Racism in America: Lincoln

The election of Barack Obama in 2008 brought with it the utopic notion that racism in the United States of America was over. I certainly do not the doubt the momentous appointment of an African American man to the office of President of a country that was built on racial genocide and slavery. A country that less than a century ago, during the life time of my grandparents, did not allow a white child to attend the same school as a black child simply on the basis of race. The elevation of a black man to the highest office in American politics is symbolically another step on the road to tackling the evils of racism.

This blog isn’t meant as an analysis of Obama. He is essentially part of an establishment that favours financial institutions, oil companies and private health insurers above the lives of the less wealthy, and panders to the apparently widespread American belief that the very wealthy deserve massive tax cuts at the behest of the most vulnerable. He is no different in that respect regardless of his skin colour.

I wanted instead to focus on the beliefs of America’s 16th President, Abraham Lincoln, and his complex and often contradictory approach to slavery. Like Jefferson before him, it is almost impossible to figure out where Lincoln stood on the issue, and conflicting books are widespread. Lincoln’s party politics and his true beliefs seem to be confused much of the time, and yet history tends to stick entirely to his party politics regardless of the motives. I wanted to explore those motives more in depth.

Yesterday I went along to see an hour long lecture by Professor Richard Carwardin, the President of Corpus Christi College Oxford and winner of the Lincoln Prize for his book “Lincoln: A life of purpose and power“, a favourite of George W.Bush. Obviously there is a very limited and narrow version of Lincoln’s life one can present in just an hour, but Carwardin alluded to Lincoln as a great emancipator, as if he had been way a head of his time and the progressive champion for the freedom of black slaves, willing to fight a war for its eradication.
I would argue differently.

Lincoln wasn’t happy with the fact that slavery had become an issue by the time he took office. Lincoln told the esteemed journalist Henry Villard;

“I will be damned if I don’t feel almost sorry for being elected when the niggers is the first thing I have to attend to.”

Lincoln was not prepared to go to war for the abolition of slavery in itself. He had agreed to back an amendment to the Constitution, penned by the Representative from Ohio, Thomas Corwin, that would have made it Unconstitutional for Congress to amend rules or abolish slavery. Lincoln backed it.
The Corwin amendment read:

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State

In his inaugural address, Lincoln referenced the proposed amendment, stating:

“Holding such a provision to now be implied Constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”

Interestingly, the amendment passed Congress by the two-thirds majority needed, but was never fully ratified in the State legislatures, and is still up for ratification, as it was never thrown out. If it had been fully ratified, one must wonder just how different the U.S would look today. The fact remains though that up until the outbreak of Civil War, Abraham Lincoln supported a Constitutional Amendment rendering it impossible to abolish the institution of slavery.

The worry from the Republican Party of the Lincoln years, was not so much the moral implications of ethical dilemma of the owning of slave labour, but the economic problems it creates. They worried that slave labour merely worked to undermine wages of the poor white working classes, and just created a new dominant class known as “Slave Power”. They worried that the Slave owning classes in the South were just violent and expansionist people with a goal of Empire. This paranoia wasn’t without merit, but it was borne out of the relatively new Nation’s deep suspicion of Empire and too much power. Lincoln charged that the Southern Democrats and slave owning classes were out to take over Cuba and the war on Mexico seemed to confirm those suspicions. The Civil War Confederate cry of “States rights!!” was simply the right for the very wealthy land owners in the South to keep and abuse people with darker skin, and the right to centralise power within very few hands. Only the free States were fighting for States rights.

Lincoln’s famous signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. It is doubtful whether the proclamation actually freed any slaves whatsoever. Depending on your source, it was either the greatest achievement of the short Presidency of Lincoln, or it was useless. No one really knows. One thing is for sure, Lincoln signed the proclamation as a further attack on the South (rightfully so). In September 1862, he demanded they return to the Union or he would free their slaves. Not “and i’ll free your slave“. It’s an ultimatum. If you rejoin the USA, you get to keep your slaves… if you don’t, we’re freeing them. He is more concerned here with preserving the Union – an abstract concept – than ending slavery. The Proclamation not only didn’t free slaves in the Confederacy, it didn’t free slaves in the slave holding States in the Union – Kentucky and Maryland.

