NYTimes Charles Blow Opinion

[Steve]

Roger,
Thanks for posting images of that article.

David,
About the quotation marks from that article, I can only go by what the anonymous reporter wrote at the end of the article:

(The above is merely given as the substance of the President's remarks.)

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

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

I still haven't gotten around to seeing that video.

[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.

[Rob Wick]

After reading the reviews provided by Steve, I decided that I needed to reread Lincoln's address to the five freedmen in April of 1862. Upon rereading it, I came away with a whole new respect for why critics of Lincoln felt the way they did and how the explanation of his motivation for this proposal misses the mark.

Of course, many people, mainly conservatives, talk about how it's wrong to judge someone in the 19th century based on 21st-century morality. To a point, that is right. When I wrote a paper on James G. Randall's "Blundering Generation" thesis, I came across a comment from the late Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., about that very subject. I wrote, "Schlesinger argued that the revisionists—that all historians for that matter—were obliged to pronounce moral judgments on actions that ran counter to the democratic ideals that America’s founding documents pronounced, although he warned that that obligation was no license for forgetting that individuals were prisoners of their own times and societal pressures. In Schlesinger’s view, the error of the revisionists was to bend over so far backward to avoid easy and smug moral judgments on historical actors that they renounced any need to consider moral issues in history at all."

I still believe that today. I also believe that while Lincoln did a great deal for blacks, his approach to the delegation was so wrong-headed that he risked having future generations forget everything he might have done.

For example, Lincoln said in the opening of his talk, "You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated."

Think about this for a moment. Yes, there was a difference between the races, but the main point of that difference came mainly from whites like Lincoln, who failed to see that a more forward-looking plan would be to work on changing the viewpoint of society, even if that meant doing so one person at a time. By this introduction, Lincoln all but admits failure in his moral vision of what should happen to African Americans.

"But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. You are cut off from many of the advantages which the other race enjoy. The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this broad continent, not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of ours. Go where you are treated the best, and the ban is still upon you."

Again, this is pretty poor salesmanship on Lincoln's part. Telling a group of blacks who are part of the elite of the city that no matter how they try or how free any of their brethren may become, they can never expect to attain a status equal to the white man. It reminds me of a cartoon I once saw where two hillbillies were carrying clubs and beating civil rights protestors. "Let that one go," one says to the other, "he says he don't want to be muh equal."

On two separate occasions, Lincoln said he didn't want to discuss his point, but rather, he expected his listeners to accept what he said BECAUSE HE SAID IT. There is an arrogance in Lincoln's words that would make me question why I even chose to attend this meeting.

The following is, in my view, Lincoln's most offensive comment.
"See our present condition---the country engaged in war!---our white men cutting one another's throats, none knowing how far it will extend; and then consider what we know to be the truth. But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other. Nevertheless, I repeat, without the institution of Slavery and the colored race as a basis, the war could not have an existence."

So it was the black man who fired on Fort Sumter! It was the black man who enacted the Fugitive Slave Law. The black man refused to compromise and then seceded from the Union. Hogwash. The war came about because white politicians couldn't do better or couldn't think outside their own prejudices.

"It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated. I know that there are free men among you, who even if they could better their condition are not as much inclined to go out of the country as those, who being slaves could obtain their freedom on this condition. I suppose one of the principal difficulties in the way of colonization is that the free colored man cannot see that his comfort would be advanced by it. You may believe you can live in Washington or elsewhere in the United States the remainder of your life [as easily], perhaps more so than you can in any foreign country, and hence you may come to the conclusion that you have nothing to do with the idea of going to a foreign country. This is (I speak in no unkind sense) an extremely selfish view of the case."

So because white people suffer from a moral failure to understand that blacks born in this country may want to stay here, to do so is "an extremely selfish view of the case." One wonders exactly how Lincoln won so many law cases with such weak arguments.

"There is an unwillingness on the part of our people, harsh as it may be, for you free colored people to remain with us. Now, if you could give a start to white people, you would open a wide door for many to be made free. If we deal with those who are not free at the beginning, and whose intellects are clouded by Slavery, we have very poor materials to start with. If intelligent colored men, such as are before me, would move in this matter, much might be accomplished. It is exceedingly important that we have men at the beginning capable of thinking as white men, and not those who have been systematically oppressed."

So then, it's impossible to accept that a black man could, on his own, express a thought that a white man should respect? It gets deeper and deeper for Lincoln.

