Abraham Lincoln the Early Adopter 261
Hugh Pickens writes "On the 200th anniversary of his birth, President Abraham Lincoln's popular image as a log-splitting bumpkin is being re-assessed as historians have discovered that Lincoln had an avid interest in cutting-edge technology and its applications. During the war, Lincoln haunted the telegraph office (which provided the instant-messaging of its day) for the latest news from the front; he encouraged weapons development and even tested some new rifles himself on the White House lawn; and he is the only US president to hold a patent (No. 6469, granted May 22, 1849). It was for a device to lift riverboats over shoals. 'He not only created his own invention but had ideas for other inventions, such as an agricultural steam plow and a naval steam ram, [and] was fascinated by patent cases as an attorney and also by new innovations during the Civil War,' says Jason Emerson, author of Lincoln the Inventor. But Lincoln's greatest contribution to the war effort was his use of the telegraph. When Lincoln took office the White House had no telegraph connection. Lincoln 'developed the modern electronic leadership model, says Tom Wheeler, author of Mr. Lincoln's T-Mails: The Untold Story of How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph To Win the Civil War. At a time when electricity was a vague scientific concept and sending signals through wires was 'mind boggling,' Lincoln was fascinated by the telegraph and developed it into a political and military tool that allowed him to project himself to the front to monitor and track what was going on. 'If he were alive today, we'd call him an early adopter,' says Wheeler."
Don't forget Tom (Score:5, Interesting)
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bljefferson.htm [about.com]
Jefferson was a tinkerer who realized that every design could be improved. The same mind he dedicated to helping to create our novel system of government, he applied to physical science.
Lincoln was a gay, wait no he was a nerd. (Score:4, Interesting)
Attention! (Score:5, Interesting)
Lincoln held opinions not very different from those of the majority of his racist countrymen. Even if slavery was wrong, "there is a physical difference between the white and black races that will for ever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality." His solution was a form of ethnic cleansing: shipping blacks off to Liberia, or Haiti, or Central America â" anywhere as long as it wasnâ(TM)t the United States.
Lincoln's views may have started to change once he saw how bravely black troops fought for the Union cause, but even at the time of his death, he was willing to leave the fate of emancipated slaves in the hands of bigoted state legislators. "Whether Lincoln ever went beyond being an anti-slavery white supremacist," George Fredrickson writes, "is a question that is difficult to resolve."
So should we tear down his memorial on the National Mall? The answer to this question may surprise you.
First post: What hath god wrought! (Score:5, Interesting)
*** "What hath god wrought" is considered to be the first documented telegraph message.
Comment removed (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Yeah, he set the stage for modern America (Score:5, Interesting)
I've seen plenty of liberals defend him as saying that he wanted to "protect them", which is just as sensible as saying Hitler wanted to protect the Jews.
In all fairness, I don't recall FDR having Japanese Americans killed.
But yes, we tend to forget the negative or parts. It turns out that Lincon was pretty big on racism, told racist jokes about blacks, thought that interracial marriage was wrong, and that whites were the better race, all this despite believing that slavery was morally wrong. But here's the catch, if he wasn't still a racist, he wouldn't have been elected because the idea that the races really are equal would be considered far too radical.
Re:Attention! (Score:2, Interesting)
"there is a physical difference between the white and black races that will for ever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality."
Looking at the western world today,I'm not quite sure whether he wasn't actually right... I see no social and political equality.
The US now has a black president. That is cool and all, but looking back at how much his blackness was hyped in the media all around the world...
Mind, I'm not judging whether it's a bad thing or a good thing... I'm just observing.
Re:Yeah, he set the stage for modern America (Score:5, Interesting)
>>>In all fairness, I don't recall FDR having Japanese Americans killed.
"Some Japanese Americans died in the camps due to inadequate medical care and the emotional stresses they encountered. Several were killed by military guards for allegedly resisting orders." "These Japanese Americans, half of whom were children, were incarcerated for up to 4 years, without due process of law or any factual basis, in bleak, remote camps surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards."
FDR also arrested white Americans who stood in his way - the most famous one being Henry Ford (for not complying with the NRA's price minimums), but Ford could hire enough lawyers to persuade FDR to drop the case. Others were not so fortunate. FDR was a dark, dark man and now historians digging through the archives are just now discovering how dark he was.
Re:The only president with a patent? Not true, unl (Score:5, Interesting)
There was no such thing as conflict of interest back then. The real reason Jefferson did not patent is likely the same reason inventor Benjamin Franklin did not patent. They chose to share their ideas for the benefit of all - what we would call public domain. Franklin was already the wealthiest man in America, so he didn't need the cash.
