Lincoln The Racist: What Your Teacher Never Told You Part I
May 7, 2010 
24 Comments
“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.”…Abraham Lincoln.
Source: Why the Civil War Came
Education is the cornerstone of any well rounded individual and in the aggregate sets the stage for understanding our past, learning from our mistakes, and being able to recognize patterns in contemporary events. When education is turned into a propaganda tool, we all lose – at least those who resist tyranny.
“To the victors go the spoils” is an idiom of great wisdom about cultural dominance and the evolution of political systems, but also the revisionism required to keep up appearances and buttress the prevailing ideology. Such is the history of our country. Statism exists today due to a long train of abuses from the early days of our Republic, through the Marshall court and subsequent Supreme Courts, the tyrannical rule of Abraham Lincoln, the New Deal of President Franklin Roosevelt, progressive politics, and the so-called “compassionate conservatism” of George W. Bush. Truth be told, the government grew – even under Ronald Reagan.
Today we are taught a history so chalked full of half-truths and outright obfuscations it is no wonder the federal government’s growth into a power behemoth continues unchallenged. Many of us are completely unaware that the Constitution as intended by our founders defines state’s rights in such a way as to trump federal powers. In other words, the final arbiter of the constitution is not the Supreme Court, but the states. Even secession is legal and the Civil War, inaptly named as it did not involve two factions attempting to take over the government of an entire country but rather was a War for Southern Independence where the South wanted to be its own country, did not settle the matter. More on that in future posts. So prevalent is the myth that secession is illegal that Justice Scalia, one of the more conservative voices on the Supreme Court today, repeats this myth. However, I do not advocate secession and will deal with the subject from a strictly legal perspective in a later article in this series.
What your teacher never told you will cover a lot of ground in the coming months. It is meant to expose real American history and combat the progressive revisionism required to keep the Statist agenda and ideological myth alive and well. The first topic will be Abraham Lincoln himself. Everything I state in this post is factual and I challenge anyone, historian or scholar, to refute it. Future posts on Abraham Lincoln will out the President as a tyrant admired by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf and expose the War for Southern Independence as a war not to free the slaves but rather as an economic and cultural war designed to destroy the Southern culture and consolidate power. The second case is partially made in this post, but a great deal more data exists that will be covered in future writings in this series. So let’s start with the fact that Abraham Lincoln – or Honest Abe as we have been taught to call him – was actually a white supremacist. If this shocks you, it should – I certainly was. However, facts are facts. What you are about to read will make you very uncomfortable and start you on a path to challenge everything you have been taught. I hope you will check the facts and convince yourself – don’t take my word for it. That is how the progressives operate, not me. I don’t want to control you, but empower you, so check out everything I write. Free your mind.
Every political system is maintained by a myth that justifies its existence. Without such a myth, submission to the power of the state by its subjects could not be accomplished. As long as one believes in the evolution of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a Marxist system is able to justify its repression without regards to the level of cruelty, suffering, and loss of human life. The metric used against any argument that justifies the existence of the state is the dominant myth that expresses the entrenched beliefs of the society to which it belongs. In short, the myth must be propagandized. Today in this country, this propaganda is carried out by primarily by liberal media and our system of education.
Vigilance is required to keep the imperial power from pacifying the population. The imperial power in this case is the Union as defined in the War for Southern Independence. In classrooms across this country, students are convinced in the righteousness of the Northern cause, that the South is better off because it lost the war, and a sense of shame is instilled in students in Southern schools that carry on into their adulthood, forever destroying any sense of cultural identity. Slavery is wrong – of that most of us will agree – but President Lincoln’s attitude towards slavery changes as it fits his needs. Deeds and words before the war vs. during the war differ greatly and were tied to strategies to win the war by redefining a war of conquest and control as a moral war against slavery. Therefore, his statements concerning black men and women are critical in understanding his true intentions. As will be demonstrated below, these views were blatantly racist – not bordering on it – but full-fledged and in your face. If children were taught real history, and in particular, were introduced to the real Lincoln, many would begin to seriously question why a memorial exists for an tyrant and racist in DC and why his face is carved on Mt. Rushmore. It would become apparent just how well the victors propagandized the myth.
