President Lincoln and the Homestead Act

[David Lockmiller]

The following is from a post I made to the the thread titled "Re: President Lincoln and the Sioux Indian Uprising in 1862" at post # 112 on June 7, 2017:


Episcopal Bishop Henry B. Whipple lobbied the President to reform the corrupt Indian agency system. In the spring of 1862, the bishop had recommended more humane treatment of the Minnesota Sioux. Lincoln promptly asked the secretary of the Interior to investigate, which he did and suggested numerous reforms.

The President told a friend that Whipple "came here the other day and talked with me about the rascality of this Indian business until I felt it down to my boots."

In reply to Whipple's appeal, Lincoln characteristically recounted a story:

"Bishop, a man thought that monkeys could pick cotton better than Negroes could because they were quicker and their fingers smaller. He turned a lot of them into his cotton field, but he found that it took two overseers to watch one monkey. It needs more than one honest man to watch one Indian agent."

[President Lincoln] pledged to Bishop Whipple that "[i]f we get through this war, and if I live, this Indian system shall be reformed."

(Henry B. Whipple, "Light and Shadows of a Long Episcopate,etc.," pages 136-137.

So, at least two things would have been different had Lincoln lived: Reconstruction and the treatment of native Americans. [emphasis added today April 23, 2020.]

Isn't it amazing how well Abraham Lincoln was able to argue by clear analogy. Lincoln ended his story:

"he found that it took two overseers to watch one monkey. It needs more than one honest man to watch one Indian agent."