Mr. Lincoln-The Racist, The Socialist, The Infidel

8/3/2019 Mr. Lincoln-The Racist, The Socialist, The Infidel

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Mr. Lincoln The Racist, The Socialist, The Infidel

by Al Benson Jr.

It is amazing to see how many blacks today continue to

revere the memory of Abraham Lincoln as though he had

actually done something for them. Of course many whites

do the same thing. In fact, there is an entire cottage industry

operating nowadays, consisting of people, many of whom

are academics, whose entire goal in life seems to be the

attempted beatification of "Saint Abraham." Most of this

foolishness is due to the fact that, in our government

schools, we have been taught a laughable, shoddy imitation

of history. The facts must never be allowed to get in the way

of the fantasy.

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation is a dubious

document that has been widely touted as having "freed the

slaves." It didn't. It was aimed at the slaves in Confederate

territory where Lincoln had no legal authority. Slaves in

both states and territory controlled by Mr. Lincoln's dictatorial regime remained firmly in bondage until

the 13th Amendment freed them, several months after Mr. Lincoln's demise. Even Lincoln, himself,

admitted the proclamation was a war measure and probably would not have passed any sort of

constitutional muster. So who did it really free? No one, that's who. It was never intended to "free"

anyone. It was excellent propaganda and that was it. Period!

Several years ago, columnist Joseph Sobran wrote: "When Lincoln finally did grab the slavery issue in1854, he again followed (Henry) Clay in advocating gradual emancipation, combined with a program of

colonization--resettling former slaves outside of the United States. He expressly opposed political and

social equality for Negroes in this country. They should be equal all right, but not here...Lincoln's

segregationist views are soft-peddled, shrugged off, explained away, or simply ignored...the Fantasy

Lincoln must be maintained at all costs." And this is exactly what many establishment scholars today do.

They maintain the cottage industry that promotes the "Fantasy Lincoln" while conveniently ignoring his

racist views--views they seem to find abhorant in anyone else yet perfectly alright in Mr. Lincoln.

So far as Lincoln's overt racism, let us go right to the horse's mouth as it were, and find out what the great

emancipator said himself. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, which took place in 1858, while debating in

Ottowa, Illinois on August 21st of that year, Mr. Lincoln stated, quite plainly, that: "I have no dispositionto introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference

between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together on terms of

respect, social and political equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there should be a

superiority somewhere, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the

superior position;"



Lest one be tempted to think that this Lincolnian sentiment

was a mere abberation, a slip of the tongue on his part, let's

note Lincoln's comments in his speech at Charleston,

Illinois on September 18, 1858. Here, dealing again with the

same question, Lincoln said: "I will say then, that I am not

nor have ever 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 have I ever been in favor of making voters

of the negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office,

or having them to marry with white people...there must be

the position of superior and inferior, that I as much as any

other man am in favor of the superior position being

assigned to the white man." And he repeated, again, this

exact same sentiment in the debate in Quincy, Illinois on

October 13th. You do have to admit that Mr. Lincoln's

racism did remain constant.

When I read about all the Northern (and some Southern) liberals that so deftly condemn Southern folks

for their racism, I often wonder why they seem to forget to condemn Mr. Lincoln for his racism. And why

do they conveniently forget to condemn the North for its racist attitudes--because the North had them

every bit as much as did the South. Why is Southern "guilt" to be pointed out and exclaimed over while

Northern "guilt" for the same "crime" is simply ignored? You don't supposed there is just a teeny bit of

anti-Southern bias among the liberals and their court historians do you? Naw--that could never happen--

could it???

Professor Thomas DiLorenzo, in his excellent book The Real Lincoln noted that: "The Republican Party,

led by Lincoln, was in favor of Southern slavery because its leaders feared the spectacle of emancipated

slaves residing in their own Northern states. Lincoln's own state of Illinois had recently amended its

constitution to prohibit the emigration of black people into the state, as had several other Northern states.

Most Northern states had adopted Black Codes that discriminated in the most inhumane ways against

freed blacks. Such discriminatory laws existed in the North decades before they were adopted in the

South. There were very few blacks in the North in 1861, and most Northern voters wanted it to remain

that way." Black Codes in the North for decades before the South adopted them? Wonder why your

"history" book never mentioned that. I never read about that when I went to school. Maybe they sort of

forgot to put it in my history book. You say it wasn't in your's either? Oh my!

