Lincoln: "One of the bloodiest men in American history" - Kevin Myers

MakeEmLaugh

Last Friday's Irish Independent carried a column by Kevin Myers, in which he described Abraham Lincoln as 'one of the bloodiest men in American history'. He also drew parallels between Lincoln, Michael Collins and Winston Churchill. The entire article can be read here:

Lincoln: an interesting place-name, combining the Celtic "Linn" meaning "pool, (as in Dub-lin) with the Latin "colonia", "settlement", abbreviated to "coln" (as in Koln, or Cologne). Thus Lincoln was originally a Roman settlement beside a pool: maybe some lingering imperial DNA explains the bellicosity of the eponymous US president, the portrayal of whom has just netted Daniel Day-Lewis a Golden Globe.

Such is the power of the Lincoln myth that any actor who plays him is almost guaranteed an award: though a few cliché characteristics help – wry gravitas, brooding wisdom, a sad but kindly humour, and so on. In actual fact, Lincoln was one of the bloodiest men in American history, whose savage conquest of the South brought terrible, indeed generational, suffering.

This worship of a charismatically ruthless narcissist is not a uniquely American disorder, merely human. Hence Churchill in Britain and Collins here, both addicted to bloodshed, and both utter failures in their larger ambitions: one to create a united Irish Republic – still no sign – and the other to defend a thousand-year empire: didn't even last seven. And both still revered.

To be sure, there's no point in judging historical figures by modern standards. So Lincoln should not be condemned for declaring (as he did) that black men were inferior to whites: most white people thought the same. Indeed, until the 1860s, the US census actually counted a black person as three-fifths of a human being, with rights to match. But even this was more than suspected opponents of the Civil War were allowed by the federal government. For having suspended habeus corpus, it then interned, without charge or trial, up to 38,000 Americans, merely on suspicion of being anti-war. The Supreme Court protested in vain. Unhelpful judges in Maryland and Kentucky were arrested in their chambers, and even in their beds, and held without charge. Three hundred newspapers were closed because of "doubts" about their loyalty.

By 1863, the entire internal security of the US was in the hands of a network of provosts-marshal under Provost Marshal General James B Fry, answering directly to the Secretary for War, Edwin Stanton. Lincoln was unapologetic: "(Some) measures, however unconstitutional, might become lawful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution through the preservation of the nation."

To militarily prevent the Confederate states freely seceding from a Union they had freely entered, Lincoln introduced conscription – but the rich draftee could avoid this by paying $300, or by bribing some penniless dupe to take his place. Nonetheless, so loathed was the war that over 200,000 federal soldiers deserted. For the North, the war was largely for the poor and the conscripted.

Moreover, Sherman and Grant's ruthless strategies – the scorched-earth policy through the Shenandoah Valley and the destruction of Atlanta, both of which today would be accounted war crimes – left the South embittered and impoverished. But even if the price was high – a million lives – did the war not free four million slaves?

Only partly. Though slavery was the foundation-evil of the US, the economic and social complexities that it created meant it could not – even had Lincoln lived – be simply abolished by fiat from Washington. In the longer term, the federal government found it politically and legally impossible to impose its will on the "conquered" Southern states.

Meanwhile, the South had developed its own very special way of doing things. In 1866, with the war barely over, the Memphis police forced negro soldiers off the sidewalk. In the ensuing riots, 30 blacks were slaughtered, with three black churches and eight schools torched.

Ditto, passim, for roughly a century, as the South remained semi-detached, and the blacks there marooned in a limbo of oppression. It's surely not coincidental that some of the first blacks to be outstanding in their respective fields in the US – Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and Colin Powell – were not of American slave stock at all, but Caribbean.

So morally, Lincoln failed because war was the wrong policy. Yet it is a sorry truth that charismatic politico-warriors are seldom blamed for their failures. Like Churchill and Collins, Lincoln was able to make strong men freely subordinate their own self-interest and self-esteem wholly to his, with historians invariably following suit. Which perhaps confirms that we are, after all, merely literate chimpanzees.

Not knowing a lot about Lincoln, can people tell me, is Myers on to something? Or is this an example of Myers being contrarian for the sake of attention?

It's not the first time Myers mentioned Lincoln in a column. A year ago, on January 19 2012, he wrote

President Lincoln, I can barely write about him without shattering my keyboard in rage at both his hypocrisy over slavery and his ruthlessness, as he visited ruin and death upon his fellow Americans.