Lest the reader think I am alleging a well coordinated conspiracy of grand proportions – an argument often used by detractors wishing to keep your attention focused on the myth and away from truth – I’ll cut them off at the knees right now. Once a society accepts a myth, it propagates itself. It is the propaganda weapon par excellence as it requires no defense. Challenge the myth and you are easily dismissed as racist, heartless, against the little guy, for big business, or insert your favorite liberal talking point here. I would now like to introduce to you President Abraham Lincoln, white supremacist and racist.
I’ll let Lincoln’s words and actions speak for themselves. One cannot do better than allow the communication and deeds of the subject under scrutiny to define and elucidate their true nature. It then is up to the establishment myth makers to attempt their Cirque du Soleil intellectual contortions that usually start with the context argument. The gauntlet I throw down to such rebuttals is simple – put it in context then. The result – they can’t and will often bury their argument deeper and deeper, becoming unwilling assistants to destroying the prevailing myth and buttressing the original point at the expense of any counterpoints. Truth wins, they lose – a rather simple formula. In Lincoln’s own words:
During a speech to Charleston, Illinois in 1858, Lincoln said:
I am not now, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social or political equality of the white and black races. I am not now nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarriages with white people. There is a physical difference between the white and the black races which will forever forbid the two races living together on social or political equality. There must be a position of superior and inferior, and I am in favor of assigning the superior position to the white man.
If you are sitting there with you mouth open, you are not alone. Let’s continue:
In a letter to James C. Conkling dated August 26, 1863 Lincoln wrote:
I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do, in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do any thing for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive—even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept.
Translation: Provide a carrot to the slaves that will motivate them to fight and die for you to meet your own ends. They are the means to your goal of dominance. Manipulate them, use them, do whatever is necessary, but get the slaves to fight for you. And this is just the tip of the tyrannical iceberg, so to speak. No wonder Hitler talks admirably about Lincoln in Mein Kampf.
Lincoln’s 1836 vote against black suffrage and his refusal to sign a petition to allow black testimony in courts are just two examples of a trend of behavior pointing strongly to racism. He was also a strong supporter of colonizing freed slaves, believing they could never assimilate into American society. And here is a doozy – President Lincoln actually favored an amendment to the constitution allowing the purchase and deportation of slaves and ordered the State Department to look into possible locations for settlement such as Haita, Ecuador, and the Amazon.
In August 14th, 1862 Lincoln addressed a black audience:
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 [blame the victim].
It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated. …I suppose one of the principal difficulties in the way of colonization is that the free colored man cannot see that his comfort would be advanced by it. You may believe you can live in Washington or elsewhere in the United States the remainder of your life, perhaps more so than in any foreign country, and hence you have come to the conclusion that you have nothing to do with the idea of going to a foreign country. This is (I speak in no unkind sense) an extremely selfish view of the case.
Also a little known fact is that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free all slaves, but only slaves not under Union control. By the end of the war, over 500,000 slaves had escaped to the North and 200,000 of them joined and fought with the Union. This single act alone helped the Union win the war and provided an extra added benefit. It helped turn the war from an act of aggression by the Union for control over the Southern states and its economy into a moral crusade and re-defined the war as a war about slavery. This, along with other reasons related to cotton trade with Britain and France, lead to those countries throwing their support behind the Union. By the end of the war, the Thirteenth Amendment freed all the slaves and became the carrot referenced above.
Today we have a memorial – to a racist and a white supremacist. His face sits on Mt. Rushmore as one of the great figures in American history. The mythology continues to be taught in our schools and many of us, myself until recently, believed that narrative. However, now that America is waking up, perhaps it is time to revisit our history, to ensure our children are taught the truth and that we ourselves are armed with knowledge. Once the myths are exposed, the entire edifice collapses.
Our march to freedom from the Statist ideology starts with an understanding of what the constitution really says in the absence of not just progressive revisionism, but that of so-called right leaning revisionists who sit in positions of federal power and continue to propagate the myth that national power trumps state power. We have been lead to believe in this falsehood, resulting in a growing federal government under both parties at the expense of our own self-power and right to self-governance. Once we begin to peel back the onion, only then will we see that putting our hopes for a future of liberty into the hands of federal judges, politicians, and a few lawyers is a recipe for disaster. Only when we realize the myth tells us that our type of leader will make a difference – that they won’t be corrupted by the Beltway culture when every piece of objective evidence screams to the contrary – only then will we realize that non-violent passive-aggressive civil disobedience, nullification, and other tools will be required to truly win this country back. The longer we wait, the more time we waste and the less chance we have. History has provided us with an opportunity and the window to snatch back liberty is short and closing. Time is our enemy, for we do forget, and like cattle being lead to the slaughter, we will fall in line because we know of no other way. The myth will become our reality. The Republic will fall.
