TPM Cafe: "1881 -- Where GOP Incitement Can Lead"

[mod mom]

1881 -- Where GOP Incitement Can Lead

By M.J. Rosenberg - September 10, 2009, 12:51PM



I just re-read a book that brings home why we need to take this political ugliness seriously. The book by a Washington attorney (and Republican activist) is called "Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield."

The book is fascinating and reads like a heart-breaking thriller.

Ackerman shows that the 20th President was murdered not by some lone lunatic gone postal, but by a lunatic (yes, he was that) inspired by the non-stop venom directed at Garfield. The vitriol, starting from the moment of his surprise nomination, came from Republican operatives, office holders, editors and Congressional extremists.

-snip

The lesson: even in those seemingly more innocent times, America was rife with violent hate against politicians who stood in the way of certain interests. (In Garfield's case, it was what they called "boodle" or bribes). FDR was a target of that kind of hate, and Clinton, and, of course JFK. That is why the GOP needs to do what it can to crack down on the ugliness we saw demonstrated by the Republicans on Wednesday night, especially because, with Obama, is added the all-powerful race element.

-snip


http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/10/why_we_need_to_take_the_anti-obama_hate_seriously/?ref=fpd

Worth reading! Rosenberg ends with some quotes from Garfield, and gave me a history less on our 20th president :

PS The Obama haters in the GOP would have hated Garfield too. He devoted a thousands words in his inaugural address to achieving equality and full voting rights for African Americans including this:

"The emancipated race has already made remarkable progress. With unquestioning devotion to the Union, with a patience and gentleness not born of fear, they have 'followed the light as God gave them to see the light.' They are rapidly laying the material foundations of self-support, widening their circle of intelligence, and beginning to enjoy the blessings that gather around the homes of the industrious poor. They deserve the generous encouragement of all good men. So far as my authority can lawfully extend they shall enjoy the full and equal protection of the Constitution and the laws....

"To violate the freedom and sanctities of the suffrage is more than an evil. It is a crime which, if persisted in, will destroy the Government itself. Suicide is not a remedy. If in other lands it be high treason to compass the death of the king, it shall be counted no less a crime here to strangle our sovereign power and stifle its voice"

[mod mom]

1. Quotes from Garfield's assassin:

Guiteau wrote:

"I read the newspapers carefully, for and against the Administration, and gradually the convictions settled on me that the President's removal was a political necessity, because he proved a traitor to the men that made him, and thereby imperiled the life of the Republic.

"In the President's madness he has wrecked the once grand old Republican party; and for this he dies.

"This is not murder. It is a political necessity."

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/10/why_we_need_to_take_the_anti-obama_hate_seriously/index.php#comment-3596631

:scared:

[BlooInBloo]

2. Most excellent find; thanks.

[HamdenRice]

3. And Chester Allan Arthur was the Thurgood Marshall of his day

There is all this new history coming out about the post civil war era.

The pork chop side burned presidents who blur into non-entities turn out to have had interesting abolitionist and reconstruction backgrounds.

It turns out that Chet Arthur was the lawyer who desegregated public transportation in New York by taking the case of a 19th century "Rosa Parks" who refused to give up her seat on a trolley.

[mod mom]

4. He was also credited for doing much w civil servant reform. Also, part Native American.

[mod mom]

5. Kicking for the afternoon crowd becuz history IS important!

[kskiska]

6. Another one on the subject

I read "The Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield," by Kenneth D. Ackerman.

Garfield was not simply killed by a "disappointed office seeker," as widely believed.