Abraham Lincoln statues

[David Lockmiller]

(10-13-2020 02:49 AM)Steve Wrote:  Here is Lincoln's 11 Dec. 1862 statement to the Senate on the Indians to be executed:

Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on the one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other, I caused a careful examination of the records of trials to be made, in view of first ordering the execution of such as had been proved guilty of violating females. Contrary to my expectations, only two of this class were found. I then directed a further examination, and a classification of all who were proven to have participated in massacres, as distinguished from participation in battles. This class numbered forty, and included the two convicted of female violation. One of the number is strongly recommended by the commission which tried them for commutation to ten years' imprisonment. I have ordered the other thirty-nine to be executed on Friday, the 19th instant.

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/document...-the-state

I was particularly impressed by this statement (need to follow hyperlink for the full "Message to the Senate Responding to the Resolution Regarding Indian Barbarities in the State of Minnesota") made by President Lincoln to Congress on the subject. It shows what an outstanding lawyer was Lincoln. Impressive!!!

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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.

President Abraham Lincoln made it through the war but did not live long enough thereafter to reform the Indian system as he wanted to do.