Savant's Words

Right and Left are historical in meaning, and by the standards of THAT time, Lincoln was centrist with left leanings. Actually, he was opposed to slavery as the Kennedy's were later opposed to Jim Crow, But Lincoln, like Kennedy, was a POLITICIAN. He had to be pushed into taking an anti-slavery stand. For while his speeches and letters reveal an anti-Slavery sentiment, Lincoln like all politicians first think of political interest. Abolitionism and the requirements of war did push Lincoln--after Gettysburg victory--to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. This DID give the North now a MORAL advantage, both nationally and internationally. Northern armies were just invaders but--as one Union soldier put it in a letter to his family--"we are now the ARMED LIBERATERS of millions." Southerners couldn't just say that they were defending themselves and their "way of life" from invaders, for now they were clearly defending slavery.(In fact, they always were but could no longer hide this fact in the court of world opinion).

European countries were undecided about how to respond; conservative privileged classes were sympathetic to the South, and the laboring classes--always mroe advanced than American workers--clearly sided with the North.(I've read some letters by European workers to Lincoln in which they clearly saw slavery and the most degrading exploitation of labor, and the defeat of the Confederacy as in the interests of all working class people. Also, read Karl Marx's letter in support of Lincoln and the Union. Marx was not supporting a right wing cause). Lincoln had to be PUSHED to the left. That I will agree with. But the REAL right coldn't be pushed to end a systme of bondage than enriched them. They had to be CRUSHED.

-Savant

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Lincoln was not really an abolitionist though some of his writings seem to indicate that he was personally opposed to slavery. Mainly he was a "centrist liberal" politician. W.E.B. Du Bois makes a similar argument, if I recall, in BLACK RECONSTRUCTION. A conflict between agrarian inteests based on slavery, and industrial interests based on the exploitation of "free labor". Abolitionists and some others were moved by moral motivations. Capitalists were not, but their own interests eventually became incompatible with slavery--with CHATTEL slavery, not "wage slavery."

-Savant

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 That “states rights” line you heard from Southern apologists. Confederats. The “right” those states wanted was the right to own slaves. The issues of tariffs and all other BS they bring up all was dependent on slavery. Tariffs disproportionately affected the South because of slavery. Face it, many white Southerners were evil enough to put the country through a prolonged bloody war in order to preserve their evil bloody slavery system.

-Ish Tov

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He's utterly whacked. Abdurratln  also offers support in one thread to the Tea Party, Mitt Romney; and he has expressed sympathy for Joe Stalin as well as (slightly more guarded) Adolph Hitler. I am quite aware of Black reactionaries. But even the most right wing Blacks I've met never espressed pro-Hitler sentiments. Most are not so stupid as to be unaware of what would happen to our Black a___ in a NAZI regime. Indeed, Hitler carted THOUSANDS of European Blacks to concentration camps. He would have slain millions if that many had been available in Germany at the time.

-Savant


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