He sought union rather like the Provisional IRA did, except that he had the resources to impose an overwhelming campaign of terror upon his enemies.

There is, of course, the much discussed letter Lincoln wrote to the New York Tribune in which he said the following.

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free

Pegasusbridge

A very one sided article from Myers. Lincoln believed slavery was wrong but he didn't believe the president could order its abolition. Most of the evidence that Lincoln viewed blacks as inferior came from early in his life and not when he was President. He wanted to stop slavery spreading into new states so it would die out as he believed it was morally wrong. You can argue over the right of succession but many in the North opposed it so to blame Lincoln alone for the war is ridiculous. Without Lincoln the North may well have lost as he did a great job balancing the moderate and extreme republican opinion during the war. He also managed to abolish slavery, arguing that it was a war necessity to convince those who wanted to win the war but didn't want to fight for blacks. From what I have read he did a great job but of course he wasn't perfect and made mistakes. Myers article seems very biased to me.

nuac

read Myer's article. Sorry I wasted that amount of time. A rant

mitosis

Myers has a point. While I understand it is cool to oppose him I think he is correct in the bigger picture - that many of those propounded as great heroes had a great dark side also.

Take ol' Abe. Lauded for his treatment of slaves, his treatment of native Americans glossed over. Example:

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln ordered the execution, by hanging, of 38 Dakota Sioux prisoners in Mankato, Minnesota. Most of those executed were holy men or political leaders of their camps. None of them were responsible for committing the crimes they were accused of. Coined as the Largest Mass Execution in U.S. History. (Brown, Dee. BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1970. pp. 59-61)

Thomas_I

mitosis wrote: »

Myers has a point. While I understand it is cool to oppose him I think he is correct in the bigger picture - that many of those propounded as great heroes had a great dark side also. ...

That´s part of the whole human nature, the difference is that some of them really did great things and what Myers is doing is nothing of that like. He seems very eager to draw parallels to Irish history in an attempt to compromise it and so the bigger picture is made up of his own.

mitosis

Thomas_I wrote: »

That´s part of the whole human nature, the difference is that some of them really did great things and what Myers is doing is nothing of that like. He seems very eager to draw parallels to Irish history in an attempt to compromise it and so the bigger picture is made up of his own.

No disrespect intended, but I don't understand your post. I take it the gist is your dislike for Kevin Myers?

Thomas_I

mitosis wrote: »

No disrespect intended, but I don't understand your post. I take it the gist is your dislike for Kevin Myers?

As I don´t know Mr Myers I wouldn´t go that far to say that I dislike him, but I´m mostly disagreeing with his opinions. As to my post, it is in the human nature that every human being has its good and bad sides within his character. Great man can achieve good things by doing bad things to achieve it and vice versa. It depends on the result and how this his judged by the society and history. That´s what I meant.

donaghs

Slightly pointless article. Interesting maybe in that it points out some facts that are well known, but maybe not widely known - e.g. the bloodiness of the war, additional legal powers used during the war, and the treatment of Black people in the aftermath of the war an the "Reconstruction" period.

But the article itself then raises its own question, which of course Myers fails to ask or answer: "What should Lincoln have done?"

To me, its clear that the Union was worth keeping together. And more importantly perhaps, ending slavery (even if this was a lesser goal for Lincoln). The high cost of war in lives could have been lessened in the early years of the war with better Union generalship.

Lincoln was killed just after the war, so its harder to level charge of the poor treatment of free blacks at him.

gobnaitolunacy

Apart from slavery, what would be wrong with the South fcuking off and forming its own 'hick-ocracy' anyway?

super_furry

Kevin Meyers is being willfully obtuse and controversial? I'm so shocked I just dropped my monocle.

It was my good monocle too.

LennoxR

gobnaitolunacy wrote: »

Apart from slavery, what would be wrong with the South fcuking off and forming its own 'hick-ocracy' anyway?

Because the southern states seceded because they didn't like the result of the 1862 Presidential election. If that was to be allowed happen after every election you wouldn't have much of a republic left. Nor any kind of functioning democracy.

Add to that that they seceded in order to protect and preserve slavery and you've got two pretty good reasons for blocking it.

And yet another reason is that in their bid to extend slavery the southern states proposed to annex Cuba and various central American countries - conflicts which would inevitably have dragged in the rump of the United States.

