And Then They Came For Abe Lincoln

Protesters in Washington now want to remove the Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park, which they for some reason find offensive. The statue commemorates the emancipation proclamation. Yesterday they held a peaceful protest but promised to come back tomorrow (Thursday) to tear it down. Since this is on Federal property this would seem to be setting the stage for a direct confrontation with President Trump, who seems to be about the only one willing to stand up to the mobs. We will see who blinks first.

DCs delegation, which sees it as “problematic,” also wants it gone. Never mind that it was paid for by the donations of freed slaves. How long before they go after the Lincoln Memorial, which has already been defaced with graffiti?

Speaking of Lincoln, Senator Tom Cotton quoted him in an address a few days ago.

I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill omen, amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice. This disposition is awfully fearful in any community; and that it now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit, it would be a violation of truth, and an insult to our intelligence, to deny. Accounts of outrages committed by mobs, form the everyday news of the times.

Mob violence in the 1850s, when Lincoln said this, was a precursor to the last Civil War. Let’s hope this round doesn’t presage a second.

Moving further afield, the statue of John C. Calhoun has been taken down in Charleston.

In Madison, Wisconsin, also no stranger to radicalism, a mob pulled down and beheaded the statue of Hans Christian Heg, a noted abolitionist and Union soldier who died at Chickamauga, then threw it in a lake. The also pulled down another statue, Forward, fire-bombed public buildings, and beat up a state senator who happened to be there. This was all done without serious opposition, and the governor has belatedly activated the National Guard.

This is proceeding as I predicted, but I take no pleasure in being right.

UPDATE: Now students at UW in Madison, WI, want to remove the statue of Lincoln on campus. “Just because he was anti-slavery doesn’t mean he was pro-Black.”