Had President Lincoln lived, . . . .

[David Lockmiller]

(06-25-2021 09:07 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Had President Lincoln lived, . . . .

The following is from a previous post:

I make the following post regarding the anticipated actions in behalf of American Indians by President Abraham Lincoln to be taken following the close of the Civil War. The source of the citations is Professor Michael Burlingame in his Lincoln Prize winning (2010) book, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Vol. TWO, (2008), at pages 483-484.

The president told a friend that [Episcopal Bishop Henry B.] 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.”. . . He pledged that “if we get through this war, and if I live, this Indian system shall be reformed.” [82 – Henry B. Whipple, Light and Shadows of a Long Episcopate: Being Reminiscences and Recollections of the Right Reverend Henry Benjamin Whipple, (1899), pages 136-137.] Similarly, in the winter of 1863-1864, he told Joseph La Barge, a steam-boat captain who protested against corrupt government Indian agents, “wait until I get this Rebellion off my hands, and I will take up this question and see that justice is done the Indian.” [83 – Hiram M. Chittenden, History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River: Life and Adventures of Joseph La Barge, (1903), page 342.] To Father John Beason, a noted Indian clergyman, he said “that as soon as the war was settled his attention should be given to the Indians and it should not cease until justice to their and my satisfaction was secured. [84 – John Beason to Henry W. Bellows, (1862), Bellow Papers, MHi.] In his 1862 annual message to Congress, Lincoln urged that it change the system. “With all my heart I thank you for your recommendation to have our whole Indian system reformed,” Whipple wrote the president. “It is a stupendous piece of wickedness and as we fear God ought to be changed.” Though Lincoln did not live to see this recommendation implemented, he gave a significant boost to the movement that eventually overthrew the corrupt system. [85 – Nichols, Lincoln and the Indians, page 145.]