NYTimes Charles Blow Opinion

[David Lockmiller]

(09-04-2023 04:19 AM)Steve Wrote:  David,

I think this book review article might be of interest to you and Rob:

https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/ja...e/id/4060/

Thank you, Steve, for the post.

Perhaps this reviewer’s favorite letter is the one sent by George Washington in March 1865. “I take this opportunity this holy Sabbath day to try to express my gratitude and love to you,” Washington wrote to Lincoln through his amanuensis, Mrs. Luther Fowler. “I desire to render you a thousand thanks that you have brought us from the yoke of bondage…. I have lain awake four nights and my mind so bore upon you that I could not rest till I sent you a letter”.

In a postscript, Fowler informed Lincoln that she wrote the letter “precisely as dictated” from a “colored man who came to me in a flood of tears.” She added that his sentiments were “entirely expressive of the feelings of all ‘Freedmen’”. The letter is moving to read now; it must have been even more moving to its recipient. Lincoln read only a fraction of all letters sent to him, including those from African Americans, but he read this one, and filed it in his personal collection.