From: rath@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Subject: Re: Lincoln revisionism revised
Reply-To: rath@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 03:10:01 GMT

In article <CB.92Jul30135504@tamarack13.timbuk>, 
cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris Brewster) writes:
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>to this interpretation).  People should read the history of the prewar
>period--the country was wracked by the slavery issue and was looking for
>solutions.  The idea of sending blacks back to Africa was, at the time,
>motivated by a humanitarian impulse, and was meant to be helpful.  Don't
>confuse it with the way "send 'em back to Africa" sounds today.  Lincoln

African-Americans certainly eyed up the back-to-Africa idea about as warily
as they looked at George Wallace a century later.  This form of "help," in 
conjunction with segregationist laws which refused Af-Ams--free or slave--
their full civil rights as humans and citizens, would have made it easy for 
whites to eradicate the troublesome Af-Am population--the reason the 
program faltered then failed was because Af-Am s did not want to be
"helped" in this manner in any significant numbers.  Liberia was the 
destination chosen by the white "helpers" and some did go.  Africa is a big 
place--the main slave-exporting region covered a coastline equivalent to 
the distance from  Juneau, Alaska to Guatemala!.  Liberia was in 
the northernmost part of this region, where relatively few slaves came from.  
By the time the "back to Africa" movement began,, the slave trade had
been closed for about thirty years, so nearly all the slaves were born or 
had lived most of their lives in North America--How keen would you
be on a backto Europe movement that shipped you to Denmark if Your
ancestors werer all from Sicily?  That would be the *average* distance from 
ancestral homes which Af-Ams would have arrived at if shipped to Liberia.

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>And, by the way, he's not just "widely considered" the liberator of
>blacks, he *was* the liberator.  Certain commentators seem to believe he

Uh, most of the African Americans were liberating themselves.  
Lincoln had the problem of trying to figure out what to do with them.
The first Emancipation Proclamation set free only those slaves which were
in areas in revolt from the Union...By the time of the first Proc, many 
of the slave states--LA for example--had already been recaptured--the first 
Emancipation Proclamation did *not* free slaves in these regions.  
The slaves, however, continued to ignore this until a second
proclamation was issued "freeing" them yet again.

>should have done more for blacks than liberate them from slavery.  I've
>heard people say that he issued the Emanc. Proc. for political rather
>than moral reasons, or that he didn't originally intend to end slavery.
>Again, this was in the political context: at the outset, he wanted to
>hold the country together and was willing to merely *contain* slavery
>and deal with getting rid of it later; but he was always an
>abolitionist, which is clear from his writings.
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>I also object to the argument that the job wasn't completed (which, in
>any case, Lincoln was prevented from doing by being murdered).  I'd
>rather be the lowliest sharecropper, c. 1890, than a slave: no one is
>going to sell my children, no one is going to flog me, and I can start
>walking west to see if I can improve my lot.  (I may not succeed, but I
>won't be considered "contraband" if someone sees me walking along.)

re sharecropping vs slavery--coercion through legal bondage of slavery 
was transformed into coerced labor with no landownership or rights to land.
Enforced through Jim Crow laws from the 1880's, KKK, whitecapping, terror.
Debt peonage.  One could travel west only as far as his credit reputation 
went, and only if not picked up under vagrancy laws for not having a 
pass and put in a chain gang, which was as bad as the worst of slavery...
Families continued to be broken up, but by poverty and the search for work 
rather than outright sale...then there's lynching, race riots, segregated 
housing.....
sharecropping and freedom were probably an improvement for many, sort of 
like being repeatedly hit on the toes with a ball-peen hammer
would be an improvement over being continually beaten on the kneecaps with
a sledgehammer....

>Sorry for my irritated tone, but I think the carping about Lincoln is
>one of the lamest current attitudes.

I don't think I've carped on Lincoln, have I?
	Rich Rath

>
>Chris Brewster
>cb@cray.com