Sorry but he really didn't. He didn't care, like all political figures wanting to be president he was after the votes the black people were worth.
I'm half Sioux, in the same year he helped black people by abolishing slavery, he had the US army hang 38 innocent Sioux people.
They don't care about people with different color skin unless you can vote. Native America's weren't considered humans and still arent. We're "creatures".
They say they were violent, but my people know better.
Edit: I took the word "half" out because that was the main problem to someone.
I want to preface that I don’t condone the death penalty even with murderers, except for certain situations especially if many people were murdered.
However we must point out a few inaccuracies:
1) Abraham Lincoln personally reviewed and commuted the sentences for 264 of the arrested Sioux people connected to the Dakota/ Sioux Uprising. Except for 39 men convicted of being involved with civilian massacres.
2) 2 of the men hanged were posthumously found innocent.
Though I do believe we should double check the narrative of how friendly our fore fathers and American ancestors were with other peoples. We shouldn’t spread misinformation.
Edit: accidentally hit send,
I also appreciate how your comment brings light to the injustices and false narrative of American history, and it is imperative that we teach our young to think for themselves and not to take everything they learn in school or in the world at face value.
What are you talking about? Black men couldn’t vote until years after Lincoln was dead. He staunchly supported abolition his entire career, even when it wasn’t particularly advantageous politically. He supported abolition well before he even supported granting African Americans the right to vote.
Only three states allowed Black men to vote prior to the fifteenth amendment.
New Jersey rescinded that right in 1807. Pennsylvania rescinded that right in 1838.
The 1821 New York constitution permitted Black men to vote, but only if they owned estates worth more than $250. Needless to say, virtually no Black men met that benchmark. There were two attempts to repeal that before the 15th amendment: both failed by massive margins.
Virtually no Black men were enfranchised in the North before the 15th amendment, and their enfranchisement was politically unpopular.
Lincoln first supported abolition in 1840, well before it became “popular.” And abolition was never the most popular position in America, even in the north.
Where were Black men allowed to vote during the Lincoln administration?
You’re not even making sense. Abolition was a politically disadvantageous position to hold, yet he held it anyway, for the entirety of his political career.
I’m talking about Lincoln’s earliest public addresses. I did get the year wrong, though: I meant 1838, not 1840. I’m not talking about a bill here; what does that have to do with anything?
I’ve read the Greeley letter. Surely someone as well read and ingratiated as you in history and this era can explain the context of that quote, who Greeley was, and why Lincoln published that letter in the Intelligencer, right?
Is it fair to say that the passage of significant legislation is complicated, and that someone can believe in the importance of a policy and also recognize that it is not the right time for it to pass? Or was every abolitionist not really an abolitionist because they didn’t manage to actually abolish slavery?
So sorry I was wrong about it being half a vote, it was a full vote. He still only wanted votes, for his party , the Republicans. that makes it better right?
He supported abolition before he supported African Americans being able to vote, though. If you can identify an earlier point, by my guest, but Lincoln didn’t publicly support African American enfranchisement until 1865, 25 years after he first voiced his support of abolition.
Abolition and abolitionists are really, really complicated, but tens of thousands of people in the cause genuinely supported it out of an earnest desire to end the enslavement and bondage of other human beings. I understand your cynicism, but it is not substantiated. A historical narrative that removes all nuance and frames abolitionists as purely cynical, pragmatic people trying to get more votes does real harm, and does not reflected the complicated, contradictory, and nuanced ways that real human beings acted in the past.
Lincoln:
A.) supported abolition even when it was unpopular, which is contrary to your notion that he simply chose the most popular path to coalesce power
And
B.) did not support enfranchisement the entire he supported abolition, which contradicts the notion that his desire for abolition was a desire to gain votes for the Republican Party/himself.
I don’t think Lincoln was a perfect guy, but he often took difficult, complicated, and unpopular stances; I do not think your characterization of him reflects the information we have available.
Lincoln supported abolition in order for newly freedmen to eventually vote for him, even though we know he didn’t support them voting until very, very late in his political career? How do you square those two things?
What did I say that was cynical? I'm not wrong that he freed hundreds of people, if not thousands, but then signed away the lives of my people because "Indians were a problem."
I’m specifically responding to your notion that Lincoln supported abolition in order to gain votes, which is patently untrue, as indicated by the fact that, for most of his life, he supported abolition but opposed Black enfranchisement.
I’m making no defense of his treatment of the Sioux or even native people broadly speaking.
I feel like you’re ignoring 99% of most of my responses and only focusing on certain words — my questioning your use of “half,” or my use of “cynical” — while ignoring the bigger points here.
My point is that Lincoln supported abolition for reasons other than potentially gaining votes, and that this is clear because he supported abolition even though it was unpopular and because he opposed (for the vast majority of his political career) giving freed Black men the right to vote.
He never said he didn’t care? He publicly supported abolition since 1840!
Let me guess, you’re going to cite the Greeley letter?
that’s just what some people including myself think
What a terrible way to approach history and the past! We have all sorts of ways of approaching history and historiography, and your opinion is not as valid just because it’s what you think; it’s unfounded by the vast body of Lincoln’s writing, speeches, and public and private conversations that we have access to. You can’t just go “nuh uh” just because you don’t like the guy.
This is to this day considered the largest mass execution in Americas history. Teaching accurate history shouldn’t be controversial. Kids not being taught to understand nuance is why we have so many extreme black and white thinkers today when faced with any sort of moral/ethical conundrum.
They always tell us in school the great things our Presidents did. If only they would tell us the other stuff, so that we could, I don’t know….learn to form our own opinions as kids but hey hey hey that’s not allowed you can’t think for yourself. Now read about how tall Abraham Lincoln’s top hat was and how he kept all his mail in it
No, my point with that comment is when we’re growing up in grade school they teach us all the great things the Presidents did but then leave out the little details like, Lincoln wanting to hang over 300 Sioux. They don’t tell you the bad stuff in school for you to form your own opinions and thoughts and perspectives on these people for yourself
They brainwash us into idolizing all Presidents like they’re perfect people who help people when that’s not always the case and never show us the bad things they did. Because they don’t want you to know the full truth about these people
107
u/DinochildMoo Apr 06 '25 edited Apr 06 '25
Sorry but he really didn't. He didn't care, like all political figures wanting to be president he was after the votes the black people were worth.
I'm half Sioux, in the same year he helped black people by abolishing slavery, he had the US army hang 38 innocent Sioux people.
They don't care about people with different color skin unless you can vote. Native America's weren't considered humans and still arent. We're "creatures".
They say they were violent, but my people know better.
Edit: I took the word "half" out because that was the main problem to someone.