Comments on: Disunion on Lincoln’s Meeting With Black Clergy

By: Donald R. Shaffer

Donald R. Shaffer — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 03:17:26 +0000

Hi David. Did the library staff at the University of Chicago tell you about University Microfilms International? They are in the business of doing precisely what you’d like done. Their website is: http://disexpress.umi.com/dxweb

Best,

Don Shaffer

By: David M. Fishlow

David M. Fishlow — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 00:02:15 +0000

Living in rural Chiriquí, I am interested in the swindle from the criminal-fraud point of view. Lincoln’s views on colonization have been chewed over in many places, but little is known about Thompson and his attempted swindle. In twenty years of living here, I have never heard of any coal deposits in Chiriquí, or in the province of Bocas del Toro (which is the present name of the province known in Thompson’s time as the Caribbean coast of Chiriquí.) For one thing, I would love to know the specifics of evidence Thompson adduced to substantiate his suppositiitious holdings. The late historian Paul Scheips wrote a Master’s thesis about him, (Paul J[oseph] Scheips, “Ambrose W. Thompson: a neglected Isthmian promoter” (Unpublished MA thesis, U. of Chi. 1949; microform ed. 1978) but so far I have been unable to get anybody at the library there to agree to convert the microfilm to .pdf so I can read it here in Panama. Ironically, if the colonists had come here, they might have suffered the same fate as the Swiss pacifists who settled here in 1939 and were viciously gunned down by the Panamanian police in a bizarre incident on July 7, 1941.

By: Edwin

Edwin — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 01:27:44 +0000

Agreed – the post civil war period was also difficult. Also – these have been very good posts on the Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation.

When we read history (of all eras), we forget that we cannot view these ideas in the context of our current 21st century thought. In the 19th century, these men had no idea that “all men were created equal”. They suspected it, but now our DNA proves it.

As Lincoln said in the debates with Douglas: “I agree with Judge Douglas, he (black Americans) is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowments. 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.”

This doesn’t take anything away from the Lincoln legend, but only adds to our understanding of him as a man and how he viewed others. In comparison to Southern leaders and many other Americans, he was nothing short of a Saint.

By: Donald R. Shaffer

Donald R. Shaffer — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 21:36:55 +0000

Hi Edwin. I doubt things could have been avoided, especially as the Constitution reflected the racial sentiments of white people in the late 18th century. And don’t forget what happen during Reconstruction following the Civil War, with its failed experiment in biracial democracy.

By: Edwin Thompson

Edwin Thompson — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 21:04:22 +0000

Good summary.

It is well to remember that the United States was moving toward a multiracial society in the 19th century. A multiracial society ruled by a democracy. And now in the 21st century, we watch the Middle East slowing struggling to follow our example. Perhaps the civil war was not fought in vain. It only could have been avoided if our founding fathers hadn’t written a flawed Constitution.