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."
No... (Score:5, Funny)
If he was alive today, we'd call him a zombie...
Re:No... (Score:5, Funny)
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Or a really powerful Jedi. For all you Robot Chicken fans out there.
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If he was alive today he'd be busted... (Score:5, Informative)
...for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. He even wrote a letter to the Hohner Harmonica company stating how he loved to sit on his porch, smoking "sweet hemp" from a corncob pipe and playing his harmonica. He very likely smoked it even while in the Whitehouse, or on or about the Whitehouse grounds, since hemp smoking was rather commonplace in the mid-1800's.
mod parent informative (Score:2)
let people see another facet of live in 19th century
Bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
Find some documentation for that quote. It's source is a Huffington Post article praising pot, but the author gives no documentation for it. No one else seems to have a genuine source for it either, all of them circling back to that HuffPuff piece as a reference. Until I see actual proof this quote is genuine, I'm calling it just another Internet urban legend.
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No. Zombies are undead. Please hand in your geek card.
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SCNR
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If he were alive, we'd applaud him on his undoubtedly correct use of the subjunctive voice.
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*head explodes* (figuratively)
sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Why always the painfully stupid condescension?
Communicating science (or history) well to a general audience doesn't require this. See Carl Sagan. If anything, such unnecessary analogies make things *less* clear.
Re:Mod parent up (Score:2)
The closest thing to instant messaging in the days of Lincoln was talking face-to-face. Telegraph, optical, electronic or otherwise, doesn't really have an equivalent today, because it had a ridiculously low bandwidth and slower transmission times.
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>>>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.
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Bandwidth isn't length of message but throughput.
Another tick (Score:5, Insightful)
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"your most vital line of supplies"
You can't eat information nor does it bandage you. But yes, I share your opinion that information is paramount to winning a war. You need to be able to collect, filter, spread, distort and destroy information properly in order to win a war. That, and have a big ass army :)
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.
Though the names change... (Score:5, Insightful)
When Lincoln took office the White House had no telegraph connection. Lincoln 'developed the modern electronic leadership model'
Is that what kids are calling it nowadays? I must be out of date - I was raised to call it micromanagement.
Re:Though the names change... (Score:5, Insightful)
Micromanagement is a meme attached to people -- not technology.
Re:Though the names change... (Score:5, Funny)
Micromanagement is a meme attached to StarCraft.
Fixed.
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I'm not sure what the kids are calling THAT nowadays, but what they called it when I was a lad was an IDIOT.
Log-splitting bumpkin, huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
President Abraham Lincoln's popular image as a log-splitting bumpkin is being re-assessed
I doubt any serious Lincoln scholar would ever say Lincoln was a "log-splitting bumpkin". He was a brilliant, self educated man with a ferocious curiosity and probably one of the highest IQs of any president we've ever had. The guy who managed to end slavery, preserve the Union, AND assist in ushering in modern medical techniques on the battlefield a log-splitting bumpkin? Yeah, sure.
It's been said that because he was such a deep and complex personality, our society sees Lincoln not necessarily as who he was, but he is a reflection of our current state of mind as a nation. When we began to focus on racial issues, he was an obvious focal point, when depression became more widely known, he was thought to have been depressed, gay rights bring him up as possibly being our first gay president... and slashdot calls him an early adopter.
He was probably our greatest American president ever.
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He was probably our greatest American president ever
Very much so, and he was a hell of a killer too. As a percentage of population, Lincoln killed more Americans than all the rest of the US Presidents combined and by a fairly wide margin.
If we went by percentage of population in casualties, the Civil War, if fought today, would result in almost 7 million dead. If there were slaves in the South today, there would be more than a few people that might suggest that such titanic destruction is not worth it.
Eve
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The only down side to the civil war is, upon reflection, we probably would be better off without those dead weight southern states.
Re:Log-splitting bumpkin, huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
He was probably our greatest American president ever
Very much so, and he was a hell of a killer too. As a percentage of population, Lincoln killed more Americans than all the rest of the US Presidents combined and by a fairly wide margin.