When in doubt, check your premise against the myth. If it fits, you are probably doing something wrong. If you resort to making excuses or detracting from effective tactics then stop and think. Somebody else does not write our rules of engagement – we do – and if we write them in such a way as to cutoff a perfectly good strategy such as nullification or non-violent civil disobedience we have nobody but ourselves to blame when we lose.
Read part 2 of the series here. The amount of information on Lincoln’s racist attitudes is stunning and the follow-on piece discusses Lerone Bennett Jr.’s 20 year study of Lincoln. Lerone Bennett Jr. was editor of Ebony magazine for many years and is a well respected icon in the African American community. His expose of Lincoln is scathing and very effective. To liberals Mr. Bennett is beyond reproach, which puts them in a very uncomfortable and untenable position when attempting any defense of their revisionist history.
Sources and books of interests:
- The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War
- Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era
- Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe
- The Politically Incorrect Guide To American History
In other news and opinion:
Unemployment rises to 9.9%; Update: U-6 rises to 17.1%
Endless Power and the Death of Freedom
Beware: Confederate, Confederate, Confederate!!
Wow, I never knew. I have always admired Lincoln but this is quite an eye opener. I checked out some of the quotes you used and they are spot on. And there is no way to take them out of context, no matter how you read the text around the quotes you used, it is clear what Lincoln meant. This is just stunning.
I knew this about Lincoln for years and was just surprised about how airbrushed he is in our public schools. The devastation he created in the name of power and economic control are staggering and I know you will cover those as well. It is heartening to know that more and more people are taking up the cause of exposing the lies. Somehow we all knew something was wrong, but many including you are making these thoughts more concrete and helping other identify the causes of our concern and pointing the way out. Thanks for your effort.
Beverely,
You are quite welcome and thanks for the kudos. I'll try to live up to your expectations. Feel free to chime in whenever you want. It is regular citizens like you, me, and many others whose task it is to free us from this bondage. It won't be easy, but then nothing worth it is ever easy.
Face carved on Mt. Vernon???!!! I think you mean Mt. Rushmore!
Fantastic catch. I am writing a side piece about Washington and how he packed the first federal courts with nationalists and carried Vernon over into this story. Very stupid mistake and the price one pays for not having an editor or proof reader. If you want to volunteer…
Great post! Thanks for the information!
Sadly, Lincoln was just another politician. As you well know, ALL men are imperfect and subject to corruption, selfishness, venality, bigotry, etc. We have to work to rise above it. We all fail to some extent. No one can be trusted completely.
That's why the Founders concluded that power MUST be curtailed and dispersed – NOT consolidated. And, that's why the trend in the US from day one has been away from the ideals and toward consolidation and control. As soon as someone gets power, he will start to lose sight of the ideals. Even well-meaning people will be corrupted by power.
Those of us who are willing to admit these facts are the ones who oppose the trend and seek a return to the ideals of the Constitution. For most of us, it's easier because we are NOT in power. For those who have some power, such as Ron Paul, it must be more difficult to resist the allure of power and fight the Monster in Washington.
Exposing the myths of our culture that support the trend to centralized power (such as the myth of Lincoln) is a GREAT help to the movement!
There's a term called "the thinking of the times", where we must remember that we apply our morals of today to those of other times at our peril.
For example, FDR thought nothing of putting Japanese Americans into internment camps because that was the "thinking of the times". Stalin and Hitler did it, and now we look upon it with disgust, but few had a problem with it then.
Lincoln was a product of his times, and though we would like to attribute far-seeing intelligence to him and dream that he believed what we believe now, it just didn't happen. His main concern during the war was to keep the union together, and his Emancipation Proclamation was another tool to get the job done. He may have been personally against slavery, but he was not a crusader about to go against popular opinion, he was a pragmatist. There were many abolitionists in the day who were disgusted by slavery, but thought that the "races" should be separate. Especially the Irish.
