1/ Some were surprised yesterday that an African American Judge, Rossie Alston Jr. was the person to temporarily save the Confederate Memorial, dedicated to reconciliation between North and South, in Arlington National Cemetery.
But they shouldn't be.
A 🧵:
2/ Frederick Douglass was one of the great Americans of the 19th century. An escaped slave, his writing and oratory made him one of the pre-eminent figures of the abolitionist movement, an international celebrity, and probably the most prominent African American of his time.
3/ At the dedication of the Emancipation Statue featuring Lincoln in 1876, Douglass endorsed the prudential politics that caused Lincoln to put the preservation of the Union, before the slavery issue.
In doing so, he showed both his and Lincoln's statesmanship.
4/ "Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible,” Douglass said.
5/ "Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.”
6/ Indeed, when the monument itself was criticized for its symbolism, Douglass himself did not complain or call for its removal, but instead championed the building of additional monuments to add context.
He was about building up, not tearing down.
7/ Compare this wisdom from a person who had suffered under slavery with the radical bloviating of the Biden administration and their allies among America’s radical left, who have suffered nothing, but control almost all American institutions.
8/ The Biden regime is only interested in dividing America and punishing its political enemies, as it is trying to do by tearing down a long-established monument to North-South reconciliation.
9/ In the years before the Civil War, radical abolitionists under the motto "No Union with Slaveholders", criticized Douglass's willingness to engage in dialogue with slave owners.
He replied:
"I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."
10/ For more history, stories, and takes that you won't find in the regime media, please follow my account!
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