Abraham Lincoln statues

[David Lockmiller]

(02-03-2021 09:27 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  [quote='RJNorton' pid='82845' dateline='1612363845']
https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/...e73dfe732a

From: David Lockmiller
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2021 5:21 AM
To: 208@ktvb.com [correct email address is the208@ktvb.com]
Subject: Abraham Lincoln statue at Julia Davis Park in Boise was covered with red chalk paint accompanied by [****]

To: Whom It May Concern at KTVB(7) in Boise, ID

I have a suggestion for a news story. Ask the people that you interviewed for the referenced story to read the following.


At the 5:07 mark of the referenced story video, the news commentator states “they [a group supporting the “Dakota 38” protest] had nothing to do with feces left at the Abe Lincoln statue."

Start a fire and it gets a little out of control and you're not responsible.

People should not start a fire unless they know what they are talking about, I would suggest.


I wrote the following email to every member of the San Francisco Board of Education on the morning BEFORE the 6 – 1 vote the following evening authorizing the Resolution to rename Abraham Lincoln High School for just cause.

The Subject Line of my email to the San Francisco Board of Education reads: Related subjects of the “Dakota 38” and the recommended renaming of Abraham Lincoln High School.

Professor Michael Burlingame 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 his scholarly work to the 1862 Dakota Sioux Indian uprising and the subsequent actions taken by President Lincoln, titled “Magnanimity: Dealing the Minnesota Sioux Uprising.” (“Abraham Lincoln: A Life,” Vol. Two, pages 480-84.)

At my urgent request, Professor Burlingame provided to me on Sunday, January 24, 2021 an abbreviated version of this same work to present for review by the elected members of the San Francisco School Board and others. Professor Burlingame graciously wrote at the top of his email to me: “I hope this fills the bill. Please forward it to the relevant parties.”


Abraham Lincoln Overrules Death Sentence for
264 Dakota Indians Convicted of Murder or Rape
by Michael Burlingame

In the summer of 1862, Dakota Indians in Minnesota, understandably angry at white encroachment on their territory, at the government’s failure to deliver promised supplies and money, and at the notorious corruption of Indian agents and traders, attacked white men, women, and children along the frontier, killing hundreds and driving over 30,000 from their homes. It was the bloodiest massacre of civilians on U.S. soil prior to September 11, 2001.

After U.S. Army forces under General John Pope put down the rebellion, a military court condemned 303 Dakotas to death. Faced with a potential mass execution, Abraham Lincoln “resolved that such an outrage, as the indiscriminate hanging of these Indians most certainly would be, shall not take place,” according to a Washington newspaper widely regarded as an administration organ. When the president ordered the suspension of the sentences and demanded to see “the full and complete record of these convictions,” General Pope reported that white Minnesotans “are exasperated to the last degree.” The “most horrible massacres have been committed; children nailed alive to trees, women violated and then disemboweled – everything that horrible ingenuity could devise.” Therefore, the general warned, “if the guilty are not all executed I think it nearly impossible to prevent the indiscriminate massacre of all the Indians – old men, women, and children.”

Echoing that advice, Minnesota congressman Cyrus Aldrich told Lincoln that if all the men found guilty of murder or rape were not executed, his constituents would “dispose of them in their own way.” A Minnesota newspaper similarly counseled against leniency: “If the Government wants wholesale hanging by the acre; if it wants the Western plains turned into a wide Golgotha of dead Indians; if it wants them hunted down like wild beasts from the face of the continent, it had better refuse to perform the act of justice which the people of this State demand.”

Minnesota’s congressional delegation and Governor Alexander Ramsey joined the chorus demanding that all 303 convicted Dakotas be hanged. One missionary to the Dakota advised Lincoln “to execute the great majority of those who have been condemned” lest “the innocent as well as the guilty” be killed by vengeful settlers.

As the president and two government lawyers pored over the military court records, they discovered that some trials had lasted only fifteen minutes, that hearsay evidence had been admitted, that due process had been ignored, and that counsel had not been provided the defendants. The attorneys recommended that many of the condemned men be pardoned. While considering what to do, the president received letters from Minnesotans insisting that no mercy be shown to the “lurking savages.”

The situation resembled the one Lincoln had faced thirty years earlier during the Black Hawk War in Illinois, when his fellow militiamen wished to kill an Indian who entered their camp bearing a safe-conduct pass; then Lincoln had courageously blocked them and saved the Indian’s life.

After carefully reviewing the army trial records, the president authorized the execution of the thirty-seven Dakotas found guilty of murder and the two convicted of rape, thus sparing the lives of 264 condemned men.

Lincoln explained his reasoning to the U.S. Senate: “Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other, I ordered a careful examination of the records of the trials to be made, in view of first ordering the execution of such as had been proved guilty of violating females.” In dealing with the murder charges, he had sought to discriminate between those involved in massacres and those participating only in battles.

As execution day for the condemned men drew near, Lincoln instructed the authorities to be careful not to hang Chas-kay-don, whose name was similar to one of the condemned men. At the last minute, the president pardoned Round Wind, who had helped some whites escape. On December 26, the men convicted of rape or murder died together on the gallows. In 1864, Governor Ramsey told Lincoln that if he had approved the execution all 303 Dakotas, he would have won more support for his reelection bid. “I could not afford to hang men for votes,” the president replied.

Professor Burlingame holds the Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois, Springfield.

Immediately thereafter in the email, I stated to each and every member of the elected San Francisco Board of Education: “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.”

My email, even if read, had no impact whatsoever on the individual voting decisions of the San Francisco Board of Education (6 – 1) to authorize the renaming of Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco for just cause.

The people that you interviewed for your own story in Boise, Idaho regarding President Abraham Lincoln and his role in the execution of the “Dakota 38” appear to have their own hidden agenda. Why don’t you ask them if these words written by a prominent President Abraham Lincoln scholar on the subject of the “Dakota 38” have any profound effect upon their previous opinion on the subject of President Abraham Lincoln?

Yours truly,
David Lockmiller