Lincoln

     With President Lincoln's birthday there's been writing about him. Heather Cox-Richardson, the historian who writes a daily blog mentioned a meditation by Lincoln. The Daily Reformer printed the letter.

 

4. Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln’s birthday was over the weekend, and historian Heather Cox Richardson cites this meditation Lincoln apparently wrote on a fragment of paper in the 1850s. He’s talking about the logic of slavery, but it’s a good exercise in political theory. 

“If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B.—why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?” Lincoln wrote. “You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own. You do not mean color exactly?—You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own. But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.”

Takk for alt,

Al

                             Earl's my man!