After 1865, the momentum of change and social equality had stampeded onto the center stage of american politics and social issues of the united states of america. However, not in the form of progression in morality. Prior to this particularly special day of january 1, 1865 (I will explain the significance later), around 1820-40 the young nation of the new world union began to question some institutions that had historically, or in retrospect, accelerated the united states to economic bliss. particularly the southern states were without a doubt the major beneficiaries of Americas slave trade. With the boom and increase in demand of organic material such as corn, cotton, tobacco etc., the business of trading, buying, and selling slaves increased as well. By the 1850s, slavery was still indeed legal in the southern states of the nation, but had basically been erased for the most part in the northern states.
Abraham Lincoln was a self-taught and self motivated ambitious rail-splitter and lawyer from Hodgenville Kentucky. Lincoln stepped on the political scene shortly before 1854 by running for a political office in the house of representatives. He lost his first election (he actually lost five elections before rising to political fame) but he would later get elected as the only delegate of the Whig party (A whig was an American who supported independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution. : a member or supporter of an American political party of the 19th century that was formed to oppose the Democrats). He served in his political office with integrity for about two years in the house of representatives. Essentially lincoln was an unknown figure to the american public, and even so he managed to grab the love and affection of the people with his passion and sound policy.
As president Lincoln was set to assume a second term in the white house, the pulse of the nation in regards to slavery was about to reach a critical state. The rebellion of seceding states would lead to a war that would claim 650,000 men, making it by far the bloodiest war on american soil. Along with an exorbitant death toll, the battles in congress, and the warfare waged among politicians in trying to pass the bill that would abolish slavery would climax to an almost supernatural cadence. Bringing as it were the question:
“Was america mentally ready to be progressive on the issue of civil matters?” and the question we ask today is: “Is america still not ready to completely embrace change in 2016 towards the rights of the people?”
Abe Lincoln was not an abolitionist, nor did he claim to be, yet he didn’t agree with the institution of slavery. His biggest concern, most pressing matter on his agenda even from the very beginning of his political career was to stop or prevent the spread/expansion of slavery across the northern border. For him, slavery was possibly more of an economic issue than it was a moral one. However and regardless of the level of emergency placed on the moral obligation to abolish slavery and put an end to denying civil rights, it was of most importance to those craving and desiring to be “Henceforth and forever free.”
Looking back on history and considering the pure seriousness that caused men to die, it is of utmost importance that the lesson taught be learned and be carried over into our generation by those who suffered the most. Lincolns acquiring of black freedom was almost indeed somewhat of a miracle. In championing the rights of blacks to be free, Lincoln and his staff had to jump through hoops that some might think was illegal even today, through bribery and blackmail.
Through the heart breaking reality of human suffering, through the tears and anguish experienced on both sides of a nation at war with itself, through the all too valuable blood that was shed on battle fields across the south, there needs to be a lesson learned by our generation and the generation to come that our history can teach us. From the deep areas of the gulf of the Mississippi, to the very front lines of the confederate capital of Richmond Virginia, from the borders of Tennessee to the out skirts of places like maine, Maryland and our eastern borders that the blood of young men ran. A lesson was taught, and we must listen.
A Proclamation.
Whereas, on the twentysecond day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
“That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
“That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.”
Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States…”
January 1, 1865 ushered into law the freedom of hundreds of thousands of black slaves, what it didn’t do was usher such into practice as fast perhaps as we would have liked to see it.
After the conclusion of the war, after that dark night of April 14th at fords theater, after that gloomy morning of April 15th at the Peterson’s boarding house across the street from Fords Theater at about 7:16am when lincoln finally drew his last breath, the nation entered a period in history called “Reconstruction.” This period in history was supposed to be the realization of Lincoln’s speech outlining the way the disposition of the nation should have been.
I want to give a small glimpse of his speech in hopes that it will be researched by my readers and internalized. Weeks of wet weather preceding Lincoln’s second inauguration had caused Pennsylvania Avenue to become a sea of mud and standing water. Thousands of spectators stood in thick mud at the Capitol grounds to hear the President. As he stood on the East Portico to take the executive oath, the completed Capitol dome over the President’s head was a physical reminder of the resolve of his Administration throughout the years of civil war.
| ” With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations” |
Has Lincoln’s quite clear vision been blurred? Has reconstruction become nothing but a term to label a period of unproductiveness? Have we as a nation in 2016 reached a place where we can proclaim that we have bound up the wounds of our wars with each other, or are we still fighting?
Unfolding before us is the biggest political circus that our nation has probably ever known. The trajectory of our nation and the progress made thus far is threatened. Our civil policy has only expanded so far since the days of old Abe lincoln, and in my opinion and millions of others, it still has a way to go. We don’t have the evil burden of slavery anymore, but we have a community of intelligent and able women in america still fighting for a voice, still trying to gain what should have been theirs since this nation began, equality. We have blacks and other minorities being gun down in our streets and in our communities by those who swore an oath to serve and protect them. We have children growing older without receiving a decent education. We have a beautiful LGBT community that is being denied basic civil rights at the hands of religion and the idiotic clinging to tradition and nostalgia.
However, I must assert here that though progress has indeed been slow, it has without a doubt been on its way. Just within the last decade we have made significant strides in fighting for and securing civil liberties for many people living in the united states. The United States state and federal courts back in june of 2013 started to lift laws banning gay and lesbian couples from getting married. This progress has mounted with rulings in Arkansas, Idaho, Oregon and Pennsylvania, has created an aura of inevitability around the same-sex marriage movement. Two federal appeals court have already ruled in cases from Utah, Oklahoma and Virginia, one or more of which almost reached the Supreme Court.
LGBT communities and their allies are seeing unprecedented progress toward global equality, with many milestones taking place within just the past 2 years. Since last LGBT Pride Month, we have seen same-sex marriage legalized in the United States, Ireland and Mexico, international leaders voicing groundbreaking support for LGBT people, and openly queer individuals getting the attention they deserve in government and pop culture alike. We have seen the end of DOMA, the United States federal law that, prior to being ruled unconstitutional, defined marriage for federal purposes as the union of one man and one woman, and it allowed states to deny weddings to lesbian and gay couples.
And last but certainly not least is the brilliant and intelligent man we call our president currently, Barack Obama. From the chains and whips of slavery, through the torture of Jim Crow laws and suffrage denial, from lynches and walks on washington by the black community, Dr. King and the beautiful whites who stood with us, to the white house. What a change of pace that was to have our very first black president elected by the american people for two consecutive terms in the white house. Progress indeed…
The blur of reality, is a reality that has all but forgotten the lessons of its past. A blurred reality is a reality that persist in the denial of the basic rights of other human beings based on someone elses biases. It is a distortion of civil liberty, it is a blatant denial of civil justice. Oh How I wish that we would be still, be quite, and once more hear the call of true freedom from the blood stained soil given by men who willfully fought for freedom. Not just black freedom, but for all people. When our nation, comes out of this blurry vision, this unfocused state that it is in, then the lessons of the past can began again to completely penetrate our lives and focus our eyes once more on what is most precious in life.
“We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; …” -Thomas Jefferson
“Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.”-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
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