The Proclamation looked good for Lincoln, as it put real pressure on the Confederacy. France and Britain were very anti-slavery, and he needed support and recognition of the legitimacy of the USA in a war that at the time, no one knew which way it might go. With the support of France and Britain, and so legitimacy, it helped Lincolns case. It was similar in a way, to how old European powers gained legitimacy. When Henry Tudor took the Kingship away from Richard III, he was a nobody on the European stage and England was at civil war, much like America. Tudor needed an air of legitimacy, so he married Elizabeth of York; she happened to be the niece of Richard, and daughter of King Edward IV. This was the legitimacy Henry required, and won. He rather secured himself, by marrying his son – Arthur – off to the daughter – Catherine of Aragon – of the most powerful family in Europe; the King and Queen of Spain. The marriages and alliances were all about protecting himself, and securing his throne, not about love nor about the wellbeing of his Kingdom. Lincoln signed the Emancipation declaration, to protect his Throne by winning the support of the English and the French. Up until the Proclamation was signed, it seemed Britain was on the side of the Confederacy, having been involved in the provision of the British made warships the CSS Alabama and the CSS Florida.

Lincoln knew the Proclamation, which freed black slaves in Confederate States that fell to the Union forces, would compel black slaves and freed slaves to help the Union armies. He stressed in a letter to his friend James C. Conkling:

“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.”

The freedom of the slaves with the passing of the 13th Amendment was a tiny ripple in the water. Saying to a group of people who have had no access to education, to family ties, to survival, to anything other than a system that treated them as less than human for so long, that they are now “free”, is worthless. It is not freedom. It would take another 100 years before the real reforms were introduced. Lincoln was not a head of his time. The abolitionists were calling for equality, not just the ending of slavery. Economically, black Americans would be held down for more than a century in place of White privilege. Lincoln may have given them freedom, but he certainly did not give them anything anywhere near equality, and he knew it.

Even the banning of slavery expanding into new territories was a rather obscure policy that was not designed for the sake of the wellbeing of black Americans, rather it was an attempt to keep black people from being shipped to America full stop. It was a white supremacist policy that today would be deplored as vicious and racist. Lincoln, when talking about the banning of slavery expanding to new territories stated that he did not want the United States:

…….to become an asylum for slavery and niggers

The expansion into the West was an opportunity to spread the white race for Lincoln, who had no desire to see black people live there, stating in 1858 in Illinois, that:

in favor of our new territories being in such a condition that white men may find a home … as an outlet for free white people everywhere, the world over.

Lincoln was therefore using race as an unnecessary social divide. Race had only really became an issue, during the late 1700s and early 1800s. Up until then, nobody really cared what race you were. White slaves existed in the Colonies way before black slaves. The worry was that they would join hands and rise up, so race was used to divide them. Tell a poor white slave that he is more important in God’s eyes than a poor black slave, and suddenly there is no chance they will rise up together and overthrow the economic powers that hold them both down.

In 1853, Lincoln backed the Illinois State law that banned freed black people from moving to Illinois. They weren’t so free afterall. Lincoln it seems, was obsessed with the division of black and white, and even Mexicans, whom he referred to, out of the blue, for no reason, as:

“most decidedly a race of mongrels. I understand that there is not more than one person there out of eight who is pure white.”

He was a power obsessed, white supremacist.

The great emancipators in the Congress and the abolitionist leaders who pressured and pressured for Lincoln to keep to his line on abolition. Thaddeus Stevens, in the House of Representatives, and Chairman of the Ways and Means committee was a committed Abolitionist. This man was ahead of his time. He helped runaway slaves escape to Canada. He protected the rights of Jewish and Chinese Americans and he defended the rights of Native Americans. Stevens was a hero of the Civil War era and should be remembered as such, far above Lincoln. But one man stood out as great, even beyond that of Thaddeus Stevens, and that man was Charles Sumner, the Senator from Massachusetts.