So most black folks as well as the white liberal race-baiters continue to pay homage to a man that

displayed all the habitual racial attitudes they claim to hate in all the rest of us--but, somehow, in the

sainted Mr. Lincoln, it's all forgivable. Do you detect, ever so slightly, just a bit of a double standard

here?

Mr. Lincoln The Socialist

by Al Benson Jr.



Over the years I have contended that Abraham Lincoln was a

socialist--not that he was a card-carrying member of some

socialist group, but rather that his mindset had that bent. In that

contention I have met all manner of reactions, everything from

some who agree with me (and many do), to outright ridicule from

Lincoln lovers in the North (and some in the South, too). Manyseem to feel, although they would not express it in those terms,

that Mr. Lincoln should be elevated to the level of Deity. Also, I

have run across almost complete apathy in much of the South,

and other sections of the country as well. Southern folks at least

used to know that Mr. Lincoln had been a less-than-desirable

president; they knew he had been responsible for alot of bad

things during the "late unpleasantness" and that was about it.

Many, no matter what their persuasion, had the thought (planted)

in the back of their heads that, for all his faults, Lincoln was, at least, a "good" man. The contention that

he was some kind of socialist really shakes them up, and mostly, they just don't want to hear anymore on

the subject. It's not that they are apathetic--it's just that they don't know and they don't care. Please don't

rattle their chain or rock their boat--just leave them fat and happy with their illusions.

Many years ago now, when I first began reading about the goodly number of socialists and outright

Communists in Mr. Lincoln's armies, I began to have these nagging little doubts that, maybe, just maybe,

Mr. Lincoln was not the honest, country hayseed that his promoters tried to make him out to be.

You often find tidbits of interesting history in places you would seldom look for them. For instance, I

have never really cared for Carl Sandburg's six volume story of the life of Lincoln. I felt that much of it

was just shameless promotion of the "great emancipator." Yet there had to be some truth in it.

Often that truth has been sanitized so that we don't quite grasp all its importance, but it is there. I will citeone small example. In chapter 22 of the first volume, on pages 84-85, Sandburg mentioned one Robert

Owen, a "rich English businessman" who bought land in New Harmony, Indiana. He mentioned that

Owen gave a speech before Congress telling how "...he and his companions were going to find a new way

for people to live their lives together, without fighting, cheating, or exploiting one another...they would

share and share alike, each for all and all for each."

Owen did, indeed, have a "new" way for the people in America to live

together--it was and is, called socialism! Then Sandburg informed us that

Mr. Lincoln knew about this colony of Owen's and, according to

Sandburg "The scheme lighted up Abe Lincoln's heart." It is interesting

that Mr. Sandburg didn't bother to tell his readers that Mr. Owen was asocialist and that his colony in Indiana was a socialist experiment, one

that ultimately failed because of its socialism. Surely Sandburg must

have been aware of that, given his own background (which will be dealt

with in a later article). Why didn't he bother to inform his readers?

And if Lincoln, even in those early years of his life, was aware of Owen's

undertaking, he must have had some idea of what Owen was all about.



Lincoln, even as a young man, was ambitious. He was no country bumpkin.

Later in life, when Mr. Lincoln broke into politics, he was a great admirer of Henry Clay and of Clay's

"vision" for America. For those who may not know alot about Henry Clay, I would recommend a very

revelatory article written by Thomas DiLorenzo that appeared in the March, 1998 issue of The Free

Market, published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. The title of Professor DiLorenzo's article was

Henry Clay--National Socialist. Space will not permit here, but DiLorenzo aptly sets forth a blistering

critique of Clay's socialism.

Lincoln eulogized Clay when he said "During my whole political life, I have loved and revered (Clay) as

a leader and teacher." If Clay was a socialist and Lincoln considered him a great teacher and leader, what

does that tell you about where Lincoln was coming from?

We are able to glean even further confirmation of Lincoln's socialist leanings from establishment

"historian" James M. McPherson. In his book Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution

McPherson has noted, on pages 24-25: "Lincoln championed the leaders of the European revolutions of

1848; in turn, a man who knew something about those revolutions--Karl Marx--praised Lincoln in 1865

as 'the single-minded son of the working class' who had led his 'country through the matchless struggle

for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world." Stop and ponder just what

Marx was referring to, and the language he used--"reconstruction of a social world." In actuality, neither

Marx nor Lincoln had much use for blacks, but they did make good cannor fodder, and they contained

grist for the socialist propaganda mill, and so both Marx and Lincoln exalted their "esteem" for them in

their public pronouncements. Privately it was altogether something else. Marx even signed a letter to

Lincoln, with others, congratulating him on his re-election in 1864, and Lincoln reportedly responded

warmly. It was just enough of this kind of information that led Donnie Kennedy and I to write our new

book Red Republicans And Lincoln's Marxists (www.oldsouthbooks.com) in which we pointed out

clearly the socialist origins of the Republican Party and Lincoln's affinity for

socialists and Communists.

