Article

2020-11-01 -PC Follies

Wisconsin students vote to remove ''racist'' Lincoln statue

[JONATHANTURLEY.ORG] We previously discussed the effort at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to have the famous statue of Abraham Lincoln removed as racist. The student government has now voted unanimously in favor of a resolution that calls for the removal of the Abraham Lincoln statue on campus. The students declared that the president who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, advocated for the 13th Amendment, and led the war against the South and slavery was "not pro-Black" and a "remnant of White Supremacy." That would likely have come as something of a surprise to John Wilkes Booth.

One issue that was raised by student is that Lincoln ordered the execution of 38 Dakota men and signed the Homestead Act, which gave settlers land forcibly taken from Native Americans.

As I previously discussed, Lincoln’s role in the Dakota executions is legitimately controversial but has been presented without some countervailing facts. The Sioux or Dakota uprising occurred not long after Minnesota became a state and involved the death of hundreds of settlers. The Army crushed the Sioux and captured hundreds. A military tribunal sentenced 303 to death for alleged crimes against civilians and other crimes. The trial itself was a farce with no real representation or reliable evidence. Lincoln reviewed the transcripts of the 303 and told the Senate:

"Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other, I ordered a careful examination of the records of the trials to be made, in view of first ordering the execution of such as had been proved guilty of violating females."

However,
a clean conscience makes a soft pillow...
only two men were found guilty of rape and Lincoln later expanded the criteria to include those who participated in "massacres" of civilians as opposed to battles with the Army.

Lincoln however commuted the sentence of 264 of the 303 convicted.

This is not the first time Lincoln has faced the ire of some in Wisconsin. When Lincoln called the nation to war against the South, many in Wisconsin did not support the cause and rioted against Lincoln. Ultimately, however, Wisconsin sent multiple regiments who fought valiantly in the War and sacrificed much to defeat both the South and slavery.

Having a statue to a leader like Lincoln is not an endorsement of his entire legacy. I have heavily criticized Lincoln for the unconstitutional suspension of habeas corpus and the loss of free speech rights as well as other decisions. We learn from such public memorials, which can be augmented with a more full historical context and criticism. However,
a clean conscience makes a soft pillow...
to say that Lincoln is a symbol of white supremacy

...the pernicious doctrine that laws were intended to be obeyed, that society works better when people don't pour shreiking from their places of worship every Friday for a weekend of rioting over insults real or imagined; and that cannibalism, beastiality, incest, murder, theft, rape, and similar activities are bad. A Dead White European (which invalidates his opinion) philosopher once opined that societies thrive when a person's word can be relied upon, and that a society which puts individual happiness first will invariably fail. Strangely enough, other successful societies, such as China, Japan, Korea, and those kinds of places could also be lumped with white supremacist societies, since they push the same values...
ignores his pivotal role in fighting slavery, a cause for which he would ultimately give his own life.

Posted by Fred 2020-11-01 00:00|| || Front Page|| [6 views ] Top

#1 I would take a flame thrower to that place

Posted by newc 2020-11-01 00:10|| 2020-11-01 00:10|| Front Page Top

#2 ^No need. Just force them to, you know, actually study.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-11-01 04:24|| 2020-11-01 04:24|| Front Page Top

#3 I'm not sure they get a lot of attention, and that probably rankles. So they say insane things.

True, I haven't looked at the student newspapers in some years (one was heavily left of center, the other straight-up marxist), but I doubt things have changed much.

Posted by James 2020-11-01 09:23|| https://idontknowbut.blogspot.com 2020-11-01 09:23|| Front Page Top

#4 FWIW, there was a bit of a movement against the federal government's Fugitive Slave Act in Wisconsin back in the day.

Posted by Clem 2020-11-01 11:18|| 2020-11-01 11:18|| Front Page Top

#5 The students declared that the president who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, advocated for the 13th Amendment,

Clearly, we need to junk those as well.

and led the war against the South and slavery was "not pro-Black"

Thanks for demonstrating the rewards to people who try to do something for black people.

Namely, to be shat on by future generations for failing to perfectly meet the ever shifting standards of the Great Now.

Perhaps White people who are importuned to help blacks might look at all of this and draw a lesson?

Nah.

