Adding to Frederick Douglass famous quote: "Slavery cannot tolerate free speech". Neither can it tolerate an educated and informed republican citizenry that knows it's true history.
Frederick Douglass words on Freedmen's Monument in Memory of Abraham Lincoln. April 14, 1876
It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man.
He was preeminently the white man’s President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country. In all his education and feeling he was an American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential chair upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own race. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the states where it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of the slave system anywhere inside the slave states. He was willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though his guilty master were already in arms against the Government. The race to which we belong were not the special objects of his consideration. Knowing this, I concede to you, my white fellow-citizens, a preeminence in this worship at once full and supreme. First, midst, and last, you and yours were the objects of his deepest affection and his most earnest solicitude. You are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We are at best only his stepchildren; children by adoption, children by forces of circumstances and necessity. To you it especially belongs to sound his praises, to preserve and perpetuate his memory, to multiply his statues, to hang his pictures high upon your walls, and commend his example, for to you he was a great and glorious friend and benefactor. Instead of supplanting you at his altar, we would exhort you to build high his monuments; let them be of the most costly material, of the most cunning workmanship; let their forms be symmetrical, beautiful, and perfect; let their bases be upon solid rocks, and their summits lean against the unchanging blue, overhanging sky, and let them endure forever! But while in the abundance of your wealth, and in the fullness of your just and patriotic devotion, you do all this, we entreat you to despise not the humble offering we this day unveil to view; for while Abraham Lincoln saved for you a country, he delivered us from a bondage, according to Jefferson, one hour of which was worse than ages of the oppression your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose.
…I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.
Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow-countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery. . . . The man who could say, “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war shall soon pass away, yet if God wills it continue till all the wealth piled by two hundred years of bondage shall have been wasted, and each drop of blood drawn by the lash shall have been paid for by one drawn by the sword, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether,” gives all needed proof of his feeling on the subject of slavery. He was willing, while the South was loyal, that it should have its pound of flesh, because he thought that it was so nominated in the bond; but farther than this no earthly power could make him go.
Frederick Douglass knew Lincoln and clearly made his feelings known at his oration on 4/14/1876.
Alexander Hamiliton is a centralist, and we can look at him as the inspiration for the Federal Reserve and inflation.
The American System under Henry Clay The National Conservative argument for the “American System” correctly observes that there were moments in United States history when the country largely adhered to Henry Clay’s suite of high protectionist tariffs, public works projects, and allegedly strategic industrial subsidies. They also choose to deemphasize, or may even remain ignorant of, the American System’s more ignominious legacies. You will seldom encounter, for example, a NatCon who seriously engages with the moral conundrum that slavery created for Clay’s import-substitution scheme before the Civil War. The American System’s colonization plank is almost entirely absent from these discussions, and its propensity for attracting graft and corruption in its later iterations is almost always swept under the rug.
The threads of the evilness of money and power are still at work but in constantly changing forms and circumstance, to which we need to adapt to recognize, expose, and eradicate, and not stop, because they didn’t then and they won’t now. Here’s to the revolution and continued better evolution. Great work and God Bless!!!
Very nice homage to Douglass. He and Sowell were always among my favourites going back to my university days in the early 90s.
I'm not completely sold on the official reason or narrative for the Civil War though. I think there's some interesting - if not valid - arguments on the 'War of Aggression' side of the coin. The suspension of habeas corpus still ruffles libertarians to this day.
Another angle comes from perhaps the John Birch Society and Lyndon LaRouche whereby (and I could be completely wrong they promulgated this view as my memory is sketchy) the American Civil War coincided with Italian (and German) unification and that there was quite a bit of communications between Italian nationalists like Mazzini and Cavour with the Rebel cause. It's been posited that the coincidence was just too great at that it was an example of a Global Reset at the time.
The time is very close when everybody has to go home to where they have came from . This British policy of everybody is on somebody else's land will stop . It might take WWIII. So be it .
Excellent. The cabal has been controlling us for a very long time. Their power is being chipped away, truth by truth.
Great way to celebrate the US day of Independence from Slavery day!
Thanks Cynthia - great post!
Thank you for posting. What a wealth of history to absorb today...
Adding to Frederick Douglass famous quote: "Slavery cannot tolerate free speech". Neither can it tolerate an educated and informed republican citizenry that knows it's true history.
Great man! Studied him in my youth.
