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A 2015 New Orleans Times-Picayune article tells how New Orléans' Vieux Carré Commission recommended that four monuments be removed. Three of them honour
[...] Confederate generals P.G.T. Beauregard and Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy [...]
The other monument
[...] was erected in 1891 to honor the 16 members of the White League who died during an insurrection against the integrated Reconstructionist government in Louisiana, which was based in New Orleans at the time.
Various news outlets are reporting that the latter monument, an obelisk, has been dismantled at the behest of the city government, and that the others are also set to be dismantled.
coverage:
- Washington Post
- The New Orleans Advocate
- WWL-TV (has statement from city government)
- ABC
- New York Magazine
- Newsweek
- The New Orleans Advocate
- Chicago Tribune
- Los Angeles Times
- Times-Picayune
- Reuters
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New Orléans Dismantles Monuments to Failed Coup and Civil War Figures
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When neither their poverty nor their honor is touched, the majority of men
live content.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @09:28PM (6 children)
Lincoln cared only for power, and secession was a threat to his power over the Union. Lincoln said he didn't want to free the slaves, and he wouldn't have freed the slaves if he could preserve the Union while also preserving slavery.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Lagg on Wednesday May 03 2017, @11:20PM (5 children)
I like how every day now there are clear signs people don't learn from history. Your post's score is one of them.
To the moderators: Guess what, the AC is right. He just speaks of it like Lincoln actively wanted slavery. Not the case. But he was not an abolitionist. From what I understand of the man it was like many other things in politics a choice based on convenience and the ability to get something genuinely good out of it while at the same time getting massive civil rights PR. He did believe it was morally wrong. But throughout history there have been no shortage of politicians that will point their bible at something and call it morally wrong. Lincoln was the man that backed his word in a truly massive way. That's why he's such a cool guy.
He did this even despite the horrific personal depression he suffered day after day. Truly someone with iron skin. Unlike the presidents and president candidates we have today that look like they already have dementia and speak much the same.
Good men can have bad attributes. Whether we want to admit it or not. Civil rights in america is still having issues gaining traction. In that era, it was an idea and treated like any other disruptive new idea. For his stance, Lincoln was actually incredibly progressive despite himself. And this is a man that legitimately believed blacks were not the same as whites and should be treated legally in the same way.
See that? That's not treating history like a movie with heroes/mustachetwirling villains. Try it :D
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday May 04 2017, @01:38AM (4 children)
Lincoln's plan for slavery, which was baked into the Republican Party platform in 1860 and which he was quite clear about, was to end the expansion of slavery to new territories and newly formed states, which he thought would eventually end slavery in the US over a period of several decades. It was those that would become the Confederate leadership that interpreted this platform as "abolish slavery in the US immediately" and responded accordingly.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday May 04 2017, @04:39AM (3 children)
That's roughly true, or at least that was the hope of some Republicans. But Lincoln's perspective turned to appeasement quickly after the first secessions. In his first inaugural address, he explicitly supported the adoption of the Corwin Amendment (which had already passed Congress and was sent to the states) which would have basically made slavery perpetual in the Southern states that already had it.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday May 04 2017, @05:53AM
Lincoln's goal was first and foremost to preserve the Union. I believe he stated that if he would do that if necessary by freeing all the slaves, or freeing none of the slaves, or freeing some of the slaves, whatever worked to save the Union. The Emancipation Proclamation came about as more a timed political blow against Confederate sovereignty than due to any moral concerns, however morally repugnant Lincoln might have believed slavery to be.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday May 04 2017, @12:22PM (1 child)
Regardless of what he wanted, he had to say that for military reasons. Had he not been making overtures like that, Maryland would have seceded (Maryland was one of the most important slave states, and he had dodged an assassination attempt in Baltimore on his way to his inauguration), leaving Washington DC surrounded by the enemy and ensuring his own downfall and probably the US government.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday May 04 2017, @01:29PM
The previous reply to my post is much more accurate. Lincoln was willing to preserve the Union at all costs, and the Corwin Amendment was only one of many schemes he considered that would have continued to prop up slavery. Lincoln himself was not in favor of slavery, but it's very clear from a LOT of things he said and did that he viewed preserving the Union as a much higher priority than abolition.
Let's not forget that Lincoln was a racist and white supremacist like just about everyone else in the U.S. at that time (even most abolitionists -- most of them would never consider Black men to be equal to Whites; they just didn't think enslavement was justified). From the mouth of Lincoln at the Lincoln-Douglas debates [teachingamericanhistory.org]:
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, [applause]—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the 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. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied every thing. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. [Cheers and laughter.] My understanding is that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men.
This may be shocking for some to read, but this was not the only time Lincoln said such things. It was just the standard beliefs of the time. Lincoln thought slavery was evil, but given the obvious inferiority of the Black race (to him, and just about everyone of the time), he was certainly willing to live with slavery to preserve the Union.