Memorial Day thoughts

First, per past blogging, let's remember what war Memorial Day was about — and what the war was ultimately about from the start, namely, slavery. (Note that John A. Logan also called out treason; note also that Black Americans were shoved aside after not too many years.)

Second, also per past writing, let's remember that it was about war dead, as in killed in action, and as in, war dead, not "first responders."

In light of one and two, I would be fine if, like with the short-lived Veterans Day experience, we ended the Monday holiday and moved it to May 30.

Third, can we remember that, other than being less aggressive about the Klan, Knights of the Camellia, etc. than Lincoln presumably would have been, that Andy Johnson was largely following Lincoln's "rosewater" Reconstruction? Even more, can we remember that, just a week before his assassination, Lincoln was STILL interested in colonization of free Blacks, even if many modern historians lyingly deny that? And, contra them, Lincoln may never have spoken in public about colonization after Jan. 1, 1863, but he never publicly repudiated it, either.

To summarize? Here's your two most important links on Lincoln and colonization.

Phillip Magness, in the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, talks in detail here, about the likely reality of Lincoln holding on to colonization ideas until the end of his life. MUCH more, about that April 1865 meeting between Lincoln and Butler, which did in fact happen. He also notes that Carl Schurz and George W. Julian both say that Lincoln continued to push colonization after issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. 

 

Magness expands on some of these thoughts in an edited and condensed version of his Lincoln journal thoughts, at his own website, in 2015, seven years later. 

 

Now, Magness may need to be taken with a grain of salt. Teaches at James Mason, and while not a Lincoln-libertarian hater like Lerone Bennett, does teach at James Mason, and per his personal website, likes to throw elbows at libruls. He's the research director of the American Institute for Economic Research, located in (drumroll) Great Barrington, Massachusetts, of recent COVID herd immunity promoting fame and, per Wiki, even supported the Great Barrington Declaration. But, he cites Michael Lind, no wingnut, in addition to Bennett, as keeping the door open on this issue.