Abraham Lincoln: America's Colonizer In Chief

When America Deported Freed Enslaved People

Photo by Renee Alter in Wikimedia Commons

The statue pictured above is controversial in its own right. The "Freedmen's Memorial To Abraham Lincoln" was paid for by contributions from the newly freed, yet they had no say in the final design; many, including Frederick Douglass, were critical at the time.

"The negro here, though rising, is still on his knees and nude. What I want to see before I die is a monument representing the negro, not couchant on his knees like a four-footed animal, but erect on his feet like a man."

Historian Renee Alter suggests this statue at Lincoln Park in Washington, DC, along with its counterpart in Boston, should be removed. She does a far better job than I could in describing the symbolism. While Lincoln was seen as a hero to many, he was a pragmatist whose primary goal was to preserve the Union, not free the enslaved.