ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S WHITE DREAM (Johnson Publishing, 1999)
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GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1 TWO PRESIDENTS, EMBODIMENTS OF AMERICAN RACISM “Lincoln must be seen as the embodiment, not the transcendence, of the American tradition of racism.” — Lerone Bennett, Jr., FORCED INTO GLORY: ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S WHITE DREAM (Johnson Publishing, 1999) 1. “Crosseyed people look funny.” — This is the 1st known image of Lincoln, a plate that was exposed in about 1846. Lincoln had a “lazy eye,” and at that early point the Daguerreotypists had not yet learned how to pose their subjects in order to evade the problem of one eye staring off at an angle. This wasn’t just Susan B. Anthony, and Francis Ellingwood Abbot, and Abraham Lincoln, and Jean-Paul Sartre, and Galileo Galilei, and Ben Turpin and Marty Feldman. Actually, this is a very general problem, with approximately one person out of every 25 to 50 suffering from some degree of strabismus (termed crossed eyes, lazy eye, turned eye, squint, double vision, floating, wandering, wayward, drifting, truant eyes, wall eyes described as having “one eye in York and the other in Cork”). Strabismus that is congenital, or develops in infancy, can create a brain condition known as amblyopia, in which to some degree the input from an eye are ignored although it is still capable of sight — or at least privileges inputs from the other eye. An article entitled “Was Rembrandt stereoblind?,” outlining research by Professor Margaret Livingstone of Harvard University and colleagues, was published in the September 14, 2004, issue of the _New England Journal of Medicine_. Rembrandt, a prolific painter of self-portraits, producing almost 100 if we include some 20 etchings. Researchers who computer-mapped the direction of his gaze in 36 of these self-depictions discovered that in 35 of the 36 he was depicting himself as having a unilateral strabismus (when one eye looks straight ahead while the other deviates sideways). He would have been, in the popular terminology, considered “crosseyed.” This would have impacted depth perception and may very well offer important information in regard to his painting style. HDT WHAT? INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE According to the black scholar Lerone Bennett, Jr.’s FORCED INTO GLORY: ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S WHITE DREAM (Johnson Publishing Company, 1999), Abraham Lincoln was fond of the word “nigger” and was constantly telling “darky jokes.” This president’s dream was of a “lily-white America without Native Americans, African Americans and Martin Luther Kings.” White scholars, Bennett insists, have “consistently softpedaled” Lincoln’s racism, praising frauds such as his Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln is portrayed as not wanting his proclamation to succeed, but instead merely buying time until he could help the slaves out — out of America. His agenda was to use them, then throw them away. His son Robert Todd Lincoln’s pronounced “Negrophobia,” then (he could not bear to be touched by any black servant, or to allow any black servant to ever touch any of his possessions), may be taken to be not an aberration but one of those situations in which a son had taken after his father. HDT WHAT? INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE The War between the Presidents President Lincoln 1809-1865 President Davis 1808-1889 “To be active, well, happy, implies rare courage. To be ready to fight in a duel or a battle implies desperation, or that you hold your life cheap.” — Henry Thoreau HDT WHAT? INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1637 Samuel Lincoln of Hingham in England settled in Hingham MA.2 2. A book of genealogy I have consulted which traces the lineal descendants of Thomas (sic) Lincoln of Hingham in 1636 makes no mention of any descendant named Abraham, despite the fact that this book traces this man’s line of descendants down to 1895. ABRAHAM LINCOLN HDT WHAT? INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1778 Thomas Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln’s father, not known to be any descendant of Samuel Lincoln of Hingham MA) was born in Virginia. HDT WHAT? INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1782 In this year Thomas Lincoln relocated with his family from Virginia to Kentucky. ABRAHAM LINCOLN HDT WHAT? INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1786 Thomas Lincoln’s father was killed by native Americans. ABRAHAM LINCOLN HDT WHAT? INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1806 Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks were wed. A daughter, Sarah, would be born 8 months later. ABRAHAM LINCOLN HDT WHAT? INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1808 Thomas Lincoln bought a farm called Sinking Spring near Hodgenville, Kentucky. ABRAHAM LINCOLN HDT WHAT? INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1809 