And Jefferson was very very poor, the equivalent of $100,000 in debt in today's terms, but he still preferred to give things away. Jefferson's personal library was donated as the foundation for the Second Library of Congress. (The first was burned to the ground by the British.)
Re:Mod parent up (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>Telegraph, optical, electronic or otherwise, doesn't really have an equivalent today, because it had a ridiculously low bandwidth and slower transmission times.
The average telegraph could be transmitted at 30 words per minute (55 for exceptionally fast telegraphers). That's equivalent to a 2400 bit/s modem. Not bad for nearly 200 year old technology. It's faster than you can type an IM into your cellphone.
Re:he also used the word nigger a lot (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:No... (Score:3, Interesting)
If he were alive, we'd applaud him on his undoubtedly correct use of the subjunctive voice.
Re:Log-splitting bumpkin, huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
The Confederacy was fighting for its existence. The Union was fighting a war of conquest. I think that's a pretty big difference.
The point is that the Civil War shows that there are some causes which justify imperialism. Invading another country because we do not like it s political system is not automatically wrong. If a people are kept in bondage, or face extermination, then, history will well judge more favorably the man who sets them free, as much as it will forget the man who ignored him.
Like it or not, the closest test we will have to the era of the Civil War is the term of George Bush. Like Lincoln, Bush essentially trumped up charges, lied, in an effort to get blanket powers to prosecute his war. Like Lincoln, Bush suspended some liberties to do so. Like Lincoln, Bush was constantly undermined by not only his political opposition but by generals who did not view the war in the same moral terms and did not genuinely want to fight it. Both were crucified in the media and both were faced with political opposition that strongly argued that the cause of freedom did not justify the war.
There are of course a lot of differences too. Lincoln was very much a hands on President, continually replacing his generals, visiting his soldiers often in the field, actively seeking out and reviewing any sort of weapon's system to help win the war. Bush did none of that, and that hands off approach by Bush tellingly betrays a lack of personal confidence masked by his Texas bluster, whereas Lincoln, although battling depression lifelong, always could trust his own instincts in times of crisis, in ways that Bush could not. And, Lincoln too, although he did not live to fufill it, had a vision for the post-war that Bush simply lacked. Lincoln fought a war not only to end slavery, but to build a new kind of united states, whereas Bush did not ever really think beyond the concept of eliminating a dictator.
Re:Attention! (Score:4, Interesting)
how many opportunities were available to "freemen" in 1861? They had to fight and die on the side of the Union, (which despite not having slavery at the time)
The Union did have slavery in 1861. Slavery had been outlawed in some Union states for some time, but Maryland, Missouri, Delaware, and Kentucky were all slave states. And despite common belief, the Emancipation Proclamation (which did became effective Jan 1st 1863) did not outright outlaw slavery. It only addressed slavery in the Confederacy. Slavery was not actually abolished nation-wide until the 13th Amendment in late 1865.
Re:Lincoln and Bush (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah, but there is an undercurrent to tariffs as well. The reason that the south hated tarrifs was that they were a protectionist measure designed to protect the northern manufacturers from foreign competition. The south, being primarily agrarian, needed to import its manufactured goods and thus wanted them to be as inexpensive as possible and in the runup to the civil war, the best manufacturer was actually Great Britain.
But the fact of the matter is, the primary issue for the civil war was slavery. If you read the Confederate Constitution, it is actually almost a word for word copy of the Federal Constitution, but that, owning a slave is a basic civil right (unbelievable as it is), and that, they had a President with a single 6 year term, and a line item veto.
Interestingly, southern Presidents have actually proposed those two items be on our constitution.
Jimmy Carter once advocated for a single six year term but handled it so badly that the public walked away with the perception that he was trying to get another two years without having an election (untrue of course). The story of the line item veto is interesting.
For years, Republicans, sons of the south they are, argued for the line item veto, and, actually helped give it to Bill Clinton, who also a southerner, argued for it and it was the only thing in the Contract with America that he did support.
Unfortunately, a northern Republican named Rudy Guiliani sued and got the line item veto declared unconstitutional, by a Supreme Court that ruled 6-3 for the Rudy, which support included four justices appointed by conservatives and two genuine conservatives (renquist and thomas).
Re:Lincoln and Bush (Score:2, Interesting)
It is in the Constitution. It's the 22d Amendment [wikipedia.org].
And are you suggesting Scalia isn't a "true" conservative? How more conservative can you get than an originalist interpretation of the Constitution?