Charles Sumner absolutely hated the institution of slavery. As did his father before him. He argued that freeing the slaves would achieve nothing, unless it was accompanied by a raft of legislation promoting equal rights both politically and economically. This was 100 years before equal rights began to take shape. He is responsible for one of my favourite quotes from history, that I tend to live by when shaping my political thoughts:

“The Utopias of one age have been the realities of the next.”

Sumner argued in a court case, that segregation was an abomination. The year was 1848. The case was Roberts VS Boston. It lead to the ban on segregation on the basis of race in all public schools in Massachusetts. It was over 100 years before the rest of the country would catch up.

Sumner’s extraordinary career taught me that it is okay to think radically, even if the rest of your contemporaries think that you are an idealist living in a dream land. The contemporary Senators did not like Sumner for his radical ideas on racial integration and equality, one Senator suggested that Sumner was unimportant and should be ignored:

“The ravings of a maniac may sometimes be dangerous, but the barking of a puppy never did any harm.”

It is a myth that Lincoln was a great emancipator and forward thinker and it is a great injustice that men like Charles Sumner go unrecognised and ignored by history.
Sumner’s face should be on Mount Rushmore. Not Lincoln’s.

Anyway, as Sumner argued, The Proclamation was meaningless, the 13th Amendment was the result of much pressure put on the administration. Lincoln himself once remarked quite tellingly:

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”

He stresses exactly why he felt compelled to free the slaves. It was not on grounds of compassion or freedom or respect for the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal, far from it, he did it for the sake of his own power:

“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. 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. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”

Abraham Lincoln was not a great emancipator. Nor was he one of the great forward thinking abolitionists of the time. He was a racist and a white supremacist who put his own position and power above that of the rights of a group of people who had different coloured skin. It is quite extraordinary that history teaches us that President Lincoln was one of the great Presidents who ended the horrific institution of slavery. The reality is far more ambiguous. It is much like the celebrating of Columbus day as a great day in American history, when in fact it simply marked the beginnings of a mass genocide. History should be taught with equal weight to both interpretations, if the subject is as ambiguous as that of President Lincoln and the question of slavery.

The assassination of the Left

“As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?” – Alexis De Tocqueville

I over heard two little old ladies discussing Obama, on the Bus a few days back. One said to the other ..”..he’ll be assassinated before long, all the good ones are…” . This statement got me thinking.

According to The Telegraph, last year; “Security surrounding Barack Obama has been stepped up amid fears he could be an assassination target“. So the threat is there.

As I watched the Inauguration, the preposterous thought lingering at the back of my mind as the motorcade (As i’m sure it did with many people watching that day) made it’s way down Pennsylvania Avenue, was “If he gets out of that car, he could be killed“. He got out. He lived. I was clearly being a little over paranoid.

However, if you’d have asked people on November 22nd 1963, if they thought the President could be so easily killed, they’d have laughed at you too. They’d have claimed it ridiculous to even consider. And even afterwards, the blaming of such a colossal historical event such as the Kennedy Assassination is widely blamed on one crazed man, despite an incredible amount of evidence pointing to the contrary.