"There is much to encourage you. For the sake of your race you should sacrifice something of your present comfort for the purpose of being as grand in that respect as the white people. It is a cheering thought throughout life that something can be done to ameliorate the condition of those subject to the world's hard usage. It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels he is worthy of himself, and claims kindred to the great God who made him. In the American Revolutionary war sacrifices were made by men engaged in it; but they were cheered by the future. Gen. Washington himself endured greater physical hardships than if he had remained a British subject. Yet he was a happy man, because he was engaged in benefiting his race---something for the children of his neighbors, having none of his own."

By this point, I would have gotten up, thanked Lincoln for his time, and left.

So many historians make excuses for Lincoln that he was far ahead of his time compared to his countrymen, where blacks were concerned. They note that eventually, Lincoln gave up on the idea of colonization, but I doubt he ever stopped believing that whites and blacks would ever get along together and that blacks should take the lead in overcoming white prejudice.

So one must then ask what was Lincoln's motivation for this wrong-headed proposal. Nikole Hannah-Jones and Lerone Bennett point to white supremacy. The term "white supremacy" is obviously a loaded pejorative, given that it requires a conscious thought on the beholder to pursue that viewpoint. We cringe at the thought that our Lincoln could be guilty of such a heinous viewpoint. So, we begin to make excuses and compartmentalize Lincoln. "Look at all the good he did instead of the bad," or "Don't judge Lincoln by today's standards." There is one major problem with that. To say we shouldn't make a moral judgment on Lincoln is to assume that everyone at that time held the same viewpoint because of societal differences. There is just one problem. Not everyone did. Not all whites, especially, and more importantly, not all blacks. That seems to me to be the fatal flaw in the 21st century for 19th-century action debate. We tend to forget that blacks had just as much of a moral right as whites to hold their viewpoint and to have it respected and debated honestly.

So, what was Lincoln's motivation? I thought and thought to figure something out that didn't involve the reductive trope of white supremacy but didn't give Lincoln a pass on a subject that "ran counter to the democratic ideals that America’s founding documents pronounced." A possible explanation came to me as I was reading The Fire is Upon Us by Nicolas Buccola about the debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley at Cambridge University in 1965. Buccola writes:

"Buckley then drew the two central points of his introduction together by saying that rather than treating Baldwin with the 'unctuous servitude' to which he was accustomed--and that animated, he suspected, the standing ovation Baldwin had received minutes earlier--he had something else in mind. "I propose to pay him the honor this night," Buckley pointed at Baldwin with another devious smile on his face. 'I'm going to speak to you without any reference whatever to those surrounding protections which you are used to in virtue of the fact that you are a Negro, and in virtue of the fact that your race has dreadfully suffered at the hands of my race.' This is what Buckley had meant when he said he would treat Baldwin as he would 'a white man'; he would treat him as someone without 'surrounding protections.'"

Lincoln's motivation was his failure to realize and accept that all blacks wanted was to be treated exactly the same as white men, without the "surrounding protections" that Lincoln thought he was offering by the act of colonization. Lincoln could not, or did not, believe that any blacks, even those continuing to suffer at the end of a lash, could figure out what was best for them in their situation. It did not take the nobless oblige of white society to offer this redemption; it only took a society that would accept that we are all human beings, black or white. This was Lincoln's motivation and, in the long run, Lincoln's failure.

Best
Rob

[AussieMick]

Hi, Rob.
I write in defence of Lincoln.

I've been reading with much interest the posts here. I resisted the temptation to comment mainly because of the thought its very much a USA issue. But of course its also a Lincoln issue. And as he (IMO) now belongs to the world and human history I offer the following...

Rob, you write strongly and articulately. There's no doubt that you care very much of course for the subject of slavery, racial discrimination, and for Lincoln.

I’ll select parts of your post (although I know this can be unfair when its ‘out of context’).

You write :
Of course, many people, mainly conservatives, talk about how it's wrong to judge someone in the 19th century based on 21st-century morality. To a point, that is right. When I wrote a paper on James G. Randall's "Blundering Generation" thesis, I came across a comment from the late Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., about that very subject. I wrote, "Schlesinger argued that the revisionists—that all historians for that matter—were obliged to pronounce moral judgments on actions that ran counter to the democratic ideals that America’s founding documents pronounced, although he warned that that obligation was no license for forgetting that individuals were prisoners of their own times and societal pressures. In Schlesinger’s view, the error of the revisionists was to bend over so far backward to avoid easy and smug moral judgments on historical actors that they renounced any need to consider moral issues in history at all."

