To Easy I'll just say that many people read modern historians. Fewer people read (more than sound bites) what people of the past actually said. A quick glance at your authors and titles told me they were all modern historians, largely looking to make a big deal out of Lincoln's attitude to race. I'm not going to engage in or with super-long posts arguing the point.
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To Rus,
Although I was specifically talking to Brother Gurney, I believe
I've already noted to you before that I really am not concerned with seeking out interaction or audience with you due to how most of what you tend to say on many historical issues is consistently non-factual, IMHO--and the same applies here. Whether short or long, it doesn't really matter whether you engage or not when simple history is ignored on several points---or addressed selectively as one sees fit.
Not going to engage in or with postings refusing to deal with the issues accurately...or minimize them.
Due to the fact that you give quick glances at a lot of things that disagree with you, it's not a surprise that much was missed out under a host of glaring assumptions. One of which being that anyone modern is disconnected from understanding what Lincoln said and another being that what was shared was not already DIRECT quotes from Lincoln's statements/teachings (if one actually chose to really study/read). The bottom line, for anyone remotely connected to African-American culture, is that the issue of slavery/ethnicty and equal access/freedoms that blacks were denied for centuries are BIG deals---and many slaves noted that when it came to the presidency of Lincoln. It was an issue that was central for them when it came to seeing how the agenda for whites was not the same as that of blacks.
For anyone not adamant on them (as Lincoln often was not), it is not something to be ignored. Lincolns speeches in-depth were very clear on the matter---and based on what you've shared here (as well as before when it comes to other issues of black relations
here,
here,
here,
here, and
here ), it's understood that there is a glaring lack of understanding about black culture/history. IMHO, it's not surprising you chose to avoid Fredrick Douglass who was key in the history of Lincoln's views evolving.
I have already read what the men actually said and wrote (in the context of their times and what they did..got the anthology for African-American literature in the house we had to study for class and
their full debates are available as well)---and great actions DO NOT EXCUSE great errors that Lincoln did. No more than it'd be the case that the Founding Fathers would be excused for their FreeMasonry/the ways it harmed the nation because of the great things they did.
Anyone studying Fredrick Douglass's speeches in-depth (or those of Lincoln) can see how things went down since he had extensive debates with Lincoln on the issues of their day, including encouraging blacks to fight in the CIVIL War for their freedom while also critiquing the president for choosing to use the issue of slavery as a means of hiding the need to make blacks FULL Equals with whites.
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I read Obama's statements and get a thoroughly modern politician with a modern and mediocre mind - better in some ways than his predecessor - more educated (in the vastly inferior modern manner) - which is both better and worse - but not rising above people in general today. I read Lincoln and get a TRULY educated man who was a great thinker who held up in an enormously more difficult time, when the political elite was not nearly as secure as they are today (ie, there was more genuine democracy and education and so politicians HAD to be better to remain incumbent), who rose head and shoulders above the rest in more ways than one.
It is your right to have such an opinion. Doesn't mean, of course, that the opinion is right or factual---as anyone seeing Lincoln knows he was a great thinker...but it is without any historical basis to say he was concerned with the plight of blacks as blacks were, Fredrick Douglass and other abolitionists included. And many even in the early 1900s noted the reality of how he was truly pragmatic in many things when there was no need to in light of the many political elites who were ready to do things he was not....and that also goes for blacks who had positions historically in making differences but often ignored (something many are not aware of when forgetting that
there were indeed those who were Black Founding Fathers ......
despite what was present in the history of the nation.)
It takes much to seek to give the impression that one is concerned for the plight of all when the reality is that the language of concern is given to gain more to a central cause while seeking to advance a larger goal--the entire dynamic of having a means to an end.
To be so great today a politician would have to take tremendous stands against the elite to do what's right.
Indeed...and for many that've sought to do so and yet are often ignored, I salute them.
A president desiring to rise to Lincoln's level must be prepared to stand alone, to declare that abortion is murder and gay marriage is insanity, that lobbying is a root of tyranny, show thorough knowledge of great thinkers of the past (I'd be impressed by a president familiar with Chesterton, but even the more widely known great moral men of the past would cut it - DH Lawrence and James Joyce would not), to take a stand and be ready to hold it, though all of Washington might want to see the back of him.
