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Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream
written by Lerone Bennett
Studio : Johnson Publishing Company, Inc.
by Johnson Publishing Company, Inc.
Publisher : Johnson Publishing Company, Inc.
Released : 2007-10-01
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780874850024
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 52 reviews)
List Price : $22.95
Our Price : $14.01
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Product Description |
Beginning with the argument that the Emancipation Proclamation did not actually free African American slaves, this dissenting view of Lincoln's greatness surveys the president's policies, speeches, and private utterances and concludes that he had little real interest in abolition. Pointing to Lincoln's support for the fugitive slave laws, his friendship with slave-owning senator Henry Clay, and conversations in which he entertained the idea of deporting slaves in order to create an all-white nation, the book, concludes that the president was a racist at heart—and that the tragedies of Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era were the legacy of his shallow moral vision. |
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Forced into Glory |
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Very interesting book, found out that all I thought I knew was not so. It is rather scary that the educational system can obliterate the truth. Things were allot different when I was young, another time and place. |
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Worth Reading if only for a different viewpoint |
This book refers to the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln very often. There is a free searchable version online (the University of Michigan hosts the site)just search for Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln on google it's right there. Americancivilwar won't let me give the link here.
Was Lincoln a racist? Yes
Was Lincoln a segregationist and white supremacist? Yes
Lincoln said in in his first debate with Douglas in 1858
CW v3 p15-16 of debate
"If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,---to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough to me to denounce people upon. What [6] next? Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not."
"I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position."
He also then said
"I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. [Loud cheers.] I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects---certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."
Abraham Lincoln did have a dream. It was a dream of slowly freeing the slaves and having them leave the USA. Liberia, South America a caribbean island it didn't matter much. If he had the power to do so that is what he would have done. Slavery was a thorn in the side of the USA. It caused other countries who had long done away with it to consider the USA a nation of hypocrites. Were there better men in Lincoln's day? Yes. I don't believe he was as bad as this book tries to paint him.
By todays standards, yes Lincoln was a flawed racist. How else should we judge him? Should we judge him by the standards of his day?
If doing that I would have found him not exceptional. He wasn't an abolitionist and he wasn't a future Klansman in waiting.
Many, many people wanted to resolve slavery.
It should have been resolve with the Constitution. This country should have started as a truly free country but that is another book.
Read this book and please read Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America
Read other books on Lincoln. Then decide for yourself who Lincoln really was.
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No human is perfect but actions do speak louder than words |
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When will people understand history is history and people are people.Calling lincoln a racist is ridiculous.Why dont black people appreciate anything and will complain about everything,yet i rarely see them working hard or "doing the right thing"There is a difference between racism, prejudice and telling the truth.Why dont you be thankful to have a chance in this country and stop hurting your image and creating your own prejudice by the crime, womanizing and drug dealing you seem to like to propagate.The excuse is over, time to work again and stop the back stabbing and start some appreciation. |
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Informative |
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Great book on the history of our nation. Some info is based on fact, but mostly on opinion. Good reading. |
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Did Lincoln die Christ-like for his country's sins? |
