• PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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    2 months ago

    who only ever emancipated PoC for military strategy

    Not even close to true.

    and floated the idea of deporting all the newly freed persons to some island multiple times rather than dealing with integrating them into society.

    Colonization was widely supported pre-Civil War by leaders of the Black community as well.

    He wrecked radical reconstruction by being ultra soft on Confederates

    Out of no small concern for the prospect of a guerilla war sparking up - something which the KKK several years later, thankfully after the Confederates had been largely disarmed and disbanded, did end up creating in response to losing their ‘privileges’ over Black folk as part of Reconstruction. As they were disorganized and ill-equipped, President Grant was able to decisively put them down and eradicate their organization as well as their fighting capacity with the use of Federal troops. If those numbers had been swollen years earlier by freshly desperate Confederate veterans, still in close contact with their units? It would not have gone as smoothly as it did.

    Fuck, man. People are products of their time and environment. Take the quote as the W it is.

    • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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      2 months ago

      Not even close to true.

      “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.” - Abraham Lincoln in an open letter to Horace Greeley, 1862.

      Colonization was widely supported pre-Civil War by leaders of the Black community as well.

      Maybe in a world where being freed in the USA seemed impossible, and from a place of struggle. Not out of the mouth of the most powerful man in the country AFTER these people were made free.

      Out of no small concern for the prospect of a guerilla war sparking up - something which the KKK several years later, thankfully after the Confederates had been largely disarmed and disbanded, did end up creating in response to losing their ‘privileges’ over Black folk as part of Reconstruction

      Leaving Confederates largely in power is exactly what led to this. The system had to be dismantled not wishy-washy “oh just say you’re loyal now and you can go back to your life”. This left Confederates in a position in society that hugely hampered financial and societal freedom of the freedmen in a vicious, self worsening cycle setting them back into a spiral of poverty that led to nearly as bad conditions as slavery.

      People are products of their time

      There are people from that time with FAR better views and actions than Lincoln.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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        2 months ago

        That quote in no way backs up

        who only ever emancipated PoC for military strategy

        I deliberately avoided contesting

        because he, as stated plainly more than once, cared far more that the country stay together than for the well-being of PoC.

        Maybe in a world where being freed in the USA seemed impossible, and from a place of struggle. Not out of the mouth of the most powerful man in the country AFTER these people were made free.

        Lincoln publicly spoke out in favor of full integration of Black Americans into the national fabric before his death. Most sources agree Lincoln abandoned colonization shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation; others say only after the approval of the 13th by the Senate.

        Leaving Confederates largely in power is exactly what led to this. The system had to be dismantled not wishy-washy “oh just say you’re loyal now and you can go back to your life”.

        Confederates were largely not left in power by Lincoln. Do you not remember the terms laid down by Reconstruction before Johnson?

        There are people from that time with FAR better views and actions than Lincoln.

        Okay?