I agree! Lincoln was no saint, he was a crafty politician. He was a human being. I agree that the truth should be passed along to our children. The day Lincoln was assassinated, he passed into Myth. He was unpopular with citizens in the North, and his re-election was not assured. But he was a product of his times, as we all are. His views of the "peculiar institution" of slavery evolved as time went on. In order to keep the border states on the side of the North, he had to limit the effects of the Emancipation Proclamation such that states like Kentucky, wavering, but still on the side of the North, stayed there. The slaves were freed at the end of the war. And we all know what a debacle Johnson made of Reconstruction, due to his prejudiced views. There was a White Supremacist. Re: Lincoln; check out Frederick Douglass's opinions of Lincoln at the start of his presidency vs. the end of the war. Douglass was understandably appalled with Abe's idea of exporting the slaves to an area where they could colonize. By the end of the war, Douglass was convinced the Lincoln was an advocate for the African-Americans. We all learn, grow, and change our opinions as we age, educate ourselves and gain wisdom over the years. At the start of the war, people still weren't sure if African-Americans were of the human species! John Brown was a little ahead of his time (and a little violent)…but I would assert that he was one of the very few white men who held the most radical views of his time about blacks. He knew they were as human as whites were, and was considered insane. He felt the pain of their captivity, and his final message, written on a scrap of paper moments before he was hanged, prophesied that the nation would pay the price for the treatment of our fellow human beings in blood. He was nuts, but he was right.
Read part 2 and 3 of the series. The war was fought over money – not slavery and not to hold the union together, unless the later is viewed as a way to stop the North from certain bankruptcy. If 600,000 lives and the death of state's rights along with the tyranny that came with it is worth saving the North from certain financial ruin then I want what your smoking. And Nico, truth is not slander, no matter how inconvenient. Part 2 describes how African American icon Lerone Bennett Jr., longtime editor of Ebony magazine did over 20 years of research into Lincoln. Part 3 exposes him even more as the tyrant and usurper of personal rights that he was. Nope, I stand by my articles and challenge you to refute the data.
I have greater respect for my high school history teacher because I was aware in general, if not detail, of most of the facts you present. However, his presentation of Lincoln as a historic figure was much more sympathetic and in line with the mainstream admiration of today.
The best way to truly understand history is through an empathetic lens of the time period in question.
Certainly the evidence is there that Lincoln believed whites superior to blacks. Young people today might find it bizarre to learn that in that time some whites thought themselves better than other whites (e.g. Anglo vs. Irish). Your own examples, however, clearly show his white supremacy to be more of the “sympathetic/separatist” variety than the “virulent” category you place him in. In my mind that type is more like someone who would tie a man to a car and drag him down a street solely due to the color of his skin. There is no evidence that Lincoln was this sort of man. Indeed, you fail to present the available evidence that Lincoln held sympathy for those in slavery. If you are to make your case for Lincoln’s virulent racism, then you need to honestly reconcile all available material.
For the most part, the typical abolitionist of the 19th century thought whites superior to blacks and woudn’t be in favor of inter-racial marriage. Indeed, a good many, if not most, were in favor of sending blacks to Africa (think Liberia). By today’s standards, this would be abhorrent. However, during their time, these abolitionists were among the most enlightened people around.
In today’s modern, politically correct environment, proclaiming to be in favor of equal rights, women’s rights, gay rights, etc. is not terribly heroic. Doing so in the time of Lincoln would make you a pariah, and few of us, if being totally honest with ourselves, would have the guts to do so publicly. It is best to keep these things in mind before making self-righteous condemnations.
continued…
It is true that Lincoln used the n-word, perhaps liberally. However, this word was a common part of the day’s vernacular, and did not hold nearly the same malicious connotation it does today. Samuel Clemmens (AKA Mark Twain) often used this word in his writings. Would you convict Huckleberry Finn of being a racist tome on this basis?
You are likely correct in asserting that slavery was a dying institution and may have been eliminated in the southern states within a generation or two. For those living at the time this was not readily apparent. Even if it were, one could debate the merits of bloodshed to save a couple generations from the bonds of slavery.
If one is willing to condemn Lincoln for an unnecessary war, could one not wonder if the American Revolution was worth a war as well? Canada, Australia, Singapore and others gained independence from the Brittish relatively peacefully. From this vantage point Lincoln is on the same level as Washington and Jefferson, whom you seem to have no objection to appearing on Mt. Rushmore. Pushing this scenario further, if we had remained in the Brittish Empire until 1833, their Emancipation Law would have freed the slaves along with compensation for the former holders, and more than three decades sooner.