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Once you've read this book, you will never look at Abraham Lincoln in the same way. Bennett writes a polemic here, but it is a well-researched and passionate effort. Although some of his conclusions are suspect, I respect the basic premise of this book, which is that our 16th President was a thorough-going racist. Bettett proves that Lincoln's political and philosophical mentor was Senator Henry Clay, a Kentucky slave owner. Lincoln exhibited racist speech employing the perjorative for "Negro" up until the last days of his life. He consistently frequented "black face" comedy shows that denigrated blacks in stereotypical ways. Lincoln always supported fugitive slave laws in Illinois and nationally. The Lincoln described by Bennett completely missed the concept of full emancipation for all African Americans. His lukewarm Emancipation Proclamation was only an attempt to stave off the radical abolitionists who were pressing for full freedom for all Black Americans. Lincoln's Proclamation promised to emancipate blacks in areas in rebellion (in which Lincoln held no practical jurisdiction), and did NOT emancipate slaves in areas that had not seceded or were militarily re-occupied. It was a halfway measure designed to obfuscate Lincoln's true agenda, i.e., gradual emancipation and/or deportation for colonization of the native born African American population. Bennett does a thorough job of demonstrating that Lincoln's speeches, especially the Gettysburg Address, were high sounding but did not include African Americans in the great American ideal of freedom for all. "All men are created equal" did not include blacks until Lincoln had been assasinated and was unable to obstruct the final version of the 13th Amendment. Eye-opening commentary includes a discussion of how Lincoln pursued the War for two years with pro-slavery, Democratic party generals like McClellan, Halleck and Pope. Certainly Lincoln's incompetence was responsible for extending the War and causing loss of life for over 630,00 Americans North and South. After reading Bennett, Lincoln comes across as ambitious, indecisive, manipulative, misguided, decidedly racist and desparately craving some kind of long-lasting historical legacy. Lincoln was slow coming to grips with the true nature of the War. He maintained all along that this War was being fought for Union, failing to ever grasp the eventual importance of the slave issue except to use blacks as political pawns to win the War. Lincoln comes across as Machiavellian and insensitive when he finally issues a weak Emancipation Proclamation only as a narrow military strategy to keep England and France out of the War. However, Bennett fails to address the impact of Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers after he adroitly maneuvered the South into firing on Sumter. Before his call for the 75,000, Virginia and North Carolina had not seceded and werre not predisposed to go out. By his precipitous actions, he forced these states out and then proceeded to ineptly preside over a botched, bloody, protracted War that could have been averted by more clear-headed, less confrontational diplomacy before the initial Battle of Manassas. Manassas led to Shiloh and, by then, the need to justify somehow the already horrific loss of life. Certainly, once the eleven states seceded, it was the effective end of American slavery because THEN the slaves could escape across international borders. A slave in Mississippi, once into Indiana, would have been free from pursuit, thus signaling the ultimate demise of an already eroding slave system. Lincoln's myopia regarding this key point insured not only the war deaths of so many Americans, but also set in motion the raw emotions and scapegoating which marked the brutal "reconstuction" of the post-war South. The pursuit of the War and the vindictive reconstruction policies after the War only exascerbated racist feelings that Southern whites may have felt toward blacks. This necessitated the Civil Rights marches led by leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. almost a century after this sad period in American history. Americans today are still dealing with the issues that Lincoln did not address during his tenure as president. Bennett's demonization of southern leaders like Robert E. Lee show his lack of overall perspective as to why Southerners fought for their respective states. He doesn't acknowledge that in the South over 90% of the fighting men never owned slaves and were fighting for their families, homes and farms. The Union invader was fighting only for Union, not emancipation if you listen closely to what Bennett's Lincoln is about. Abraham Lincoln was undoubtedly the deeply flawed, morally shallow politician which Bennett describes. However, Bennett interprets Lincoln's results only as a 20th century black militant. When you visit the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. after reading this book, you will read the Gettysburg Address in a different, less glorious light, and you will sincerely wonder why Lincoln merits such an exalted position on the National Mall. You will realize that the mythological Lincoln did not die Christ-like for his country's sins. He was not the Man of the Age, but a man who has been given the highest place in the American Pantheon because of his tragic death and the position power that he held during the American Armageddon. Another book on Lincoln that has been virtually banned for decades is Edgar Lee Masters' "Lincoln the Man", which gives an equally withering testimonial to the man behind the myth, but from the Copperhead's perspective. I'm giving "Forced into Glory" five stars for originality and Bennett's courage to write it in the contemporary "politically correct" atmosphere. This book is so "outside the box" that it has been virtually censured by the mainstream media. Many will speak negatively against its main premises, but will not take the trouble to actually read it and give it a chance. |
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