this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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Lincoln also commuted the sentence of 264 other Dakotans that had to be executed the same day. If he didn't intervene the executions would've been 303
Yeah. Cherry-picking can be used for good AND evil.
So what's the real dirt on Lincoln? Did he snore or something? :P
Honestly the worst thing Lincoln ever did was choosing Johnson as his VP. Even then, I learned recently that he asked a different (better) guy, Benjamin Butler, to be VP but he turned him down. Had he lived to do Reconstruction, we might have more to critique, certainly he'd have done better than Johnson (not a high bar), but since he died he's off the hook for figuring that one out.
You could also criticize him for not being committed enough to ending slavery from the start. But really, other than the mass hangings of the Dakotas (which could've been worse but was still not great), most criticism of him is just Lost Causers whining about "authoritarianism" by freeing the slaves and expanding the scope and power of the federal government as was necessary to free the slaves.