Posting from: Missoula, MT
Listening to: Death Cab for Cutie, Summer Skin
It’s my estimation that every man who ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sommbitch or another.
-Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly
Today is Presidents’ Day. Officially, the holiday is called Washington’s Birthday and is a day honoring George Washington, the first president of the United States. Unofficially, it is called Presidents’ Day and is expanded to honor Abraham Lincoln, another famous president whose birthday falls in February as well. It seems like a good day to put the spotlight on pieces of thse men’s histories that are not often highlighted in American culture or education.
Most of us know George Washington as the guy who led the Americans to victory in a revolution against the British. One of the big grievances? Unfair taxation. But how many of us know that just a few years into his presidency, that same George Washington led to put down the Whiskey Rebellion– an uprising among farmers who were subject to an excise tax by the federal government which effectively took ALL of their profits on their crop. Apparently it was okay with Washington to abuse people via taxation when he was on the receiving end of the theft, and not okay for people to rebel when he was in charge. Little bit of a double standard there, eh?
Now on to Lincoln. The heroic president who set the slaves free, right? Let’s hear from Mr. Lincoln himself for some more insight into what little regard he held the lives of certain humans (hat tip to Darren Wolfe)
I will say here while I am upon this subject, I have no disposition to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together on terms of respect, social and political equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there should be a superiority somewhere, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position…
I will say then, that I am not nor have ever 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 have I ever been in favor of making voters of the negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, or having them to marry with white people…there must be the position of superior and inferior, that I as much as any other man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man.
I will add to the few remarks that I have made, for I am not going to enter at large upon this subject, that I have never had the least apprehension that I or my friends would marry negroes if there was no law to keep them from it, but as my friend Douglas and his friends seem to be under great apprehension that maybe they might if there was no law to keep them from it. I give him the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last stand by the law in this State that forbids the marriage of white folks with negroes.
Simply put, Lincoln was blatantly racist. Slavery wasn’t so much an issue for him as was maintaining power and control over the union:
Abraham Lincoln’s Letter to Horace Greeley
As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
Perhaps that is why his administration’s war policy was to destroy as much of the South and as many of its people- white and black- as possible.
Happy 200th Birthday, Abe the Dictator!
Lincoln bears ultimate responsibility for how the North chose to fight the Civil War. The attitude of some of the Northern commanders paralleled those of Bosnian Serb commanders more than many contemporary Americans would like to admit.
In a September 17, 1863, letter to the War Department, Gen. William Sherman wrote: “The United States has the right, and … the … power, to penetrate to every part of the national domain. We will remove and destroy every obstacle — if need be, take every life, every acre of land, every particle of property, everything that to us seems proper.” President Lincoln liked Sherman’s letter so much that he declared that it should be published.
On June 21, 1864, before his bloody March to the Sea, Sherman wrote to the secretary of war: “There is a class of people [in the South] — men, women, and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order.” How would U.N. war crimes investigators react if Slobodan Milosevic had made this comment about ethnic Albanians?
On October 9, 1864, Sherman wrote to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant: “Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless to occupy it, but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people will cripple their military resources.” Sherman lived up to his boast — and left a swath of devastation and misery that helped plunge the South into decades of poverty.
General Grant used similar tactics in Virginia, ordering his troops “make all the valleys south of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad a desert as high up as possible.”
These are the men we are supposed to be honoring today? Kind of a perverse holiday, I’d say.
A lot of us are tired of this crap….
http://shrinkify.com/jml
Great post.
Thanks for pulling these links together. I’ve seen some of these quotes elsewhere, and have been meaning to go find them again for the benefit of a friend of mine.
It’s encouraging that a number of states are now mulling secession bills in their legislatures. What’s scary is that Obama name-checks Lincoln as his biggest hero. Will the Obama-lama-ding-dong go so far in emulating his big hero as to start another war if a state gummint actually puts its money where its mouth is and moves to secede?