February 12, Sunday: Abraham Lincoln was born in a rustic cabin on Nolan Creek near Hogdenville, Kentucky and Charles Darwin was born on a country estate near Shrewsbury in Shropshire. The child named Abraham would go on to become revered first as the bravest of frontier Indian-slayers and then as the author of an “emancipation” order in which he purported to have set free all persons whom he had no power to set free while keeping in slavery all persons whom he had the power to keep in slavery — surely one of the most cynical political documents ever produced by the powers of the human mind. The child named Charles would go on to author one of the most inspiring scientific treatises ever produced by the powers of the human mind, on the origin of species, and to be condemned as the creator of a new pseudo-scientific legitimation for the black slavery that as a young man he had seen in brutal practice along the coast of South America — a slavery which, for the remainder of his life in his comfortable home in Down, England, would be giving him recurrent nightmares and attacks of panic. Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1 day 12 of 2 M / Rather small meetings & no preachings - Sister E dined with us - In the Afternoon I went to Saml Thurstons & took tea & spent the eveng & my H at brother Davids RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE Political Parties Then and Now ROUND 1 DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICANS FEDERALISTS Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, 1792 et al. representing the North and commercial interests Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, et al. representing 1796 the South and landowning interests 1817- James Monroe’s “factionless” era of good feelings, ho ho ho 1824 ROUND 2A DEMOCRATS NATIONAL REPUBLICANS John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, representing the North and the commercial interests, 1828 and in addition the residents of border states ROUND 2B DEMOCRATS WHIGS Andrew Jackson, representing the South John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and landowning interests, plus wannabees such as representing the North and the commercial interests, 1832 our small farmers, backwoods go-getters, the “little and residents of border states, and in addition the anti- guy on the make” in general Jackson Democrats ROUND 3 DEMOCRATS REPUBLICANS Abraham Lincoln, William Henry Seward, representing 1856 Northerners, urbanites, business types, factory workers, and (more or less) the abolitionist movement ROUND 4 DEMOCRATS REPUBLICANS 1932- F.D.R., representing Northeasterners, urbanites, Representing businesspeople, farmers, white-collar 1960 blue-collar workers, Catholics, liberals, and types, Protestants, the “Establishment,” right-to-lifers, assorted ethnics moral majoritarians, and in general, conservatism of the “I’ve got mine, let’s see you try to get yours” stripe. Our Fearless Leaders NAME BORN INAUGURATED EX OFFICIO DIED GEORGE WASHINGTON 1789 1792 JOHN ADAMS 1796 JULY 4, 1826 HDT WHAT? INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE Our Fearless Leaders NAME BORN INAUGURATED EX OFFICIO DIED THOMAS JEFFERSON APRIL 13, 1743 1800 DITTO 1804 JAMES MADISON 1808 1812 JAMES MONROE 1816 1820 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 1824 ANDREW JACKSON 1828 1832 MARTIN VAN BUREN 1836 WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 1840 JOHN TYLER 1841 JAMES K. POLK 1844 ZACHARY TAYLOR 1848 FRANKLIN PEIRCE 1852 JAMES BUCHANAN 1856 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1860 1864 HDT WHAT? INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1811 Spring: The Lincolns relocated to a 230-acre farm on Knob Creek in Kentucky ten miles from Sinking Spring. ABRAHAM LINCOLN HDT WHAT? INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1812 A brother of Abraham Lincoln, Thomas, was born but would die in infancy. HDT WHAT? INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1815 During this year young Abraham Lincoln attended a log schoolhouse. James Riley and other sailors were shipwrecked on the African coast at what is now Mauritania, and were made prisoners by a band of Bedouin. A Moroccan trader, Sidi Hamet (Ahmed), would ransom them.3 TIMELINE OF ACCIDENTS 3. Later on, when Abraham Lincoln would be asked in 1860 what books had influenced him, he would mention the narrative to be written by James Riley, and Riley’s appreciation of this generous unexpected gesture by Sidi Hamet. HDT WHAT? INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1816 During this year Abraham Lincoln was able to attend school but briefly. December: The family of Abraham Lincoln crossed the Ohio River and resettled in the backwoods of Indiana. HDT WHAT? INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1817 February: Abraham Lincoln, age 7, shot a wild turkey but suffered such great remorse that he would never hunt again (except the hunt of human beings known as war, which was just fine).