political 27 Jun 2005 11:40 pm
History stuff
- nathan
http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/local/11992619.htm
IL Senator Barack Obama says that he has trouble with the idea of Lincoln being the great emancipator. This is interesting - I was taught in High School to be cautious of idolizing Lincoln. In the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln only freed the slaves in the states that rebelled. This is critical, because there were actually three states that did not secede that owned slaves: Maryland, and I think the other two were WV and PA. (it was 11 years ago, ok!)
Anyway, if Lincoln really believed in freeing all the slaves, he would have freed the ones in the states that were part of the union. This would have been disastrous, though, possibly causing those states to secede as well. So Lincoln just freed the slaves in the states that he had no power over, at the time. Obama is correct when he says that Lincoln was really just using the Emancipation Proclamation as a call to arms to beef up the army.
on 28 Jun 2005 at 9:01 am 1.chloraphil
said …
Perhaps Lincoln would have loved to proclaim all the slaves free, but since doing so would have been, as you rightly said, disastrous, he took the ‘baby step’ of freeing slaves where he did not *yet* have the power to do so. A step in the right direction is better than none, yes?
Of course, who’s to say whether his reasoning was based on the goodness of his heart (with a convenient side-effect of a ‘call to arms’) or military/political practicality (with a side effect of looking like he was doing the ‘right thing’). I would suppose a good mixture of both - he was a politician, after all.
on 28 Jun 2005 at 11:06 am 2.klaviman
said …
Raegan just reminded me last night that Lincoln was a politician, and that it’s undeniable that he danced around some things back then, like any politician would.
One could say that rather than taking a baby step, Lincoln was making a symbolic gesture that did not accomplish anything of value, grandstanding while patronizing the abolitionists. One could also say that the moon is made of banana mush, and that doesn’t mean they’d be right.
on 28 Jun 2005 at 11:09 am 3.chloraphil
said …
Do you do *any* work? Or is this merely the productivity gain of having dual monitors?
on 28 Jun 2005 at 11:24 am 4.klaviman
said …
I’ve probably done more work this morning than you do in a week. But I can see where it’s hard for you to add it all up, seeing as you have problems with basic math skills anyway… >:)
on 28 Jun 2005 at 11:57 am 5.chloraphil
said …
true, and true. so sad.
on 28 Jun 2005 at 12:04 pm 6.klaviman
said …
Don’t worry, at least one of those will change when you come here. We got lots of work to be done.
on 28 Jun 2005 at 12:10 pm 7.chloraphil
said …
looking forward to it.