Posted by charger 2020-11-01 11:34|| 2020-11-01 11:34|| Front Page Top

#6 Lincoln did not attack the South because of slavery or to "free the slaves". That is the nonsense that is forced down our throats in government schools, or at least a big part of it.

Posted by Clem 2020-11-01 11:40|| 2020-11-01 11:40|| Front Page Top

#7 Lincoln did not attack the South, it was the other way around.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-11-01 12:23|| 2020-11-01 12:23|| Front Page Top

#8 The "North" had it coming. And Lincoln was our first dictator who would have hung at Nürnberg.

Posted by Clem 2020-11-01 12:47|| 2020-11-01 12:47|| Front Page Top

#9 There goes Clem. The 13th Amendment says it all. Period. Wring your hands all you want.

Buried in the history books, is that the state of Kentucky declared its neutrality in the matter. That wasn't good enough for the Confederacy. Playing the victim is so late 20th and early 21st Century.

Posted by Procopius2k 2020-11-01 13:25|| 2020-11-01 13:25|| Front Page Top

#10 Wisconsin, Lincoln? Racists, of course.

Almost as bad as those evil racist Californians - two-thirds of whom are foreign-born or descended from Asians or Latin Americans or other third-world nations - who, the California governor now says, need to pay reparations for slavery.

Which never existed anywhere close to California.

Posted by Bob Smiter of the Visigoths7396 2020-11-01 15:51|| 2020-11-01 15:51|| Front Page Top

#11 Wisconsins students who voted to remove Lincoln should be expelled and the university should admit it's mistake in allowing them in.

Posted by rjschwarz 2020-11-01 17:03|| 2020-11-01 17:03|| Front Page Top

#12 Expel 'em AND keep their tuition dough.

Posted by Clem 2020-11-01 17:07|| 2020-11-01 17:07|| Front Page Top

#13 These students are in need of reeducation. 5 years on collective farms should allow them to graduate.

Posted by Thrairong Ebbusomp4597 2020-11-01 17:32|| 2020-11-01 17:32|| Front Page Top

#14 Civil War was not started over slavery. "My policy sought only to collect the Revenue (a 40 percent federal sales tax on imports to Southern States under the Morrill Tariff Act of 1861)." reads paragraph 5 of Lincoln's First Message to the U.S. Congress, penned July 4, 1861.
"I have no purpose, directly or in-directly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so," Lincoln said it his first inaugural on March 4 of the same year.

Posted by Deacon Blues 2020-11-01 17:34|| 2020-11-01 17:34|| Front Page Top

#15 Didn't the Confederate states withdrew from the Union because they felt Lincoln was going to end Slavery? If so I'm not sure it matters what Lincoln actually thought. The Confederate States wanted to protect states rights, specifically the right to own slaves.

Posted by rjschwarz 2020-11-01 17:55|| 2020-11-01 17:55|| Front Page Top

#16 rjschwarz no. The Republican platform included the 40% tariff which would have bankrupted many Southerners. They also didn't like that they were paying 80% of the money going to government coffers while receiving only a pittance in return. When someone told Lincoln that maybe they should let the South go he said, "Let the South go! My god, man, who would pay our tariffs?" The primary reason was money.

Posted by Deacon Blues 2020-11-01 18:12|| 2020-11-01 18:12|| Front Page Top

#17 Lincoln did not claim slavery was a reason even in his Emancipation Proclamations on Sept. 22, 1862, and Jan. 1, 1863. Moreover, Lincoln's proclamations exempted a million slaves under his control from being freed (including General U.S. Grant's slave) and offered the South three months to return to the Union (pay 40 percent sales tax) and keep their slaves. None did. Lincoln affirmed his only reason for issuing was: "as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said (tax) rebellion."

Posted by Deacon Blues 2020-11-01 18:15|| 2020-11-01 18:15|| Front Page Top

#18 Personal withholdings at times in the 20 century has been as high as almost 40 percent for high earners.

Posted by Ebbomoger Speaking for Boskone4589 2020-11-01 22:13|| 2020-11-01 22:13|| Front Page Top

#19 Abe "Habeas Corpus" Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the Confederacy, not in the "Union":

That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free....

Posted by Clem 2020-11-01 22:23|| 2020-11-01 22:23|| Front Page Top

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