The Comeback Kid

In this week's Fort Wayne Reader Michael Summers wrote an article about the Seven Wonders of Fort Wayne which can be read here. It was very interesting to read some of the history behind some landmarks in Fort Wayne. However, I can not let something that disturbs me every time i read something of this sort, pass without bringing it up.

It is in regards to the Lincoln Museum, when he writes that, "In 1905, when a Fort Wayne life insurance company decided to call itself "Lincoln" after our 16th president, they knew what they were doing. What better representative for a life insurance company than someone who is an icon of honesty and integrity?"

Integrity? Lincoln had very little. He was a tyrant who was hellbent on keeping the Union together despite the Constitutional right to succeed from it. He denied the right of the South to leave and in thus, created a much bigger, centralized government and started a bloody war over it. Lincoln also suspended Habeas Corpus in the time of war. Sound familiar?

Lincoln did not free the slaves. Nor did he care to do so. The Civil War was not fought over the abolition of slavery, it was fought over the preservation of the Union. Lincoln did not care about the rights of slaves and the quotes below should show as significant evidence for my case.

"My paramount object, is to save the Union, and not either destroy or save slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing the slaves, I would do it. If I could save the Union by freeing some and leaving others in slavery, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing all, I would do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps save the Union."

"I am not now, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social or political equality of the white and black races. I am not now nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarriages with white people. There is a physical difference between the white and the black races which will forever forbid the two races living together on social or political equality. There must be a position of superior and inferior, and I am in favor of assigning the superior position to the white man."

It is sad that the real Lincoln is distorted by a Lincoln that we all like to believe -- one that freed the slaves and was for justice.