Lincoln embodied the Idea of America, Obama - whose hero is Lincoln - even more so
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Replying to @arthur_affect
America as being about belief in democracy, or the public good, or equality and freedom, or whatever
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Replying to @arthur_affect
It's had its moments but even with all the advantages stacked in its favor it has a tough time competing with the Idea of Whiteness
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Replying to @arthur_affect
People will - even with no direct economic benefit from it, as pointed out ad nauseam - die to defend the idea of whiteness
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Replying to @arthur_affect
They'll die for it, they'll kill for it, they'll commit unthinkable atrocities for it - even against their own neighbors and families
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Replying to @arthur_affect
The fact that poor white non-slave owners would grab one of their own neighbors and torture him on suspicion of loyalty to the Union
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Replying to @arthur_affect
That they'd lock up Union soldiers and beat them every day while watching them slowly die of starvation and disease
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Replying to @arthur_affect
You don't have to guess at the motivations, you can read it from ppl at the time, this seething hate, the sense of being stained, dishonored
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Replying to @arthur_affect
John Wilkes Booth personally lost nothing from the war materially but he was willing to die to avenge the "idea" of the South
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Replying to @arthur_affect
He had riches and fame but he would rather die than live in a world where he was one notch closer to being equal to a black man
1 reply 12 retweets 70 likes
When Appomattox was signed he went on a rant "Soon if a black man insults a white man, the white man can't kill him without going to jail!"
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Replying to @arthur_affect
(Something which even today isn't 100% true, but the idea of it was enough to drive him nuts)
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