Abraham Lincoln, Benito Mussolini, and Salvific Politics

This year is the notable bicentennial of the birth of the Great Emancipator whose praised Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 didn’t (immediately) free a single slave in any Confederate State. Total war was brutally conducted by the North, during the War of Northern Aggression, by which the civilian population of the South was, in fact, deliberately and savagely targeted; such truly massive extremes of intentionally bloodthirsty warfare, as was eagerly promoted by the leader of the Union, were not to be again seen on earth until World War I with its own horrors and brutalities. 

Dr. Gary Gallagher, a recent historian specializing in the history of this era, has well noted how Abraham Lincoln had, e. g., greatly praised a Union commanding officer who publicly boasted of his murdering of women and children; the USA’s Chief Executive had, moreover, authorized use of the dum-dum bullet whose chief purpose, he knew, was to insure an agonizing death, through infected wounds, if the bullet itself did not do the job (killing) intended much more immediately.

These rather most highly disturbing facts do pose the morally needed question as to whether or not Lincoln could be described justly as having been a moral monster, in true contradistinction to the prevalent popular myth of a very merciful, compassionate, and warm-hearted humanitarian fellow.  Perhaps, a major reassessment and reevaluation is historically, morally, and politically needed, as this country advances into the 21st century, as it appears headed toward the brutal grip of an advancing statism.

Sometimes, it may take many years, decades, or, perhaps, centuries before a certain pattern or attitude becomes clear to the minds of at least some observers who do refuse to just accept popular opinion or general beliefs as held by the mostly uninformed or ignorant majority. The proper historical, political, or other context may help.   Or, as another possibility, there may be the added need to try to place someone or something into a much larger or broader frame of reference than what might be given in only the mere particulars of rendered situations of the past. 

Popular beliefs can, in fact, be still deceptive and, moreover, factually or empirically erroneous, regardless of how well respected certain historical figures and/or political, ideological, social, or other movements may be, either in general terms or in particular circumstances.  For instance, eugenics, prior to Nazism, was highly respected and supported by most of the elites of the Western world as being progressive, moral, scientific, and generally in line with very genuine civilizational and societal values of a rather high order.