Abraham Lincoln statues

[David Lockmiller]

Last night, I wrote the following email to the San Francisco School Renaming Advisory Committee which I initially intended to read in the Public Comments portion of the January 6, 2021 online meeting of the Committee. I had a problem with Zoom for some unknown reason and I could not be heard. All the members of the Committee are supposed to have access to the emails received from the Public by the Committee's administrative support staff (which has been reported as a problem by the Committee members in the past).

My name is David Lockmiller. I am a 32-year resident of the Richmond District. I submitted a Letter to the Editor of the Richmond Review that was published online on December 9, 2020, titled “DO NOT RENAME LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL.” Therein, I presented the reasons for my disapproval of this Committee’s evaluation process regarding President Abraham Lincoln’s actions in the “Dakota 38” controversy, the largest mass execution of Native Americans in the history of the United States.

The following is Lincoln’s Dec. 11, 1862 statement to the Senate on the Native Americans 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.”

It is uncontested and indisputable that President Lincoln signed the execution death warrants for 39 Native Americans, as required by law of the President. However, it is also uncontested and indisputable that President Lincoln commuted the death sentences of 265 of the 303 Dakota men condemned as a result of the careful review of the facts of each Native American’s case . He also later pardoned one of the 39 mentioned in the letter to the Senate after evidence came to his attention questioning the man’s guilt.

After the 1864 midterm election, Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey told Lincoln that Republicans could have gotten a larger electoral majority in the state if Lincoln had allowed the execution of more Indians. Lincoln told Ramsey, simply: “I could not afford to hang men for votes.”

Professor Michael Burlingame, Lincoln Studies at University of Illinois, Springfield, was the winner of the 2010 Lincoln Prize for his two-volume work on Lincoln, titled “Abraham Lincoln: A Life.” Professor Burlingame devoted five pages of this scholarly work to the 1862 Dakota Sioux Indian uprising and the subsequent actions taken by President Lincoln, titled “Magnanimity: Dealing With the Minnesota Sioux Uprising.” (“Abraham Lincoln: A Life,” Vol. Two, pages 480-484.)

The introductory first paragraph contains the following important relevant historical fact regarding the “Dakota 38” that the members of this San Francisco Schools Renaming Committee should have already carefully considered, but I sincerely doubt if a single member of this Committee is even aware of this historical fact.

“They (the Dakota Sioux Native Americans) killed hundreds and drove over 30,000 from their homes. It was the bloodiest massacre of American civilians on U.S. soil prior to September 11, 2001.”

Yours truly,
David Lockmiller