Did Abraham Lincoln really care for the slaves? Perhaps, people have to step back and look at the big picture. Every statue, monument or painting hanging in a public place must now be scrutinized closely to determine if the person or group represented there is above reproach. This even extends to the very foundations of the U.S., the first Presidents being largely made up of slave owners and right to the President who supposedly tried to erase slavery. One thing a lot of people don’t realize is that Abraham Lincoln is not the great emancipation architect people make him out to be. He was a politician first and a humanitarian second. As a lawyer, he represented clients from both sides of the slavery issue, once representing a slave owner who wanted to get his slaves returned to him. As a member of the Whig party, he agreed that an anti-slavery stand was not politically beneficial and that they should concentrate on economic issues, since the party got more support from slave states. It was not until his move to the newly formed Republican party that he changed his public opinion to that of his new found party members. Lincoln supported gradual emancipation on a voluntary basis for slave owners and slave states and compensation for emancipated slaves with an eye toward colonization. In short, he was willing to let the whole process work itself out over a period of time, asking the slave owners and stares to voluntarily follow the process, perhaps with some compensation for their loss but the main idea behind his plan was to have all or most of the freed slaves removed to a newly created country of Liberia. In 1861, he even requested funds from Congress for the colonization efforts. At one point, Lincoln even told a group of African-American leaders that they should go along with the colonization plan because it was their being in the U.S. that caused the Civil War in the first place. In a speech by Lincoln, he made it very clear what his intentions were by stating, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union .” This doesn’t seem to be the picture of a man whose great ambitions serve a repressed people for the sake of pure good. Lincoln was a man with political ambitions and a man who was willing to let the sufferers of slavery go on suffering to attain another goal, to keep the nation together. Does this make him a true friend of the enslaved or just another man who was willing to use them as part of his own agenda? Therefore, to be entirely politically correct, Americans have no other option than to erase all of Amercian History and start over with a clean slate. It’s either that or accept that Americans are Americans, warts and all. All have prouder moments, greater aspirations and base desires they should have kept hidden. Destroying the past does not magically create a new future. We must learn from our past. That sounds tripe but, believe it or not, it’s the truth. It’s all about freedom of choice and freedom of speech. You have the freedom to ignore those monuments and you have to right to speak your objections to things you don’t like. What happened in Virginia, though, is that the alt left protesters seemed to think that freedom of speech only applied to them. They had no permits to be there. Even a peaceful protest would have been preferable but the protesters were so like many other Americans right now. Others can have the freedom of speech as long as it’s what we believe. Peaceful rallies should not be attacked simply because they do not share the same belief system. If a parade is going by my window, I can either join in or I can close the curtain. Under no circumstances would I turn my garden hose on them or pitch rocks at them. If they need to be controlled, that is for the authorities to do so. Yet, sometimes the most difficult thing to do is the easiest. Close the curtain on hatred and it will die a lonely and miserable death without the attention it desperately desires.