If you make that assertion because you think he was responsible for the entire war, think again. The hotheads in the south who seceded before he even took the oath of office, and the even hotter heads in South Carolina who started the fighting -- those are the idiots who started the war.
The south is especialy culpable because 50 years before during the War of 1812, when the New England states tried to open negotitations with the national government on seceding [wikipedia.org], the south was foremost in calling it treason. 50 years later they decided treason was perfectly fine.
Lincoln and Bush (Score:4, Insightful)
he hotheads in the south who seceded before he even took the oath of office, and the even hotter heads in South Carolina who started the fighting -- those are the idiots who started the war.
My question is this: why is it treason for a state to want to secede? I mean, it's a shitty thing, but, if the elected leaders of a state wanted to secede, then wouldn't it make the USA a sort of an empire to trample that state into remaining in the union?
As far as Fort Sumter goes, Lincoln was given the choice of removing the troops and letting the South have the base. He told, rightly, the south to go pound sand and organized a relief mission of the fort and a federal blockade instead.
The fact of the matter is this, the Civil War was a blatant act of imperialism by the north, upon the south, a war that was pushed into all of its horrors by Abraham Lincoln, and he was right to do it. The great lesson of the civil war is that there are times when sovereignty must be set aside for a greater good, and that some imperialism is justifiable.
IT was right for Abraham Lincoln to destroy the South and end slavery, and, if anyone is like the Lincoln of our day, it may well be that it was right for George Bush to invade Iraq and destroy the Baath Party.
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Why is secession wrong?
It gave each state a veto over all federal legislation, indeed over every other state's own internal legislation. If any state didn't like what the federal government or any other state government was doing, it could threaten to secede.
One of the main arguments for secession was by South Carolina. They didn't like the high tariffs imposed by the majority, claimed that every individual state had the power to veto federal legislation, and threatened to secede if tariffs were enforced
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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 yo
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New to this world? Never heard anyone speak of any organization's institutional history or memory? Playing dumb because using your brain is too much work?
Re:Log-splitting bumpkin, huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
So did Davis. What's your point?
Just to play devil's advocate...
If the Union would have stopped fighting, the Confederacy probably would have too. The rebels had no desire to conquer the North, and would have been satisfied with a "two-state" solution.
If the Confederates would have unilaterally stopped fighting, the Union wouldn't have stopped until they had forced the rebel states back into the Union.
The Confederacy was fighting for its existence. The Union was fighting a war of conquest. I think that's a pretty big difference.
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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 no
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Lincoln did not end slavery, not even in the U.S. (Nixon did that, when he ended the draft). His public actions against slavery applied only to states over which he had no control, as any honest historian will tell you.
Lincoln introduced an income tax, suspended habeus corpus, and viciously supressed freedom of speech and assembly.
By insisting upon preserving the union, he caused the deaths of more North Americans than any president to this very day.
After the suppression of Shay's Rebellion (1787) and the W
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Exactly.
The United States holds the distinction of being the only country where a civil war was tied to the issue of slavery. To put matters in perspective, it would've been cheaper to buy all the slaves and a fair amount of land for them than to pay for the civil war.
The twisted notion that Lincoln's civil war was an act of brilliance stinks of indoctrination.
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Do you think that if the slaves were purchased that way, it would've ended slavery? Wouldn't the South have just brought more slaves in to replace the old?
Of course the South would've brought more slaves.
My point is that the war was so expensive that even buying the slaves and land for their families would've been cheaper. I never claimed this was a practical solution. If I had to propose a solution, it would involve not provoking the South with tariffs which essentially amounted to commercial blockades, an
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Yeah, because buying the slaves and land would've fixed the problem. I'm sure that the Southern States, having received said lump sum payment, would've abolished slavery after this. This reminds me of arguments that I have with left wing nuts who claim if we were nice to the terrorists that they'd leave us alone. There is no guarantee that either the states would've sold the north the slaves or that they would've refrained from getting more slaves afterwards.
Go read my comment again. I never suggested that
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To put matters in perspective, it would've been cheaper to buy all the slaves and a fair amount of land for them than to pay for the civil war.
