Post by Jerry FriedmanPost by LewisI know that the recent¹ wave on neo-fascist conservatism has tried to
paint changing your mind as a weakness (because it is to their
absolutist views) but this was NOT Lincoln's position at the end of the
Civil War. It was not his position when he signed the Emancipation
Proclamation. It was not his position when he got the 13th Amendment
passed.
¹ 40 years or so.
In his last speech, three days before he was shot, he said he was willing to
accept a plan for a reconstructed Louisiana in order to get reconstruction
moving, despite an argument against the plan: "It is also unsatisfactory to
some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would
myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those
who serve our cause as soldiers." So yes, he was willing to let some black
men vote,
Quite the opposite, he was willing to not enfranchise them all in order
to get things moving in Louisiana. He was a politician and he was trying
to put the country back together.
But again, you are projecting NOW to then and assuming that as things
are now and as we understand things NOW is who things should always have
been in the past and that what we think now is how people should alwys
have thought.
Post by Jerry Friedman(According to the page where I found this, John Wilkes Booth was in the
audience, and said, "That is the last speech he will make.")
http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/last.htm
LIncoln was always in favor of sending African Americans out of the country.
He never stated that in public after the Emancipation Proclamation, but "Four
days before his death, speaking to Gen. Benjamin Butler, Lincoln still pressed
on with deportation as the only peaceable solution to America’s race problem.
'I can hardly believe that the South and North can live in peace, unless we can
get rid of the negroes … I believe that it would be better to export them all to
some fertile country…'"
And looking at the last 160 years it is pretty much impossible to argue
that he was wrong, as the US is still astoundingly racist and no one
could say, with a straight face, that the South and North have really
lived in peace since the end of the Civil War.
Post by Jerry Friedmanhttps://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2010/12/01/lincoln-to-slaves-go-somewhere-else/
Most African Americans were not in favor of that solution.
Most _____ (fill in with anything at all) where not in favor of the
13th, 14th, or 15th Amendments either, and only blacks were in favor of
the 13th, though most didn't even know about it.
Now go read Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.
"Fondly do we hope -- fervently do we pray -- that this mighty scourge
of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until
all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of
unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with
the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the
Lord, are true and righteous altogether.
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the
right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the
work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who
shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do
all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among
ourselves, and with all nations."
And, just for a second, try to imagine what someone 150+ years in the
future might think about some of your positions now. Chances are very
good (I'd say 100%) that something you consider perfectly usual and
normal right now will be viewed with horror by people in the mid 23rd
century, to say nothing of something that right now you see as a problem
with no good solutions.
--
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.