Journal #33 (Extra)

Michelle Romero
English 48A
Dr. Scott Lankford

Ch. 6 John Brown and Lincoln

"Most of our textbooks say nothing about Lincoln's internal debate. If they did show it, what teaching devices they would become! Students would see that speakers modify their ideas to appease and appeal to different audiences, so we cannot simply take their statements literally" (Loewen 179).

This is true. History textbooks are so boring--the never get to the meat: the details of behind the scenes, what people were really thinking, how it really felt to be in certain situations. Instead, it becomes dry and dull and as students, miss the connections that make those historical events part of our own individual history.

I was actually surprised to here about Lincoln's somewhat "on the fence" approach to the race issue. He is always talked about as one of the greatest presidents because of his achievements to end slavery and racial discrimination. Now I think it was more like luck that the North was winning to influence him to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. I think if the South was winning, perhaps things could have turned out very differently.

To see him as a real man gives us a different view. It makes sense though. When we think about how often we all change our mind or develop new philosophies or ideas of what is right and wrong through personal experience or new knowledge, then it is understandable that all of our "heroes" were the same way. And YET, it somehow suits us to put them on a pedestal, dehumanizing them to nothing more than a trophy to represent one fact about them and not the whole picture. I think that if we did hear the whole story and could see the truth about the influence of political rhetoric, we would be more cautious and skeptical about just believing whatever we here. Instead, by remembering only the golden moment, we feel like it is the government or our leaders who have our best interests at heart, as if they know something we don’t. I guess that is the point of re-writing history in this way.