In this book we dealt with the fact of a noted socialist and Communist presence in

the Union Armies during the War of Northern Aggression. For years this was a

studiously ignored fact. No one that wrote about the war talked about it--you

weren't supposed to be aware of it or even dare to think in those terms at all.

Were you to become aware of a major socialist presence in the Union Armies, it

just might begin to change your perception of what the war was really all about

(Marxist revolution). I realise that, for the average Southerner, it was about

liberty and repelling the invasion of his homeland; for the Yankee, it was about

empire, financial gain, and growing centralized government control over

everyone's lives and control over people's lives was the elixir of life for thesocialists. The fact that Communists and socialists from the failed 1848 revolts in

Europe flocked to join Lincoln's armies is only now beginning to be dealt with,

and even now, most authors who do mention it tend to downplay the significance of it and to try to move

their readers along to the "more important" things, such as who won which battle where. Don't dwell too

long on Lincoln and his socialist buddies. It might change your perspective and we can't have too much of

that now, can we.

http://olesouthbooks.com/kennedy_brothers/red_republicans.php







Lincoln's entire life reveals an ongoing affinity for socialism and for those that practiced and promoted it.

Once this is fully grasped, it will enable us to lay hold of the fact that, for the federal government in

Washington, D.C. in the 1860s, the Northern victory in the War of Northern Aggression was another

giant step in the program of socialist revolution that would, in time, reveal itself as the New World Order.

Mr. Lincoln The Infidel

by Al Benson Jr.

Just as, over the years, we have all been treated to the ethereal

fables of Mr. Lincoln as the "great emancipator" of blacks, so

have also been treated to many stories about his supposed

Christian faith. The problem with all of this is the most patriotic

and conservative folks have bought into this hook, line, and

sinker. I talked several years ago with a conservative man who

informed me that Lincoln "got saved" in the White House. I

asked him for some evidence and then sought to go a little intothe true nature of Lincoln's character. At that point, he informed

me that he "didn't have time for all this." Conversation ended.

He had no evidence to back up what he said and I had just

punctured the aura of secular holiness that surrounded his secular

saint, and he wasn't happy with that. He really didn't want to be

confronted with any facts that might force him to change his

opinion. So, in many conservative circles, where the truth is

supposed to be sought after and revered, many still refuse to deal with any truth that flies in the face of

their preconceived notions. I, too, once thought Lincoln was a good man. I was forced, after considerable

research, to change my views. That's life.

For well over a hundred years people have sought to throw the mud of Lincoln's "Christianity" against the

wall of unbelief, and, unfortunately, some of the mud has stuck. Some television preachers I've heard,

who did really good work in many areas over the years, continued to propagate the myth of Lincoln's

Christian faith. Even some providers of home school material have published books dealing with

Lincoln's "Christianity." These folks should know better. The home schooling community needs accurate

history, not the Lincolnian fables so prevalent in our government indoctrination camps, (er, pardon me, I

meant public schools).

In the mid-1860s, Josiah Gilbert Holland, editor of the Springfield, Massachusetts Republican wrote a

biography of Lincoln. David Herbert Donald, in his book Lincoln's Herndon wrote that Holland: "...had

delivered a tearful eulogy on Lincoln's death, emphasizing the President's 'simple, honest, Christian heart'and portraying 'that toil-worn man, rising long before his household and spending an hour with his Maker

and his Bible every morning'." Whatever Holland's motives were, and they were probably sincere, over

100,000 copies of his Lincoln biography were sold. Holland made a brief trip to the Midwest and spent

some time with William Herndon, Lincoln's former law partner. Herndon was somewhat disturbed over

Holland's constant references to Lincoln's Christian faith. That was most definitely not the Lincoln he

remembered. Donald noted in his book, on page 212: "When the Massachusetts editor visited Springfield



in the Spring of 1865, he asked Herndon: 'What about Mr. Lincoln's religion.' The less said the better,

replied Herndon, well aware of local gossip on the subject. 'Oh never mind' said Holland with a wink. 'I'll

fix that'." Donald further noted: "When The Life Of Abraham Lincoln appeared, Herndon learned that

Holland had done just that. A sincerely devout man himself, the Massachusetts editor had at the very

outset decided that the deified Lincoln must have been a 'true-hearted Christian.' He incorporated into his

biography all sorts of improbable anecdotes to emphasize Lincoln's religiosity."

