.

Your historical reasoning is specious at best.

[saltpoint]

21. Quite a few. Good point. Quite a few have their names engraved in

monuments in many America cities, including the Civil War Museum of 1865 near my home.

An overwhelming number of those soldiers were white. They fought in part as part of the president's wish that the union be preserved, and that no group of confederate states may join against the union for purposes of preserving the institution of slavery.

I like your post and you've put up a strong point.

[SaveElmer]

23. His views changed radically of course...

By the end of the war he was advocating partial black suffrage. If you want to get an african american perspective on Lincoln, look up Frederick Doublass's comments...quite stirring.

We should not however, adopt the right wing practice of trying to coopt our fouding fathers for a narrow political agenda. Lincoln belongs to everyone and should stay that way

[saltpoint]

29. Agree firmly on the Douglass reference. What a moving tribute to

a great personge, and in one angle at least, maybe more, a valuable gauge of their private dialogue.

As for Lincoln belonging to everyone, I wish he would belong to the current-day Republican party more! I hear folks like Jeff Sessions and John Cornyn and Tom Coburn and so on down the line of GOP red-meat luminaries, and I feel quite removed from the eloquence and duty-of-the-citizenry Lincoln represents.

You have set a very high goal for the modern-day GOP, and I support your claim that if he is to belong to all of us, it surely would be a fine thing if those of us who support his example would bring pressure to bear on their party to reflect his spirit and practical compassion.

A day or two ago, DUer BullGooseLoony posted the Gettsyburg Address on DU for our consideration.

I have to say, it is always a good thing to read it and regard it. A beautiful, resonant address.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

3. Here's what he said about Bush:

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

[maine_raptor]

6. Do these sound like the words of a Repuke?

"Labor is independent of and superior to Capital, for without Labor there would be no Capital"

As for Lincoln's views on Race, I suggest you read Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals.

In it she shows how Lincoln's views changed over the years. Pay attention to how he treated Frederick Douglass in contrast to how other Abolitionists did.

[saltpoint]

10. I think it's a very serious proposal, Pryderi. I think you're right on

Lincoln.

Let's DO adopt him.

We wouldn't have to kidnap him, either. I bet he'd be as sick of Bush as we are!

[Odin2005]

13. The Republican party was originally a center-left party.

They were a mix of people that would be called liberals and libertarians in modern US political terminology. the switch came with the rise of the populists as an element of the Democratic party, which led the robber barons to support the "libertarian" branch of the Republicans. The Republican party's liberal branch survived as the Progressives. When the Progressives and African-Americans jumped to the Dems the New Deal Coalition was the result. after '68 the Republicans sucessfully peelled off most of the conservatives that stayed with the Dems since the Civil War, and the rise of social issues lead socially conservative blue-collar workers to move to the independent camp, producing the current political situation.

[Odin2005]

14. *BUMP*

[erpowers]

15. Lincoln A Republican

Lincoln would love the Republican Party of today. I am somewhat sorry to burst your bubble, but Lincoln was not completely gung ho for freeing the slaves. In many of his letters to people he told them he had not intention to end slavery anywhere in the Union. In addition, Lincoln believed Blacks were inferior to whites. He also opposed the right of Blacks to sit on juries or marry outside of their race. It is possible that Lincoln was against Blacks being willing to vote. To those living in the time of Lincoln his plan for dealing with Blacks may have seemed like Bush plan to deal with illegal immigrants; those back in Lincoln's time may have seen it as worse then Bush's plan. Lincoln's plan would be completely in line with the Republicans of today. Lincoln's plan for dealing with Blacks of the time was to deport them back to Africa. I know that some people will hate what I just said, but I think there are many myths about Lincoln due to people not reading Lincoln's actual words. In addition, I do not agree with Mark Twain's idea of judging a man by the time he lived in. I believe the definition for racism and white supremacy remains the same from the 1700s, 1800s, 1900s, and 2000s.

[saltpoint]

19. Except as projection, we have no idea in hell what party someone who

was in office in the 1860s would like or not likee today.

We can discuss the trajectories of policies held by various administrations of either or both parties if we want, and draw some projected conclusions, but that's as close as we can draw, no closer.

John Kennedy's foreign policy is not much like Dennis Kucinich's, and yet they're both Democrats.

The same applies to the Republican Party as to ours.

The OP made a dramatic campaign strategy proposal that opened the discussion to what's limited and prohibitive and wrong in the GOP's false representation of the public good.

[saltpoint]

20. I do agree with Mark Twain's assessment of the social limitations of

a man's -- or woman's -- lifetime. Cultural constraints are genuine no matter what. Twain himself is accused of being a white lackey of the ruling class owing to his accurate depiction of the way men and women spoke in the time his characters lived. A slang noun like 'nigger', while expressly and vehemently forbidden in my household, was nevertheless commonplace in the river towns of Huckleberry Finn's early teenage life. The author must accurately depict the physical and the psychic landscape of his characters and their times, or absent that care, we get Jack Nicholson saying "Shoot" and "Doggone it." It rings hollow because it is hollow.

Your post makes it plain that you throw Lincoln in with white racists. That's a scurrilous claim. You're digging up a man's bones, denouncing them against a false standard, and kicking them down the street for sport.

