They’ve Come for Lincoln

[Valin]

Power Line

John Hinderaker

May 5, 2022

Remember when Democrats assured us that they just wanted to get rid of statues of Confederate generals, plus Jefferson Davis? That was the issue in Charlottesville. But of course it didn’t stop there. Liberals don’t hate the Confederacy, they hate America. So inevitably, the Great Emancipator is now in their sights.

Here in Minnesota, Democratic Representative Jamie Becker-Finn complains about having to see a portrait of Lincoln in the Minnesota House chamber. My colleague Bill Walsh reports:

Cancel culture has now reached President Abraham Lincoln, the man who wrote the Emancipation Proclamation declaring enslaved people “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” Democrat Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn (DFL-Roseville) complained about Lincoln’s presence on the House floor this week during a debate on an education bill.

We are asked to serve, we serve in this body, we have to look at President Lincoln every day we are in this space.

The humanity! Bill surmises, no doubt correctly, that Becker-Finn’s contempt for Lincoln stems from the Great Sioux Massacre of 1862. In that uprising, the Sioux committed the worst massacre by either side in the period from 1492 to the present, slaughtering, among many others, 100 children under the age of 10:

(Snip)

Years ago, Scott and I wrote an op-ed in the Star Tribune debunking leftist myths about the hanging of 38 murderers and rapists in Mankato. But the myths persist. Our governor participates annually in a horseback ride that culminates in Mankato, honoring the 38 murderers and rapists. He has officially apologized for what was in fact a miscarriage of justice only to the extent that so many vicious criminals went unpunished.

In the current issue of Thinking Minnesota, John Phelan has a sober and balanced account of the 1862 massacres and ensuing “war.” This is how it started:

(Snip)