Basically, I disagree with you. We are all capable ‘of chewing gum whilst walking’ (walking? Or was it “farting” that LBJ said, much more eloquently?).

We should be able to balance our own consideration of morals with the morals of those in earlier times. People that have lived in much harder times and suffered much worse hardships than we could ever imagine. Coupled with that we need to put ourselves in their place and imagine how we would deal with the horrible dilemmas they faced.
(BTW, I’m not sure that you are fair in your interpretation of Schlesinger’s view about renouncing need to consider moral issues, but that’s another discussion and I am really not sure. You could be correct.)

You also write :
that difference came mainly from whites like Lincoln, who failed to see that a more forward-looking plan would be to work on changing the viewpoint of society, even if that meant doing so one person at a time. By this introduction, Lincoln all but admits failure in his moral vision of what should happen to African Americans.

Rob, we’re talking here about a President. He’s got a Civil War going on with many thousands of lives being lost. No end in sight. Possibly a loss by the North. Blacks suffering enormously. Not just from loss of freedom, but also the potential for being separated forever from the ones that they love. Mate, to talk of a “forward-looking plan” and working “on changing the viewpoint of society” is easy for us now.
But for Lincoln that wasn’t an option.
He said “even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race “. As it turned out of course he was 100% correct (IMO). The blacks continued to suffer after the Civil War. True, they were ‘free’. I don’t need to spell out how it was in the South … the ‘viewpoint of society’ did not change for 100 years (some would argue it still has a way to go … in the USA and also elsewhere).

You quote Lincoln : “"See our present condition---the country engaged in war!---our white men cutting one another's throats, none knowing how far it will extend; and then consider what we know to be the truth. But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other. Nevertheless, I repeat, without the institution of Slavery and the colored race as a basis, the war could not have an existence."

You clearly regard as this offensive. It is. If you read it unthinkingly. But it is (IMO) the brutal truth. Lincoln though is not blaming the colored race. He’s simply stating the facts.

You write in your last para about Lincoln’s motivations and beliefs. Your opinions of what they were, are of course simply that. Opinions. I disagree (but cannot prove) when you say he did not ‘realize and accept that all blacks wanted was to be treated exactly the same as white men’.
I disagree when you say he thought blacks could not, or did not, … figure out what was best for them in their situation.

In summary, I put myself in Lincoln’s position (!) hopefully without bending over backwards.
If I could stop the Civil War and remove slavery in the US and stop racial hatred. And also enable black people to live lives where they reach their full potential (and stop family members being separated … surely a terrifying thought, thanks Ms Stowe)… if I could do that by offering help for them to move to a new land of opportunities … yes, compulsory for those still enslaved … I suggest many blacks (who would later suffer and even been lynched in post-war South) would have said Thanks … yes, I’ll take that. I suggest many slaves would have thought “The US? What has it done for me and my family? I was born here but I owe it nothing.”
(Just imagine, if Australia or NZ could have been persuaded to accept them. But, yes, they would have faced hostility and discrimination. Even there, Blacks were not seen as equal to Whites.)

Best,
Michael

[Rob Wick]

Mike,

I want to let your post saturate in my mind before responding. However, I would suggest that if you can find it, you read the article Schlesinger wrote. It is "Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., “The Causes of the Civil War: A Note on Historical
Sentimentalism,” Partisan Review, 16, No. 10 (October, 1949), pp. 969-981."

Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

(09-05-2023 07:38 PM)AussieMick Wrote:  I suggest many blacks (who would later suffer and even been lynched in post-war South) . . . .

Michael

In the first two years after the Civil War, white legislatures passed Black Codes modeled after the earlier slave codes. The name "Black Codes" was given by "negro leaders and the Republican organs", according to historian John S. Reynolds. Black Codes were part of a larger pattern of Democrats trying to maintain political dominance and suppress the freedmen, newly emancipated African-Americans.

They were particularly concerned with controlling movement and labor of freedmen, as slavery had been replaced by a free labor system. Although freedmen had been emancipated, their lives were greatly restricted by the Black Codes. The defining feature of the Black Codes was broad vagrancy law, which allowed local authorities to arrest freedpeople for minor infractions and commit them to involuntary labor. This period was the start of the convict lease system, also described as "slavery by another name" by Douglas Blackmon in his 2008 book of this title.