Seanchai

Ha, Myers. Is that troll still alive?

I haven't read him since about 1996. TG4 is still going strong, and Myers, the born and bred Englishman who feigned to write 'An Irishman's Diary' while glorifying British imperialism and its foot soldiers, has long since left The Irish Times. Kevin de Lorean. Bitter, bigoted and anti-Irish on a daily basis.

What a clown, an arrant clown. And we won't say anything about the Bloody Sunday victims and their relatives, who have now been vindicated in the eyes of the world despite the slander Myers made. He's a troll, a super troll. To paraphrase one of his heroes back in 1989: we should starve him of the oxygen of publicity.

How apt, though, that he is reduced to writing for one of the rags of the British knight Sir Anthony O'Reilly. Justice.

Seanchai

The US Civil War was all about slavery - one of the great myths of modern western history (another being that the British did not support and collaborate with Nazism and fascism generally prior to WW II).

Reekwind

Kevin Myers: reactionary. Is there really anything more to say?

kabakuyu

Do I detect a slight change in Myers behaviour, he's still having a go at Collins but having a go at Churchill:eek: I am truly shocked, it is now quite obvious he has given up all hope of receiving his OBW/MBE, his omission from the latest british honours list really must have really rankled with him, but can we now look forward to his bile being directed at soom other British luminaries and institutions.

Jolly Red Giant

The initial focal issue that the US Civil War was fought over was control of the westward expanding railway network.

An example of Lincoln's attitude towards human rights -

On 26 Dec 1862 - two days after he signed the Emancipation Proclamation - Lincoln ordered the largest mass execution ever in US history.

Following an uprising in Minnesota by the Santee Sioux in an effort in part to prevent the expansion of the railway network westward through Indian land in Minnesota (also against a series of broken treaties and famine caused by the displacement of the various Dakota / Lakota tribes). Lincoln ordered the execution of 39 of the 303 Santee Sioux that the US army held as prisoners - 38 were actually executed. The remaining prisoners plus almost two thousand women, children and old men were held in a concentration camp at Fort Snelling before being repeatedly move until the were confined in prisoner of war camps (reservations) in South Dakota. The strategy for dealing with the 'Indian problem' - according to one of Lincoln's most prominent supporters Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey "The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state." With the support of Lincoln, a bounty was placed on the scalps of the Dakota people that eventually reached $200 per scalp.

GRMA

Seanchai wrote: »

Ha, Myers. Is that troll still alive?

I haven't read him since about 1996. TG4 is still going strong, and Myers, the born and bred Englishman who feigned to write 'An Irishman's Diary' while glorifying British imperialism and its foot soldiers, has long since left The Irish Times. Kevin de Lorean. Bitter, bigoted and anti-Irish on a daily basis.

What a clown, an arrant clown. And we won't say anything about the Bloody Sunday victims and their relatives, who have now been vindicated in the eyes of the world despite the slander Myers made. He's a troll, a super troll. To paraphrase one of his heroes back in 1989: we should starve him of the oxygen of publicity.

How apt, though, that he is reduced to writing for one of the rags of the British knight Sir Anthony O'Reilly. Justice.

Sir Denis O'Brien these days is it not?

MakeEmLaugh

Seanchai wrote: »

Ha, Myers. Is that troll still alive?

I haven't read him since about 1996. TG4 is still going strong, and Myers, the born and bred Englishman who feigned to write 'An Irishman's Diary' while glorifying British imperialism and its foot soldiers, has long since left The Irish Times. Kevin de Lorean. Bitter, bigoted and anti-Irish on a daily basis.

Kevin Myers has no right to consider himself Irish because he was born and raised in England?

By that rationale, Diarmuid O'Neill had no right to consider himself Irish, either.

dpe

A classic "hindsight is a wonderful thing" article. Lincoln didn't have much choice about going to war after the south seceded, and had little control of events after the war was won (what with being dead and all), so one of the only relevant attacks Myers can make is about Lincoln's conduct of the war itself, and on this issue he's also picked the wrong target; it was Lincoln's earlier vacillation and lack of aggression (and poor choice of generals) that ultimately led to the necessity for "total war" as waged by Sherman and Sheridan.

As with so many historical revisionists, criticising a man of his time for behaving consistently with the culture he was from, is the mark of an intellectual lightweight.