- Joined
- Jul 26, 2018
It occurs to me that one thing I admire greatly about President Lincoln might make him especially distasteful or even frightening to people of his era in the south and those who revere pre-Civil War southern culture. The social strata of that time and place was as close to a caste system as there has ever been in the United States. Gentry from distinguished families with money and slaves could be joined by those not born into the group only by marriage. Mechanics, farmers and merchants could not move up in status even in the very unlikely event that they became wealthy. Some people filled various roles essentially as servants to the gentry. White people who dealt directly with slaves had low status, regardless of their wealth. The enslaved had no status. The refrain from the wealthy to the farmer/mechanic of the time was assurance they were better than slaves and support of slavery kept them in a position to feel superior.
Lincoln's father, Thomas, moved his family out of a slave-holding state, knowing he would be locked into a low social status for the remainder of his life if he stayed.
Son of an illiterate, "mud sill" farmer, in the social environment of the antebellum south Lincoln should have been a deferential, respectful non-entity, noticed primarily for his height, strength, and ability to tell jokes. His rise to prominence, without notable family or moneyed friends, called into question the stability of the entire social structure and the comfortable sense of unquestioned superiority of those at the top. As an "uppity" lower class man who "did not know his place," Lincoln would have been truly frightening to entitled supporters the old order.
Lincoln's father, Thomas, moved his family out of a slave-holding state, knowing he would be locked into a low social status for the remainder of his life if he stayed.
Son of an illiterate, "mud sill" farmer, in the social environment of the antebellum south Lincoln should have been a deferential, respectful non-entity, noticed primarily for his height, strength, and ability to tell jokes. His rise to prominence, without notable family or moneyed friends, called into question the stability of the entire social structure and the comfortable sense of unquestioned superiority of those at the top. As an "uppity" lower class man who "did not know his place," Lincoln would have been truly frightening to entitled supporters the old order.
Bringing the