le mythe de Abraham Lincoln

The Lincoln Memorial


Il a son visage sur le billet de 5 $ et plusieurs statues à Washington et ailleurs aux États-Unis. Pour probablement une majorité d'américains et de non-américains Abraham Lincoln représente un grand homme qui a battu les états du Sud et pavé la voie à l'Émancipation des noirs et a répandu la Sainte Démocratie sur le continent nord-américain. Certains prétendus patriotes occidentaux se réclament de Lincoln pour appuyer leurs prescriptions et opinions à propos de choses contemporaines. Ils sont cependant très sélectifs dans leurs choix d'inspirations lincolniennes puisqu'ils ignorent son virulent racisme qui incluait notamment son désir de déporter les noirs vivant en Amérique dans leur 'habitat naturel' comme il disait.

Il est difficile de dire s'il aurait été préférable qu'il soit assassiné avant la guerre pour peut-être éviter la mort de 600 000 américains dans sa guerre pour empêcher la sécession des états du Sud ou s'il n'aurait pas dû être assassiné point afin qu'il mène à terme les projets de la American Colonization Society.

L'auteur de ce discours/texte est le professeur Donald Livingston de l'université Emory. Il est un libertarien et donc a un biais contre les gouvernements et le pouvoir en général mais même s'il ne présente pas un portrait 'équitable' de ce président il apporte assez de citations et de faits pour démolir le mythe populaire à propos de Lincoln.

écoutez:
Southern Secession and Reconstruction
Donald W. Livingston

http://www.mises.org/mp3/HofL-2001/Hist14.mp3

lisez:
A MORAL ACCOUNTING OF THE UNION AND THE CONFEDERACY (PDF)
Journal of Libertarian Studies

Donald W. Livingston
Professor of philosophy at Emory University

http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/16_2/16_2_4.pdf

extraits:

Livingston:

"Most Northern states passed laws prohibiting or severely restricting the entrance of “free blacks.” Free blacks were shut out of New Jersey, and Massachusetts prescribed flogging for nonresidents who stayed longer than two months. Ohio, at one time, passed a law expelling the entire black population.

A number of states erected constitutional barriers to the entrance of free blacks. The language of Oregon’s constitution was typical:

No free negro, or mulatto, not residing in this state at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall ever come, reside, or be within this state, or hold any real estate, or make any contract, or maintain any suit therein; and the legislative assembly shall provide by penal laws for the removal by public officers of all such free negroes who shall bring them into the state, or employ or harbour them therein.

Indiana’s constitution prohibited free blacks with almost identical wording. Illinois once allowed free blacks to enter, but only if they posted a bond of $1,000 each. After 1848, white supremacy became even more insistent in some Northern and Western states. Illinois changed its constitution in 1848 to absolutely exclude the further entrance of free blacks, followed by 1853 legislative enactments enforcing the ban. Oregon’s constitution banning the entrance of free blacks passed by a vote of eight to one in 1857. "

Livingston:

"Lincoln honestly believed that whitesand blacks could not live together on terms of equality, and therefore could not live together in peace. He was deeply opposed to miscegenation, and appears to have thought that republicanism required a racially homogeneous population. He supported black codes in Northern states that kept blacks out, and when they were allowed in, he supported laws that denied them citizenship and basic civil rights. Deportation would free society “from the troublesome presence of free negroes.” "

Lincoln:

"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, 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."