Source: Wikipedia - Black Codes (United States)

[Rob Wick]

Mike,

It should come as little surprise to you that I'm afraid I have to disagree with much of what you write. These are just a few examples.

Quote:We should be able to balance our own consideration of morals with the morals of those in earlier times. People that have lived in much harder times and suffered much worse hardships than we could ever imagine. Coupled with that we need to put ourselves in their place and imagine how we would deal with the horrible dilemmas they faced.

Again, this is what Schlesinger is saying. It is perfectly acceptable to judge our past leaders when their words and actions do not jibe with our founding documents announcing our experiment, but intellectually we must realize that our times are different than theirs. That fact is insufficient justification for saying, "Oh well, there was nothing he could do because everyone at that time felt that way." My point was that not everyone felt that way, especially not blacks.

Quote:Rob, we're talking here about a President. He's got a Civil War going on with many thousands of lives being lost. No end in sight. Possibly a loss by the North. Blacks suffering enormously. Not just from loss of freedom, but also the potential for being separated forever from the ones that they love. Mate, to talk of a "forward-looking plan" and working "on changing the viewpoint of society" is easy for us now.
But for Lincoln that wasn't an option.

But I would argue that it could have been an option for Lincoln if only he had made it one. The difficulties of the Civil War didn't stop Lincoln from exerting energy toward the colonization plan to the point of appointing an agent and making and authorizing plans to follow it through. To quote another president, the presidency is a wondrous bully pulpit, and what the president decides to focus on CAN become a major societal focus, but only if he allows it to be.

Quote:You clearly regard as this offensive. It is. If you read it unthinkingly. But it is (IMO) the brutal truth. Lincoln though is not blaming the colored race. He's simply stating the facts.

This, I'm afraid, is just plain incorrect. If Lincoln didn't intend to blame blacks for the war, for someone who is very careful in what he says, he didn't exhibit the care in his word usage with this point. Excepting that possibility, the only way I can interpret this point is that if the black man weren't in the country, the war would never have come. Therefore it is akin to the husband telling the wife after a severe beating, "see what you made me do!"

In my opinion, the only way Lincoln gets a pass on any of this is if one accepts that the question of slavery is purely a political issue and not a moral one. Suppose one doesn't accept that slavery is a moral issue. In that case, it is far easier to accept that blacks are not citizens and, therefore, not entitled to the same rights and privileges (and given the same amount of responsibilities) that any white citizen is endowed with.

Of course, my view of Lincoln's motivation is my opinion. But it is an opinion based on years of research and study, which, of course, doesn't mean it is absolutely correct. But I would argue that the alternative to that opinion is this. If Lincoln could not recognize all that I pointed out and still wanted to enact his colonization plan, the argument that he was indeed a white supremacist is pretty much proven.

Best
Rob

[Steve]

As the one who sort of revived this thread, I feel obliged to make a reply to Rob's post at # 33. So, I'm going to put off my response to the Blow column for another month.

For the colonization issue, here's a good article to read:

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/262986...w=fulltext

I agree with Rob's point that we/historians should make moral judgements about the past. A lot of times the "we shouldn't judge the past by our standards" is used to obfuscate or ignore an issue. (Though it is always important to be reminded sometimes that past can be very different from our present world.) I've also seen the opposite where people want to make some type of moral judgement about the past and will bend the facts about the past to fit their preferred morality or politics.

As for Rob's specific points about Lincoln's talk with the delegation (which were bolded), I agree with Rob's points about their wrongheadedness, except for one. I disagree that Lincoln was blaming the war on Black people, I read it as Lincoln blaming the war on slavery.

I also believe the evidence of Lincoln's actions following the implementation of the Emancipation Proclamation and the large scale recruitment of African American soldiers indicate a change of heart on Lincoln's part on the issues of African Americans dignity and role in American life/society.

[RJNorton]

For some reason this discussion reminds me of something one of my college professors said in the early 1960s. He asked the class, "What is the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter?" No hands went up. His answer was, "It just depends on whose side you are on."

What is the difference between a humanitarian belief and a racist belief? Lincoln and most Republicans thought colonization was humanitarian in nature. Abolitionists and Blacks thought the same policy was racist in nature. So can the exact same policy be both humanitarian and racist? To me, this discussion seems to say "yes."