That WAS Lincoln (and Washington) and that is absolutely NOT any of our leaders today
Many presidents can do so and be at Lincolns level of simply being a pragmatist---just as others have before when saying one thing (such as claiming they're against abortion or same-sex marriage) but really wanting another larger agenda to take place in the name of morality. Has happened often throughout history. Some have even gone against the concept of lobbying when it came to minority groups seeking to adovcate on behalf of abandoned communities and refusing to "fall in line" (so tp speak) with the agendas from people at the top---something that black sharecroppers and others up to/throughout the Civil Rights era did often and with good reason. The same with women's rights (Susan B.Anthony, Sojourner Truth's "Aint' I a WOMAN?" speech, etc).
Over and over again through the past century and a half, Americans have reinvented Abraham Lincoln in order to reinvent ourselves. The most recent example, of course, is captured in the journey of our 44th president, Barack Obama, who launched his presidential campaign in Lincoln’s hometown, Springfield, Ill., cited Lincoln’s oratory repeatedly throughout his campaign, retraced his train route to Washington from Philadelphia and even used
Lincoln’s Bible for his swearing-in ceremony.
Of course, with Lincoln (who was often at odds with much of what he claimed), it is fitting that President Obama used him as a reflection. I'm reminded of a troubling essay that W.E.B. Du Bois (one of the most prominent leaders in black culture and who fought for the same rights DOuglass did) had published in
The Crisis magazine in May 1922. Du
Bois wrote that Lincoln was one huge jumble of contradictions: “he was
big enough to be inconsistent—cruel, merciful; peace-loving, a fighter; despising Negroes and letting them fight and vote; protecting slavery and freeing slaves. He was a man—a big, inconsistent, brave man.”
So many hurt/furious readers flooded Du Bois’ mailbox that he wrote a second essay in the next issue of the magazine, in which he defended his position this way: “I love him not because he was perfect but because he was not and yet triumphed. ….”
To prove his point, Du Bois included this quote from a
speech Lincoln delivered in 1858 in Charleston, Ill.:
“I will say, then, that 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—that 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 living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the 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.”
Lincoln was deeply conflicted about whether to liberate the slaves, how to liberate the slaves and what to do with them once they had been liberated. Whereas abolition was a central aspect of Lincoln’s moral compass, racial equality was not. In fact, Lincoln wrestled with three distinct but sometimes overlapping discourses related to race: slavery, equality and colonization. Lincoln despised slavery as an institution, an economic institution that discriminated against white men who couldn’t afford to own slaves and, thus, could not profit from the advantage in the marketplace that slaves provided. At the same time, however, he was deeply ambivalent about the status of black people vis-à-vis white people, having fundamental doubts about their innate intelligence and their capacity to fight nobly with guns against white men in the initial years of the Civil War.
Even as he was writing the Emancipation Proclamation during the summer of 1862, Lincoln was working feverishly to ship all those slaves he was about to free out of the United States. He was so taken with the concept of colonization that he invited five black men to the White House and offered them funding to found a black republic in Panama, for the slaves he was about to free. Earlier, he had advocated that the slaves be freed and shipped to Liberia or Haiti. And just one month before the Emancipation became the law of the land, in his
Annual Message to Congress on Dec. 1, 1862, Lincoln proposed a constitutional amendment that would “appropriate money, and otherwise provide, for colonizing free colored persons with their own consent, at any place or places without the United States.”
Lincoln said many great things, but also allowed for other negative things to get pushed through in the process. Other presidents don't need to do much to be like him. As to Chesterton, knowing of his works would not make one anymore spectacular than knowing of the life of C.S Lewis since being religiously educated doesn't make for good policies---and Chesterton noted such often. Lincoln was never concerned with making slaves EQUAL to whites...and he was a racist as well, even though he didn't want suffering of blacks to occur. That's essentially what other presidents have done since, from FDR to Lyndon B.Johnson and many others who were often considered to be pandering/saying what others wanted to hear at certain points but nto really having a heart for the people. That was Lincoln and he fits. Blessings