Bernie Sanders

mother earth

(6,002 posts) Thu Jul 23, 2015, 01:30 PM Jul 2015

Lincoln & the Socialist Roots of the Republican Party (may be helpful in conversations on socialism)

Lincoln and the socialist roots of the Republican Party

These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.  —Abraham Lincoln, from his first speech as an Illinois state legislator, 1837

Everyone now is more or less a Socialist.  —Charles Dana, managing editor of the New York Tribune, and Lincoln’s assistant secretary of war, 1848

The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.  —Karl Marx and the First International Workingmen’s Association to Lincoln, 1864

These quotations begin a chapter in John Nichols new book, The “S” Word: A Short History of an American Tradition—Socialism. He wrote The “S” Word in response to Newt Gingrich’s comment, in 2010, that “the socialist infiltration of American government and media is even more disturbing than the threats from foreign terrorists.”

Although both Republicans and Democrats pretend that socialism is a foreign idea antithetical to the “American Way,” Nichols argues that socialism has a long, proud history in America. He writes about Tom Paine who admired early socialists, Horace Greeley who employed Karl Marx as a correspondent for the New York Tribune, and Helen Keller who was an avowed socialist. But one fascinating chapter, reprinted in full at the International Socialist Review, reveals that Republican president Abraham Lincoln had not only immersed himself in the ideas of European Utopian Socialists, and German Communists, but spoke about them publicly.

Lincoln was an avid reader of newspapers, especially of the New York Tribune, which was the great Republican paper of the day. It took a strong stand against slavery in the south. But it also had forceful opinions on the relationship between Labor and Capital, arguing that “Labor needs not to combat but to command Capital.” Greeley wanted to “expose the crimes whereby wealth is amassed and luxury enjoyed.” Nichols writes:

MORE:

http://www.occasionalplanet.org/2011/12/16/lincoln-and-the-socialist-roots-of-the-republican-party/

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So, the next time someone slams "socialism" as communism or some such BS, please educate them, chances are it will come from a republican who just doesn't get it, lol, but ignorance knows no limits, it could come from anyone, even a dem.