Beautiful engaging lecture; I learned a lot! Thanks for sharing this!
Frederick Douglass words on Freedmen's Monument in Memory of Abraham Lincoln. April 14, 1876
It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man.
He was preeminently the white man’s President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country. In all his education and feeling he was an American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential chair upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own race. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the states where it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of the slave system anywhere inside the slave states. He was willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though his guilty master were already in arms against the Government. The race to which we belong were not the special objects of his consideration. Knowing this, I concede to you, my white fellow-citizens, a preeminence in this worship at once full and supreme. First, midst, and last, you and yours were the objects of his deepest affection and his most earnest solicitude. You are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We are at best only his stepchildren; children by adoption, children by forces of circumstances and necessity. To you it especially belongs to sound his praises, to preserve and perpetuate his memory, to multiply his statues, to hang his pictures high upon your walls, and commend his example, for to you he was a great and glorious friend and benefactor. Instead of supplanting you at his altar, we would exhort you to build high his monuments; let them be of the most costly material, of the most cunning workmanship; let their forms be symmetrical, beautiful, and perfect; let their bases be upon solid rocks, and their summits lean against the unchanging blue, overhanging sky, and let them endure forever! But while in the abundance of your wealth, and in the fullness of your just and patriotic devotion, you do all this, we entreat you to despise not the humble offering we this day unveil to view; for while Abraham Lincoln saved for you a country, he delivered us from a bondage, according to Jefferson, one hour of which was worse than ages of the oppression your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose.
…I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.
Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow-countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery. . . . The man who could say, “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war shall soon pass away, yet if God wills it continue till all the wealth piled by two hundred years of bondage shall have been wasted, and each drop of blood drawn by the lash shall have been paid for by one drawn by the sword, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether,” gives all needed proof of his feeling on the subject of slavery. He was willing, while the South was loyal, that it should have its pound of flesh, because he thought that it was so nominated in the bond; but farther than this no earthly power could make him go.
Frederick Douglass knew Lincoln and clearly made his feelings known at his oration on 4/14/1876.
Alexander Hamiliton is a centralist, and we can look at him as the inspiration for the Federal Reserve and inflation.
The American System under Henry Clay The National Conservative argument for the “American System” correctly observes that there were moments in United States history when the country largely adhered to Henry Clay’s suite of high protectionist tariffs, public works projects, and allegedly strategic industrial subsidies. They also choose to deemphasize, or may even remain ignorant of, the American System’s more ignominious legacies. You will seldom encounter, for example, a NatCon who seriously engages with the moral conundrum that slavery created for Clay’s import-substitution scheme before the Civil War. The American System’s colonization plank is almost entirely absent from these discussions, and its propensity for attracting graft and corruption in its later iterations is almost always swept under the rug.
The threads of the evilness of money and power are still at work but in constantly changing forms and circumstance, to which we need to adapt to recognize, expose, and eradicate, and not stop, because they didn’t then and they won’t now. Here’s to the revolution and continued better evolution. Great work and God Bless!!!
Cynthia, your POV is so important in these times and deserves hearing by everyone. Thanks, and keep up the great work.
Knowledge-Wisdom, Cynthia.
Thank you for sharing the thoughts of Fredrick Douglas, a profound thinker of any time in 'His-story' - I read his writing many years ago.
Ma'at - Hotep
AK
Very nice homage to Douglass. He and Sowell were always among my favourites going back to my university days in the early 90s.
I'm not completely sold on the official reason or narrative for the Civil War though. I think there's some interesting - if not valid - arguments on the 'War of Aggression' side of the coin. The suspension of habeas corpus still ruffles libertarians to this day.
Another angle comes from perhaps the John Birch Society and Lyndon LaRouche whereby (and I could be completely wrong they promulgated this view as my memory is sketchy) the American Civil War coincided with Italian (and German) unification and that there was quite a bit of communications between Italian nationalists like Mazzini and Cavour with the Rebel cause. It's been posited that the coincidence was just too great at that it was an example of a Global Reset at the time.
An obscure book on the matter:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26062022
Farber touched on this here:
https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/was-the-pike-mazzini-letter-about/comments
More here:
https://repository.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2175&context=gradschool_theses
The time is very close when everybody has to go home to where they have came from . This British policy of everybody is on somebody else's land will stop . It might take WWIII. So be it .