What A Riot!! Bush Is Like Abe Lincoln, A Man Of Principle!!

George Bush says that he's a man of principle like Abe Lincoln. That's a riot!! Yeah, Abe Lincoln was a man of principle!! And I live on Mars.

Courtesy of The Thistle: The People's History, the following excerpt explains just what kind of a man Lincoln really was.

The most pervasive and distorted myth surrounding Abraham Lincoln is that he was the great emancipator, and the driving moral force behind the abolition of slavery. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. In recent years it has become popular to label Lincoln a racist, but, hey, if the shoe fits... Even before the Civil War, Lincoln did privately express a distaste for the institution of slavery, but he would never see the slaves as equals. A recurring theme in his policy regarding slavery was its abolition followed by the relocation of the freed slaves to Africa. The now classic examples of Lincoln’s true moral character are the speeches he gave during his 1858 Senate campaign in Illinois against Stephen Douglas. Early on in the race, while speaking in Chicago he openly expressed the idea that the country should unite under the principle that all men are created equal, but two months later, speaking in Charleston which is in southern Illinois, Lincoln said:

I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, not to intermarry with white people...

And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be a position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

Three years later, in his first Inaugural Address Lincoln states:

I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exits. I believe that I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.

There are many more examples of this kind, but we have yet to examine the most misleading piece of the Lincoln myth, namely the Emancipation Proclamation . The decision to issue the Proclamation had far less to do with the abolition of slavery than it did with trying to threaten and bribe the South into returning to the Union. In September of 1862, Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation which gave the southern states four months to stop rebelling, and promised to emancipate the slaves of any state still fighting on January 1 while leaving slavery untouched in the states fighting with the Union on that date. Clearly Lincoln cared more for a quick end to the war, than for seeing the institution of slavery ended. For his day, he was probably the most “progressive” president that could actually have been elected, but to somehow elevate him above his own clearly visible bigotry and prejudice and turn him into the Great Emancipator does a disservice to the long and bloody history of slave rebellions and the abolitionist movement in this country.

Apparently Bush glossed over the actual FACTS about Lincoln, slavery, etc. He also glossed over the actual FACTS about what Lincoln really thought of blacks. If he wants to fancy himself a Lincoln, be my guest. It certainly doesn't say much about himself if he does.