This was a direct quote from your post. You are inferring that it would've somehow cost less to do this than to pay for the war. Only, you still would've had the same damn problem. So really, in the end, fixing the real problem (biggoted Southern States who were violating the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES) would've cost a lot more.
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biggoted Southern States who were violating the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
It's pretty ridiculous to suggest that the Union was interested in defending the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, because one of Lincoln's greatest acts of tyranny was the unconstitutional suspension of habeas corpus.
In fact, the civil war can be considered a power grab by the federal government, in direct opposition to the Constitution.
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Re:Log-splitting bumpkin, huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Log-splitting bumpkin, huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>Back in the old days, populism got you elected.
Nothing's changed.
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Careful with those size tens, matey, you just stepped all over zullneros shiny new joke.
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The one drawback of Lincoln was that he was racist - as were most people of his time. He used the word "nigger" in his 1860 campaign, and he once was remarked that he did not care if slavery ended or continued. "If freeing the slaves would preserve the Union, I would do it. If keeping slavery would preserve the Union, I would do that." (Source: CBS News Morning show, this past Thursday)
>>>self educated man with a ferocious curiosity and probably one of the highest IQs of any president we've eve
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Continued:
3. John F. Kennedy, 159.8
4. Bill Clinton, 159
5. Jimmy Carter, 156.8
6. Woodrow Wilson, 155.2
7. Theodore Roosevelt, 153
8. Chester A. Arthur, 152.3
9. Abraham Lincoln, 150 ---- I thought he'd rank higher, but he is just a "dumb" Republican after all (just joking)
And here's the bottom of the barrel:
Harry S. Truman, 140
George W. Bush, 138.5
Ulysses S. Grant, 130
average college graduate, 109
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...he once was remarked that he did not care if slavery ended or continued.
Absolutely false.
"If freeing the slaves would preserve the Union, I would do it. If keeping slavery would preserve the Union, I would do that." (Source: CBS News Morning show, this past Thursday)
Okay, you've quoted something that establishes he valued preserving the Union over ending slavery. Now where's this quote that would establish he did not care if slavery ended or continued?
Lincoln was an abolitionist. He was a notorious abolitionist. So much so that southern states started seceding before he even took office. To suggest he didn't care if slavery ended or continued flies in the face of the facts. He cared very much. He just cared for the Union even more.
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So in terms of hard, scientific validity, there is no basis for that statement - just a subjective assessment of him by myself, and of the true Lincoln scholars.
I
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Booth was willing to die for what he felt was an attack on his country.
If Booth was willing to die to prevent an attack on his country, that would make him patriotic. OTOH, being willing to die in an act of revenge just makes you an asshat...
Yeah, he set the stage for modern America (Score:2)
By declaring martial law and throwing a lot of the Constitution (Habeas Corpus, for instance) out the window:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/historicdocuments/a/lincolnhabeas.htm?rd=1 [about.com]
He had a lot journalist in the North jailed for no reason other than he thought should be (no evidence needed).
In fact, a lot of things that took place under Bush would not have been possible if it weren't for Abraham Lincoln.
Transporter_ii
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The worst part of American patriotism is that we deify leaders of the past. FDR, another revered leader, also put certain racial groups into concentration camps. 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.
When people have a hero, they never let go, and will always ignore their evils and even make excuses for them.
We always lament the politicians of today and then glorify them long after they are
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: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.
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While some people do look at the past with rose tinted glasses some people look too hard to find a reason to tear down historic figures. I think people don't realise our way of life is hasn't been around that long at all. The truth about Lincoln almost certainly lies in between the positive and negative views of him.
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The worst part of American patriotism is that we deify leaders of the past. FDR, another revered leader, also put certain racial groups into concentration camps. 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.
Playing Devil's Advocate here, but I don't recall FDR getting any ovens fired up.
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Okay, I've never seen this defense. But it can work. The only Japanese in America put into camps were on the West Coast. The Japanese Navy had active plans to invade there. They'd already successfully attacked Hawaii. If Japanese marines had come aground, we can be sure that national guard and civilian militias would be firing on anyone who looked Japanese
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Yeah, force the Japanese americans in the suburbs to shoddy camps, having them lose their property, their homes, to "protect" them.