In his book, Holland reported the recollections of one Newton

Bateman, Illinois superintendent of education. According to these

"recollections" Bateman had talked to Lincoln, who was striving

and wanting to become a Christian, a Lincoln who, reportedly,

said that Christ was God. Donald then reported that, after the

fact, Mr. Bateman was "...not a little surprised to hear such

religious sentiments from Lincoln, a man generally reputed in

Springfield to be an agnostic."

When Herndon heard about all this he was livid. Herndon, whorealized that Mr. Lincoln was no Christian, went to see Bateman,

accuding him of making a hypocrite of Lincoln. Donald wrote:

"Looking puzzled, or ashamed, the school superintendent backed

down from his statement as quoted in Holland's biography. His

recollection of Lincoln's words, he confessed, with

embarassment, was 'not precise'." So, to put it rather bluntly, we

really have no idea what Lincoln said to Bateman regarding the Christian faith. However, we do get some

ideas from other people that knew Mr. Lincoln rather well, including his wife. Mary Todd Lincoln herself

stated that Lincoln "was not a technical Christian." Can't get much closer to home than that!

Carl Sandburg, in volume one of his six-volume set on Lincoln's life, observed the following: "Closefriends of Lincoln, such as his law partner Herndon and Matheny, who stood as best man at his wedding,

had a notion that Lincoln was a sort of infidel. They said Lincoln told them he did not believe the Bible

was the revelation of God. 'Lincoln did tell me that he did write a little book on infidelity...I got that from

Lincoln's mouth' said Matheny. 'An infidel, a theist, a fatalist,' was Herndon's notion...Still others like

Jesse W. Fell at Bloomington felt that he held a good deal of the same views as the famous heterodox

New England preachers, Theodore Parker and William Ellery Channing." If, at best, even that statement

by Fell is accurate, it is worth noting that Parker and Channing were Unitarians! So can we, at best,

possibly say that Lincoln might have been some sort of Unitarian? That's a long way from Christian.

William Herndon, himself, wrote a book called Life Of Lincoln and he stated, quite forthrightly, that

"Lincoln was a deep-grounded infidel. He disliked and despised churches. He never entered a churchexcept to scoff and ridicule. On coming from a church he would mimic the preacher. Before running for

any office he wrote a book against Christianity and the Bible."

According to George Edmonds in Facts And Falsehood, as recorded on page 53 of the book: "A man

named Hill was greatly shocked, urged Lincoln not to publish it. Urged it would kill him politically. Hill

got the book in his hands, opened the stove door, and it went up in flames and ashes. After that, Lincoln



became more discreet..." Lincoln's relatives and friends testified that he "scoffed and derided religion and

the Bible."

So, in contrast to the sound testimony of those who knew him personally (and you can't get more primary

sources than that) and those who said that Mr. Lincoln was basically an infidel, we get these wonderfully,

sunny, "feel good" tales about the glorious faith of the "great emancipator." One can not help but wonder

if most of this is not just one more part of the overall program of trying to make the North appear to have

taken the moral high ground in the War of Northern Aggression, when, actually, it was the other way

around.

Perhaps a well-researched biography of the religious faith of Jefferson Davis might be in order--where the

faith of Davis could be contrasted with the "faith" of Lincoln. However, that is probably one contrast the

revisionist "historians" of our day would not want to see made for public consumption.

Mr. Lincoln's Biographer--One More Socialist

by Al Benson Jr.

Recently, in my article about Mr. Lincoln's socialist tendencies, I

believe I mentioned his biographer, Carl Sandburg. I briefly

noted how Mr. Sandburg had soft-pedaled the socialism of

Robert Owen of New Harmony, Indiana fame. I felt that

Sandburg, as knowledgeable a man as he was, must have known

something about the socialism or Robert Owen, yet mentioning

Owen in his biography of Mr. Lincoln, he chose not to share that

information with his readers. Being aware of Lincoln's socialism,

and finding that Mr. Sandburg chose not to deal with Owens'

socialism, it began to make me, with my suspicious mind,wonder just a bit.

