PeterS wrote:
Ok, so could Lincoln be thought of as a progressive or a conservative? What did his actions suggest? Did he believe in state's rights as conservatives to this day believe in? Did he believe in the right to personal property even if that property was a fellow human being? What did his forcing through the 13th amendment suggest? Was that a progressive action or a conservative action of trying to maintain the status quo?
I have no problem accepting the actions of those who could be thought to be the liberal progressives of the day but I'm not going to accept the actions of the regressive Conservatives who were the principal slaveholders and were later responsible for the KKK and the spread of Jim Crow laws--laws that unfortunately weren't stamped out until the 60's by liberal progressives, not you regressive conservatives who worked to deny blacks their rights not grant them to them!
Ok, so could Lincoln be thought of as a progressiv... (
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If you want to claim him...be my guest! This man started a war that killed more Americans than all other combined wars! He allowed the slaughter of women and children, condoned the rape of men, women, and children. Jailed men and boys in deplorable conditions affording them less rations than Hitler gave to Jews that he deliberately starved to death, provided no medical care or even provisions to make fires for warmth. He allowed the land to be made desolate, scorched, stole personal property to include all foods, virtually starving both black and white Americans, and had people hung people without trial or due process of the law as contained as a "right" in the Constitution.
In Lincoln's own words, 18 September 1858
"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; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be a position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” Should you read his documents, one thing stands out; his only strength was his ability to change as it related to his public stance on slavery. It was a tool used to ensure his reelection and to justify his assault and murder of Americans, for robbery, for extorsion, and the burning of a third of American homes and businesses.
In a speech in Peoria, he was not concerned with "rights of slaves" nor was he concerned about the morals of slave ownership, rather
the existence of slavery within the United States made American democracy appear hypocritical in the eyes of the world. That was his stand that never changed. Later on, he put out a "solution" as to what should happened to blacks if freed, deport them. As Edward M. Thomas recounts a meeting with Lincoln along with; John F. Cook Jr., a local school leader who had studied at Oberlin College, John T. Costin, who, like Thomas and Cook, was a Freemason, Cornelius Clark, a member of the influential Social, Civil, and Statistical Association in Washington (Cook and Thomas also were members), and Benjamin M. McCoy, a teacher and leader in the Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington. These delegates met the afternoon of Thursday, Aug. 14, 1862 at the Union Bethel AME Church in Washington. .
Lincoln is quoted "You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated.”
He goes on to blame them for the attacks on the south and the war: "See our present condition—the country engaged in war!—our white men cutting one another’s throats, none knowing how far it will extend; and then consider what we know to be the truth. But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other. Nevertheless, I repeat, without the institution of Slavery and the colored race as a basis, the war could not have an existence.”
Going on in his sale's pitch for freed blacks (only those owned in the south) he proposed that they all leave the "civilized" world. He even played the Washington card to encourage them to segregate themselves from white civilized men, "In the American Revolutionary war, sacrifices were made by men engaged in it; but they were cheered by the future. Gen. Washington himself endured greater physical hardships than if he had remained a British subject. Yet he was a happy man, because he was engaged in benefiting his race.”
As crazy as it sounds, Central America fit the bill for Lincoln, because, as he explained, “[i]t is nearer to us than Liberia—not much more than one-fourth as far as Liberia, and within seven days' run by steamers. Unlike Liberia it is on a great line of travel—it is a highway. The country is a very excellent one for any people, and with great natural resources and advantages, and especially because of the similarity of climate with your native land—thus being suited to your physical condition.” He even had a career picked out for them, coal mining.
If you read his Emancipation Proclamation, it was a weapon used against the South. "That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom." In other words, only slaves owned by any person who rebelled against his dictatorship were freed. Further, the 13th Amendment was proposed, authored, and pushed through the House and Senate by a real Republican, James Mitchell Ashley.
With him (Lincoln) as the "Father who freed slaves" as a model, who can really question how the Jim Crow Laws were enacted or the birth of the KKK?
You want him.....do claim him as he did not represent the values of southerners or even Christian values. Yes, he was more closely aligned to how modern day Democrats view blacks, as a tool used in political campaigns.