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Jewish != Israeli
(Not that it's relevant to the argument, it just needs saying in these troubled times.)
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The Japanese Navy had active plans to invade there....If Japanese marines had come aground, we can be sure that national guard and civilian militias would be firing on anyone who looked Japanese.
Right, they'd be firing on shop owners stocking their shelves, on farm workers loading boxes of oranges, on teachers leading children in their lessons. You really think they were put in camps because the government was afraid average folks of Japanese descent going about their normal lives as they had for years would be easily mistaken for uniformed troops of the Imperial Japanese Army/Marines storming inland at Santa Monica in full uniform, carrying machine guns and mortars? Bullshit. Complete, utter ratio
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That's not quite correct. Check out Article I, Section 9, paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution:
"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."
I think the Civil War could accurately be considered a case of rebellion.
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Yes but it is CONGRESS who suspends habeas corpus, not the president. Lincoln was exercising a power not granted to him. For a president to grab legislative power is somewhat similar to when Julius Caesar assumed control of the Roman Senate. The executive and the legislative power is not meant to be in the hands of just one man.
Ex parte Merryman the judge wrote, "These great and fundamental laws, which congress itself could not suspend, have been disregarded and suspended by a military order, supported b
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That's not quite correct, either. Many states joined the union with the explicit understanding that they could leave it...and before the war, they could, after all it was a VOLUNTARY union.
After the war, power was consolidated at the federal level. The states were now in a voluntary union in the same way that United Nations "peace keeping" armed forces create "peace."
The states in "rebellion" were not states because they were no longer part of the Union that Lincoln controlled.
Keep in mind that slavery died
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The Union is like a Roach Motel.
You can check in voluntarily, but you can't get back out so easily.
Or maybe it's like the Hotel California.
Whatever.
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That made me laugh out loud. But seriously, that is not how the early states saw it. Many states left a way out when they signed on. Here are two:
-=-=-=-=
The delegates for the state of Virginia, in their ratification statement, expressed clearly the right of secession when they wrote: "We the delegates of the people of Virginia, duly elected...do, in the name and behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known, that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the Uni
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"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." I think the Civil War could accurately be considered a case of rebellion.
...and to those that maintain there was no rebellion in the north, let's not forget the draft riots in New York [wikipedia.org].
Lincoln was a gay, wait no he was a nerd. (Score:4, Interesting)
First post: What hath god wrought! (Score:5, Interesting)
*** "What hath god wrought" is considered to be the first documented telegraph message.
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The only president with a patent? Not true, unless (Score:5, Informative)
...unless you read the wikipedia on Thomas Jefferson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson [wikipedia.org]
There are none of Thomas Jefferson's patents on the page. In fact it doesn't even mention his involvement in the patent act of 1790, http://etext.virginia.edu/journals/EH/EH40/walter40.html [virginia.edu]
He invented a Moldboard Plow Of Least Resistance, Wheel Cipher, Portable Copying Press, and an improved polygraph for copying handwritten text.
http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~meg3c/classes/tcc313/200Rprojs/jefferson_invent/invent.html [virginia.edu]
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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.)
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See http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/winter2000/jefferson.html [earlyamerica.com] for info on Jefferson and patents. Note in particular:
"Jefferson, a strong proponent of equality among all people, was not sure if it was fair or even constitutional to grant what was essentially a monopoly to an inventor, who would then be able to grant the use of his idea only to those who could afford it. His feeling that all should have total access to new technology was one of the reasons he never took out a patent on his own inventions."
At last! (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:At last! (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, I think you're right:
ls /var/log/*.log
/var/log/apport.log /var/log/kdm.log /var/log/scrollkeeper.log
/var/log/auth.log /var/log/kern.log /var/log/user.log
/var/log/bootstrap.log /var/log/lpr.log /var/log/uucp.log
/var/log/daemon.log /var/log/mail.log /var/log/wvdialconf.log
/var/log/dpkg.log /var/log/pycentral.log /var/log/Xorg.0.log
/var/log/fontconfig.log /var/log/rkhunter.log /var/log/Xorg.10.log
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we'd call him an early adopter? (Score:5, Funny)
Personally I would call him 'Mr President'.