Thus motivated, I did a little research on Mr. Sandburg and found

that, lo and behold, he, like Mr. Lincoln, had socialist leanings

and connections.

It seems that Sandburg moved to Wisconsin in the early 1900s, where he was a labor organizer for the

Wisconsin Social-Democrats, and he also, at the time, wrote for a paper in Milwaukee, the Milwaukee

Leader . He also became involved in the presidential campaign of Eugene V. Debs. In his book Reds In

America originally published in 1924, author R. M. Whitney mentioned Eugene Debs in the same breath

as William Z. Foster, Roger Baldwin, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn--all well-known Leftists or

Communists. On page 180 of his book Whitney referred to Eugene Debs

as "now out of jail after being pardoned for his anti-American activities

during the war..."

In 1908 Carl Sandburg was married to Lillian Steichen, who was both a

socialist and a schoolteacher. From 1910 through 1912 he worked as a

secretary for the socialist mayor of Milwaukee, Emil Seidel. It has been



reported that Sandburg, like several other writers, was considered to be a security risk by J. Edgar

Hoover. The FBI kept a file on him. In 1918 he went to Sweden, and upon returning, was questioned by

federal authorities and accused of supporting what the Bolsheviks were doing in Russia. Some, claiming

Sandburg did not have a "political mind" have dismissed this charge. He and his socialist wife moved to

Chicago sometime after 1912. In the 1930s he again became an active part of the Socialist movement. His

six-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln was done in the years from 1926 through 1939. It wouldappear that he may have been a participant in socialist activities during at least some of that period.

So, it should come as no surprise that Sandburg, well-known for his socialist leanings, should author a

series of books on the socialist icon of the 19th century, Abraham Lincoln. If Sandburg did much research

on Mr. Lincoln (and he must have done considerable) he would have had to be aware of Lincoln's

socialist tendencies and policies, and could, no doubt, be in complete sympathy with them, enough so that

he would endeavor to present to his readers the socialist "great emancipator" in such a light as to seek to

make his socialism as palatable as possible to most Americans, as indeed, it has become.

The fact that, under Mr. Lincoln's administration, we got the Internal Revenue Service, a strong national

bank, federal funding for and promotion of education, and federal funding for "internal improvements" ishardly ever mentioned. Such issues are just not openly discussed in politically correct "polite circles."

Don't want to pass out too much information that the "great unwashed" (general public) might pick up on,

some of them might ask questions. Lincoln is mentioned as being a devoted disciple of Henry Clay, the

father of "internal improvements" (read: socialism.) No one ever bothers to mention the fact that Clay's

"American System" of internal improvements was nothing more than socialism. Many "history" books

have little or nothing to say about Clay's program. Professor Thomas DiLorenzo, years ago, authored an

article entitled Henry Clay: National Socialist which I have previously

alluded to.

It would be a good mental exercise for any reading Sandburg's six-

volume biography of Mr. Lincoln to read it with both the socialism of Lincoln and Sandburg firmly in mind. That, coupled with a little

knowledge of the Socialist movement in America in the 1800s would

produce a view of Mr. Lincoln that is quite at odds with that which has

been palmed off on a gullible American public. Carl Sandburg may or

may not have had a "political mind" but he had a most definite affinity

for socialism and he sought to promote that, unconsciously or otherwise,

in his work on Lincoln.

Once the socialism of Lincoln is grasped, it leads you to begin to look at

the Northern perspective of the War of Northern Aggression in an

entirely different light. It now becomes a war to make the Union more centralized and consolidated,controlled centrally from Washington, regulated by Washington, and the technique of class struggle is

promoted to divide one group against another--all in the name of "unity."

Until we begin to grapple with and grasp the fact that the War of Northern Aggression was, indeed, our

French Revolution, from which we have never recovered, we will never get our history from 1865 to the

present in its proper perspective. And writers like Carl Sandburg, with his smarmy approach to Lincoln's

socialism, will do nothing but harm our endeavors at accuracy, unless they are exposed. Whether he



realized it or not, (and I think he did) Sandburg's approach to the life of Mr. Lincoln was guaranteed to

perpetuate myth, not fact.

Mr. Lincoln-The Racist, The Socialist, The Infidel

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