The point of the OP has been entirely lost on you, in my opinion. The Republicans of today are not at all like the early Republicanism of Lincoln, as Odin has deftly pointed out in this thread. There are always tectonic shifts, some more sublte also. Disallowing for those shifts in the way people live and think, you come up with nothing as a result. You come up with Jack Nicholson saying "Shoot."

[erpowers]

24. Same As Others

You and the OP are doing exactly what you keep telling the people who do not agree with you not to do. You two are both projecting on what you believe are Lincoln's beliefs. It is not really fair to make comments of projection based on your beliefs of a person ideas and then tell people they cannot do the same. Myself and other in this post have pointed out that we believe that Lincoln was just like the Republicans of today. We have pointed out how he was not in the rush to end slavery that some who have posted in this thread believe he was. To be clear I said that Lincoln wrote in many of his letters that he had no intention of ending slavery anywhere in the Union. In addition, he promoted the idea of deporting all African slaves back to Africa. You and the OP, I guess more so the OP, have claimed that Lincoln would be a Democrat if he were here today based on the things he either did or you think he did.

I do not think Twain is or was a lackey for the white people of his time. I do however, think that some of Twain's political quotes lack long thought. I will not claim that I am a deeper/longer thinker than Twain, but it does seem that Twain looked at the easy way and never thought about whether there was an opposite to his thinking. The time of a person life does not change the meaning of most words. A white supremacist is a white supremacist and a racist is a racist. It does not matter what time a person lived in. Rape is not okay because a man lived in a time when people thought very little of women's rights. Men who raped women are not any better because they lived in a time when it was okay to do so. Just because it was okay for Lincoln to hold the views that he held during his time do not make his views any less dangerous, damaging, and/or demeaning. Whether people like it or not there is a rather large amount of evidence that Lincoln was a white supremacist and a segregationist.

I contend that Democrats should reexamine their Democratic heritage. I contend they will find their own heroes who are far greater than the supposed heroes of the Republican Party. As I said Martin Van Buren, a Democrat, came out in favor of completely ending slavery years before Lincoln. Instead of trying to recruit Lincoln, the Democratic Party should try to tell the story of Martin Van Buren. We already have a hero. We do not need to recruit one. I contend that over the last few years that has been the problem with the Democratic Party, we have tried to recruit the supposed heroes of the Republican Party, like John McCain, while overlooking the heroes we already have like John Kerry, Russ Feingold, Al Gore, Barbara Boxer, Howard Dean and many many others. Lets start promoting our own heroes.

[saltpoint]

26. My work in history has taken me to many good places.

You have missed the point of my post.

On Twain, from a frequently consulted teacher's guide in U.S. History and Literature:

= = =

By the time he wrote Huckleberry Finn, Samuel Clemens had come to believe not only that slavery was a horrendous wrong, but that white Americans owed black Americans some form of "reparations" for it. One graphic way to demonstrate this fact to your students is to share with them the letter Twain wrote to the Dean of the Yale Law School in 1885, in which he explained why he wanted to pay the expenses of Warner McGuinn, one of the first black law students at Yale. "We have ground the manhood out of them," Twain wrote Dean Wayland on Christmas Eve, 1885, "and the shame is ours, not theirs, & we should pay for it."

= = =

Twain did indeed sponsor the expenses for the education of Warner T. McGuinn.

[saltpoint]

18. On re-examination of your proposal, Pryderi, I like it even better the

2nd time.

We could even hire an actor to play Lincoln and show up at Dem rallies -- not just for the 08 election but for every 06 rally we could book him into.

And we would celebrate his greatness.

And that is a long list of virtues in Mr. Lincoln's case.

[Pryderi]

22. Thanks! It think democrats could argue that Lincoln was a progressive.

Do you think Republicans would throw up the arguments that Lincoln was a racist and is representative of the GOP? I think it would drive them crazy if Democrats made a public showing of mock adoption papers. :)

[Ignacio Upton]

25. Not only that, but we could give our old Confederate Dixiecrats to the GOP

And their sympathizers, including Stephen Douglas, John C. Calhoun, Stonewall Jackson, JEB Stuart, Jefferson Davis. Hell, we already gave them Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, Phil Gramm, and Trent Lott (I think he was a Democrat when he was younger.)

[saltpoint]

27. I've been in a dialogue with some people about Nixon's Southern

strategy.

It is a very manipulative, even disheartening thing.

Arguably (this group would agree here) the most under-handed and dark-hearted move against people of color in American history since the middle of the 19th century.

A lot of political science folks are up on this. Nixon was a paranoid monster as we now know, but the dark side -- the overtly, hostile racist Southern strategy -- is not as well known because it is so uncomfrotable to consider.

I was a McGovern volunteer, so frankly I didn't like Nixon to start with!

[bunkerbuster1]

28. I'll gladly adopt Honest Abe.

I love your idea. It's a cheap-ass publicity stunt--just the kind of thing we need more of!

(And no, I'm not being sarcastic in the least.)

[Pryderi]

30. Exactly! It'd be using Republican-type tactics against Republicans. We

Could argue, just as Reagan did, that Lincoln didn't leave the party, the party left him.

[bunkerbuster1]

31. ...and we're welcoming Abe with open arms

I love your idea.

[Pryderi]

32. Li'l Orphan Abie. Abandonded by his party. I would love to see GOP react