Strong Left Wing characters on the World stage with deep influence do not last very long. John Kennedy was one of many which to date includes Robert Kennedy, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Ghandi, John Lennon, Fidel Castro (who despite being alive, has been the subject of many plots), Che Guevara, and half the establish Left wing of Chile. It’s something even the late comedian Bill Hicks picked up on. Especially when it comes to Kennedy, there could not be more evidence to suggest a connection to people like E.Howard Hunt (who even admitted his involvement in the assassination) Who was also involved in the removal of the Left wing government of Guatamala, Che’s death and in Watergate. It seems that when the Left wing becomes pretty powerful, the Left Wing pays the price. Do I believe it’s one big right winged conspiracy? No. Not at all. I believe that when the power of the rich becomes threatened, they act to protect themselves. Who do I believe the Kennedy assassination can be largely attributed to? Lyndon Johnson. It’s all about power, it’s all about money.
Unfortunately for the Kennedy conspirators… they didn’t count on a film of the event taking place that day. Nor did they count on Hunt being identified pretty conclusively by a Photographer that day. They should also be slamming their heads into the wall over the ridiculous notion that a gangster like Jack Ruby shot Oswald purely because he “felt for Jackie and the kids“.
Having read the Warren Commission’s report all the way through a couple of times, and having likewise read the Hutton Enquiry’s report into the death of Dr David Kelly over here in England, it’s not very long before you come to the conclusion that a Commission’s Report will never tell the entire truth.

A man named David Sanchez Morales, who is somewhat of a legend in CIA circles, who colleagues have claimed “if you see him walking down the street in a foreign country, then you know a coup is about to take place”… is quoted as saying to a friend and reporter in 1973; “I was in Dallas when we got the son of a bitch and I was in Los Angeles when we got the little bastard.” The evidence is overwhelming in that if they want to, the powers that be can eliminate the President of the United States and his brother, and get away with it.

So based on the logic, is it possible that President Obama could be assassinated? Yes… based on the fact that he’s clearly left wing and i’m not sure if America is ready to accept such a President for very long. I’m not suggesting that those who disagree as strongly as many do with him, are all out to see him dead, not at all. Like those of us who hated George Bush, we did not want to see him killed. We wanted to see him democratically removed from Office. Likewise, the majority of those who disagree strongly with President Obama want to see him removed Democratically and peacefully. But there will be those, who do not care for such notions.
Capping the wages of guys at the Companies who demanded bail out money; although a fantastic and much needed move, was also incredibly dangerous.
Princeton University professor of Political Science, Melissa Harris-Lacewell stated that ” “For many black supporters, there is a lot of anxiety that he will be killed. It is on people’s minds.“. The fact that he is Black is much less of a fear for those of us who like Obama, than it is that he’s a Left Winger. His ideology presents the most problematic of dilemmas.

The Hindustan Times referred to President Obama as the “biggest ever assassination target in US History“. I think that’s true. His skin colour is one thing, but mix that together with his ideology and he’s easily the biggest target for assassination that has ever stepped foot in the White House.

Now, i’m in no way claiming to hero worship either Kennedy brother. They were both a little bit dodgy to say the least. But as ideologies go, I relate to them. Much as I do to Obama.

The fact is, if the unthinkable were to happen and Obama were to be injured or worst still, killed, regardless who committed the act, it would be blamed on White Supremacists. The Kennedy assassination was blamed on an Anti-Castro lone gunman. The RFK Assasination was blamed on a disgruntled Palestinian.

Whatever the truth may be in these cases, the public will never know. We will never know why people heard shots coming from the Grassy Knoll. We will never know why a man had an umbrella opened on a sunny day. We will never know why a tramp was arrested who looked like Howard Hunt and the interview that took place between the police chief and the tramp was never recovered. We will never know why Oswald chose to say “I’m just the patsy“. We will never know why Jack Ruby killed Oswald. But we have our own minds. We can look at the evidence, and we can use our common sense to come to our own conclusions. I conclude that Kennedy was killed because Johnson was a little bit too ambitious. I conclude that RFK and Martin Luther King were killed because they threatened the status quo. I conclude that if Obama is killed, it’s because agents for hope and change, even including President Lincoln, do not last too long in Politics.

Perhaps i’m wrong. Perhaps the 1960s was such a turbulent decade. Perhaps those who wanted such powerful change both economically and on the issue of civil rights, were ahead of their time. Perhaps they were easy targets. Perhaps the threat of Communism was such a worry that anyone with Left Wing values were considered a threat. Perhaps those days of such malicious undercover CIA operations is over. Perhaps Obama has inherited such a financial mess, and such a hated ex-President, that that fact alone will keep him safe. Let’s hope so.