the rix mix

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
-- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
(letter to Col. William F. Elkins)
Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY)

No one would like this quote to be authentic Lincoln more than I. But a quote is not authenticated by the person quoting it, by dubious attributions, by its common currency, or because one agrees with its sentiment.

I read an entire, sincere defense of this quote in which the researcher was unable to authenticate the original source, the Elkins letter itself, widely considered a forgery. That Lincoln valued labor over capital is well known. But he did not value labor against capital.

The best Lincoln historians of the past 100 years have not "sanitized" Lincoln. That was in fact done  by the first few generations following the Civil War, when Lincoln was mythologized, finding its apotheosis in Carl Sandburg's massive biographies of the '20s & '30s.  Sandburg wrote an epic prose folk poem in several parts about Lincoln,  & his books can be appreciated on that basis.  Sandburg believed just about everything. He also wrote from the left. The right has its fake Lincoln quotes also. One of the favorites is the notoriously phony  "Ten Points," which includes such gems as:

• You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
• You cannot help small men up by tearing big men down.
• You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
• You cannot lift the wage-earner up by pulling the wage-payer down.

I first encountered one of the "Ten Points" on a box of Celestial Seasoning tea, no attribution at all.  I immediately thought it was one of the bogus Lincoln sayings. They don't even sound like genuine Lincoln, they are so witless. By 1864, President Lincoln had no objections to General Sherman marching through the South with the  purposes of weakening the strong, tearing big men down & destroying the rich.  Our current Republican Party overflows with antebellum emotions & attitudes.