[Rob Wick]

Steve,

I believe there was no president, perhaps other than Thomas Jefferson, who was as literate as Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln loved words and used them to their fullest potential and, on many occasions, used them with less specificity to keep something hidden that he wanted hidden. Had Lincoln only said, "Nevertheless, I repeat, without the institution of Slavery the war could not have an existence," then I would agree that he's simply talking about a point I think most of us accept. But he didn't. He added the phrase "and the colored race as a basis." It is beyond me how that can be interpreted otherwise. However, I remain open to arguments proffered to change my mind.

I also agree that Lincoln's life was an exercise in growth and continued search for understanding, but if one accepts Benjamin Butler (not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination), then Lincoln didn't live long enough to realize the mistake that colonization would have been, both politically and most important, morally.

Roger, I guess in a deeper philosophical sense, one could argue that both sides were right based on their belief system, which is all we have in order to make assumptions and hold viewpoints, but in a cold, hard, realistic sense, only one can be right, based on the evidence as it is currently known. Given that history has been written by white men for the past several decades, it's little wonder that the white viewpoint has achieved predominance. While I don't fear inviting as many voices into the mix as possible, I do fear that "the other side" will forget how exclusion and submissiveness felt in not allowing other views to be heard and attempt to suppress what they disagree with. There is room enough for all, even if all cannot be right.

Best
Rob

[RJNorton]

I wonder if Lincoln's support of colonization as a humanitarian policy was influenced by several ministers in Springfield. On p. 168 of "Lincoln and the Preachers" (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1948) author Edgar DeWitt Jones mentions that Reverend Noyes W. Miner, a Springfield neighbor of the Lincolns and a Pastor of the First Baptist Church, had served with Lincoln on the board of managers of the Illinois State Colonization Society. Two clergymen from Springfield's First Presbyterian Church were also active in the effort toward colonization. These were the Reverend John Bergen and the Reverend Dr. John H. Brown. The next pastor after Brown, Dr. Frederick Wines, helped to organize a Freedmen's Aid Society to assist emancipated slaves.

[AussieMick]

As I touched on before ... if I were a slave with a family and I knew that my 'master' was going to sell me (and me alone), then I'd grab the chance to go with the family to any other country.

I suggest its important to balance practicalities with philosophies. The things that matter to real people arent necessarily equivalent to morality and ethics.

[David Lockmiller]

(08-18-2023 10:00 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Charles Blow Opinion: "Using Frederick Douglass to Rationalize Slavery? In Florida, Yes!" New York Times, August 16, 2023

But let us be fair to history and Abraham Lincoln.

"Eight years later, in 1861," Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, was required to enforce the laws passed by Congress, including the Fugitive Slave Act.

The oath of office reads: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

This oath means enforcement of the laws passed by Congress.

[Not mentioned by Charles Blow.]

Right now, there is a Senator from Alabama who is holding up all of the major military officer appointments.

The senator is doing so because the military (governed by Federal law) permits actions now banned by state law of Alabama.

What if every other U. S. senator were to engage in similar actions?

The oath of office for a United States Senator reads as follows:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

[Rob Wick]

Quote:As I touched on before ... if I were a slave with a family and I knew that my 'master' was going to sell me (and me alone), then I'd grab the chance to go with the family to any other country.

Mike,

The only problem is that colonization would not have been an option while someone was still a slave. They would have had to be free before any plan could go into effect. So either the South would have had to agree to compensated emancipation (which they clearly rejected), or the war would have to end with the South's defeat, which is obviously what happened.

Quote:I suggest its important to balance practicalities with philosophies. The things that matter to real people arent necessarily equivalent to morality and ethics.

Then what is the point of continuing to claim that we are civilized? If you push morality and ethics aside for practical sensibilities, anything is fair game. But let's say for the sake of discussion that you're right. Doesn't the leader of our nation have a special implicit responsibility to try to make us better than our current selves? Isn't that part of what we look for when choosing our leaders (no matter how disappointed we may be)?

Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

(09-12-2023 08:42 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  The oath of office for a United States Senator reads as follows:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Is violating the oath of office a federal crime?

Federal law, 18 U.S.C. 1918 provides penalties for violation of oath office described in 5 U.S.C. 7311 which include: (1) removal from office and; (2) confinement or a fine. remedial and enforceability measures.

"I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office."

What would happen if every other Senator or Representative acted in a similar manner to protest any law?