Information ‘Whitewashed’

Lincoln information ‘whitewashed’

David R. Bratten • March 9, 2009

After reading the President Abraham Lincoln article by Michael Beschloss in the Feb. 1, USA Weekend, I needed to write this letter. A lot of historic detail about Lincoln remains whitewashed in order to preserve his legacy. What follows is only a portion.

Three paragraphs into Lincoln’s first inaugural address, he states that he will not interfere with those existing states with slavery, quoting the 1860 GOP platform as reinforcement. Toward the end he mentions a proposed amendment that if passed would secure states’ rights to continue slavery, and if made law, that he has "no objection to its being made express and irrevocable."

Following this he speaks to the Southern states. It is up to them to quell the issue of civil war, but he leaves himself a back door, opened with the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Lincoln was supposed to have said, "The South has done me a great service."

Now compare this speech to his second inaugural speech. What a difference. Concerning the reason for the secessions, start looking at the tariff situation in the South. The vast majority of federal revenue came from tariffs. The secession would have removed a huge amount of this revenue. Please note that at various times prior to the Civil War a number of states threatened secession, and some of our forefathers wrote of the acceptance of this principle.

Lincoln wrote a letter dated March 14, 1862, to Illinois Sen. James McDougall, detailing a plan to buy the slaves to end the war. The first example given was to buy the slaves in Delaware. This amount was equal to what it cost the North to run the war for only nine hours. To buy off the slaves in Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Washington, D.C., was 87 days worth of war expense. If the English empire could do it in six years and be done by 1840, why couldn’t we? The Emancipation Proclamation freed not one slave outside of Confederate held territory. Ulysses Grant didn’t free his own slaves until the 13th Amendment was passed, saying, "Good help is hard to find." Almost 200,000 Union troops deserted following the proclamation and race riots broke out in New York City.

Lincoln dumped his first fiancé because her family lacked political connections. The suspension of habeas corpus lead to thousands of people in the North imprisoned without due process, including a congressman from Ohio. More than 300 Northern newspapers and publications were shut down or burnt down for not agreeing with Lincoln. The Maryland Legislature was replaced and arrests made, including the mayor of Baltimore, to prevent secession in September 1861. Lincoln issued an arrest warrant for Chief Justice Roger Taney because of his habeas corpus ruling against the president. The rape, burning and pillaging known as "Sherman’s March to the Sea," were well known to Lincoln. Thousands of whites and slaves perished and more were starved.

Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville spent three years travelling our nation and wrote a great book about his travels, "Democracy in America." He spoke to all walks of life all over our young country. He found racism more of a problem in the North than the South.

You’ve heard of Jim Crow laws in the South. How about the Black Codes in the North? Same racism, different neighborhood. Only two sovereign countries in the Western Hemisphere had slavery as of 1860. Brazil phased theirs out by 1878. Certainly, slavery’s end was way overdue. I just don’t understand how Lincoln got that "Honest Abe" moniker.

Information ‘Whitewashed’

Information ‘Whitewashed’

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