Um – Revolutionary War = nullification of British rule. War for Southern Independence = use of might to subjugate one group of people under another. One is a war for freedom, the other a war for dominance. If you can't see the difference, I can't help you – your beyond hope.
Lincoln did suspend Habeas Corpus. Is this the fait accompli that he was a tyrant? Or was it a difficult decision in an extremely stressful situation. Did he do so to be cruel or because he reveled in the power to dominate others? One may ascribe his motivation as such, but the very visible evidence of stress (look at how his appearance changed over the course of the war, it’s quite striking) shows he was not enjoying himself.
Factually one can say that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves, but neither was it completely disconnected from it. To me this would be like someone asserting that the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn’t end the war with the Japanese, the signing of surrender documents on the battleship Missouri did. The Emancipation Proclamation was a calculated maneuver, one that by necessity needed to keep the border states on the union side by exempting them. When you are fighting a war, idealism sometimes takes a backseat (i.e. Russia in WWII, Pakistan in the war on terror). I personally have a difficult time seeing how anyone could read the words of the Emancipation Proclamation and not be moved by them. At least for most people, it still resonates today.
Although I believe you supplied this for other purposes, I am in agreement with your quote from Musharraf “Abraham Lincoln had one consuming passion during that time of crisis, and this was to preserve the Union…” Even though Lincoln’s motivation was not primarily to dissolve slavery (which he believed to be an immoral institution), it does not diminish the value of the fact that the war led to their emancipation. Think of it this way, we did not fight WWII to save the Jews and gypsies from the concentration camps, but it is not improper to honor our fallen GI’s for this accomplishment.
Along with you, I lament the dilution of state power. Never the less, I think the world is much better off with a coherent United States and not some European Union analog. If the Southern States had seceded, one can imagine that Texas and the Western States may also have formed separate nations. What would this have meant to world history? How would this have affected the World Wars or the Cold War? The world would probably look very different, and, I think, not necessarily for the better.
Destroying the Constitution does not make the world a better place. Being hypocritical does not either. If you agree that Lincoln can do what he did for reasons that are not to be found anywhere in the Constitution, then Obama can do the same and so can the next guy. Look where we are today. It is the false meme of federal supremacy that put us here and Lincoln played a large role in that. You talk of the past. Now think about the future.
"I have never said any thing to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence-the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas that he is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color-perhaps not in intellectual and moral endowments; but in the right to eat the bread without the leave of any body else which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every other man." [Loud cheers.]
http://www.nps.gov/liho/historyculture/debate6.ht…
Wow, where to begin to tear you apart. Let's see. How about here:
"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and their own, of so much territory as they inhabit." Guess who said that? Abraham Lincoln in 1848.
"For the contest of the part of the North is now undisguisedly for empire. The question of Slavery is thrown tothe winds. There is hardly any concession in its favor that the South could ask which the North would refuse, provided only that the seceding States would re-enter the Union….Away with the pretense on the North to dignify its cause with the name of freedom to the slave!"…quarterly Review (London), 1862
And don't forget that tacit admission by the North, through its action, that the war was never about secession. The North mandated that in order for Confederate States to re-enter the Union they had to ratify the 14th amendment. Forget for a moment that forcing a ratification under duress negates the ratification itself, this "request" would not have to be made if the North truly believed that by winning the war it had settled the question of secession. In short, by winning, the Southern states would ipso facto already continue to be a part of the Union.
So to "join the 21st century" as you say would require me to ignore history and take upon myself a false viewpoint. So for me to be like you I have to be ignorant and blind. No thanks. I'll leave you with this about your precious Gettysburg address:
"The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history…the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination – that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves."….H.L. Mencken on the Gettysburg Address
I think I'll stick with the truth. You just can't go wrong with it. Sherman can continue to live in fairyland.
A bit ironic that Sherman’s two sentence critique on ranting (inane or otherwise) is followed by… a multi- paragraph soliloquy that starts off with “Wow, where to begin to tear you apart.”
If your goal is rational discussion and public enlightenment (and I’m beginning to suspect it’s not), then this and other acrimonious comments are not particularly conducive to that end.