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Yeah, but really all those white people in the church are all played by Eddie Murphy.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/10356/saturday-night-live-white-like-me [hulu.com]
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>>>If Obama's church were so hostile towards whites, it wouldn't have a fairly large amount of whites in attendance every Sunday.
Question:
How do you post such blatant (and easily debunked) lies like that, and still live with yourself? I just youtubed not one but several different videos, and I did not see one single white face in the audience. Not one.
Re:he also used the word nigger a lot (Score:4, Informative)
P.S. I just reviewed the video again. I did see ONE white face. Still not a "large amount" as the grandparent falsely claimed. Check it out for ye self. Listen to the hate speech (and yes that is the proper term): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwQWuQVE6sw [youtube.com]
"Can't we all just...get along?"
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If Obama's church were so hostile towards whites, it wouldn't have a fairly large amount of whites in attendance every Sunday.
You've never seen the legions of white kids who listen to Public Enemy, have you?
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Re:he also used the word nigger a lot (Score:4, Insightful)
At some point it used to be acceptable to use the term "colored" as well. Not sure when all that changed.
It occurs to me as strange every time I hear the letters "NAACP". I understand that it would have been strange to re-name the org "NAAAAP" when the P.C. terms shifted from "colored" to "African American", but I think that's the only remaining place where the term "colored" is still appropriate when referring to race...
(As a side note, there are a few interesting scenes in Steven King's dark tower series where a "modern" white guy is conversing with a black woman from a few decades back. As would likely be the case, she's very upset when he calls her "black" and insists on the term colored, making him somewhat uncomfortable.)
What does all this have to do with Lincoln being an early adopter of tech again?
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.
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"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:Attention! (Score:5, Insightful)
You see no social equality because people of eropean-decendent have done a mediocre job of trying to bring it about. While on the other side of the equation people of African decent are trying to jump up 1000-years of technological development with all the historical power-imbalences that entails.
Think about how HUGE social differences were - 200 years ago every black man in America was a slave, think on the sheer brutality that implies. In the 1960's (within living memory) seggregation was an established part of much of American society. When slavery was abolished it's not like education or skilled-jobs suddenly jumped into black communities, these things take generations to nuture from parent to child.
Any "physical differences" between races are at most 3rd or 4th order effects. My guess is it wil take a 100 years or more before social equality has advanced to the point where being black and in power in AMERICA is not noteworthy let alone the rest of the world. You've just elected your first black president - celebrate man this is how progress is made, and how we make up for the misdeeds and ill-gotten gains of pyshcopathic forefathers (on every side).
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200 years ago every black man in America was a slave, think on the sheer brutality that implies.
Untrue. [wikipedia.org] There were half a million free blacks living in the US at the beginning of the Civil War. "200 years ago", 14% of the black population was free.
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Maybe someone needs to go back to Math class. 2009 - 200 is 1809 which is also 200 years since Lincoln was born and not the start of the American Civil War. Also if you reread the article you linked you'd realize that the statistics say African Americans made up 14% of the overall population and 11% of those were free if you do the math.
Now if you ignore all your errors 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 s
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.
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>>>That is cool and all, but looking back at how much his blackness was hyped in the media all around the world...
Do you think it would have been any different if Hillary had won?
The first time is notable, whether it be a black president or a woman president.
Next time it will be no big deal.
not very different eh? (Score:3, Informative)
I myself, would have gone a step further and stripped the right from the very stupid (joe six-packs)
Parent is NOT a troll (Score:5, Informative)
The parent post certainly expresses what we today consider racist opinions, but they are what Lincoln thought, they are a direct response to its parent post, and it is not a troll.
Mods -- just because history is racist does not make reports on history racist.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Please. Even ardent abolitionists of the era would be considered racist by today's standards. Lincoln would have been raised and taught by both the scientists and the clergy of the day that blacks were inherently inferior, incapable of existing in civilized society without the firm guidance of whites. It's not fair to single him out and apply today's standards and expect him to measure up. You can't argue that he was considerably more progressive on the issue then most of his peers. Like all politician