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Abraham Lincoln the Early Adopter
Hugh Pickens writes "On the 200th anniversary of his birth, President Abraham Lincoln's popular image as a log-splitting bumpkin is being re-assessed as historians have discovered that Lincoln had an avid interest in cutting-edge technology and its applications. During the war, Lincoln haunted the telegraph office (which provided the instant-messaging of its day) for the latest news from the front; he encouraged weapons development and even tested some new rifles himself on the White House lawn; and he is the only US president to hold a patent (No. 6469, granted May 22, 1849). It was for a device to lift riverboats over shoals. 'He not only created his own invention but had ideas for other inventions, such as an agricultural steam plow and a naval steam ram, [and] was fascinated by patent cases as an attorney and also by new innovations during the Civil War,' says Jason Emerson, author of Lincoln the Inventor. But Lincoln's greatest contribution to the war effort was his use of the telegraph. When Lincoln took office the White House had no telegraph connection. Lincoln 'developed the modern electronic leadership model, says Tom Wheeler, author of Mr. Lincoln's T-Mails: The Untold Story of How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph To Win the Civil War. At a time when electricity was a vague scientific concept and sending signals through wires was 'mind boggling,' Lincoln was fascinated by the telegraph and developed it into a political and military tool that allowed him to project himself to the front to monitor and track what was going on. 'If he were alive today, we'd call him an early adopter,' says Wheeler."
...unless you read the wikipedia on Thomas Jefferson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
There are none of Thomas Jefferson's patents on the page. In fact it doesn't even mention his involvement in the patent act of 1790, http://etext.virginia.edu/journals/EH/EH40/walter40.html
He invented a Moldboard Plow Of Least Resistance, Wheel Cipher, Portable Copying Press, and an improved polygraph for copying handwritten text.
http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~meg3c/classes/tcc313/200Rprojs/jefferson_invent/invent.html
"It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers." -- 4 days before he was assassinated
I myself, would have gone a step further and stripped the right from the very stupid (joe six-packs)
...for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. He even wrote a letter to the Hohner Harmonica company stating how he loved to sit on his porch, smoking "sweet hemp" from a corncob pipe and playing his harmonica. He very likely smoked it even while in the Whitehouse, or on or about the Whitehouse grounds, since hemp smoking was rather commonplace in the mid-1800's.
The parent post certainly expresses what we today consider racist opinions, but they are what Lincoln thought, they are a direct response to its parent post, and it is not a troll.
Mods -- just because history is racist does not make reports on history racist.
Infuriate left and right
P.S. I just reviewed the video again. I did see ONE white face. Still not a "large amount" as the grandparent falsely claimed. Check it out for ye self. Listen to the hate speech (and yes that is the proper term): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwQWuQVE6sw
"Can't we all just...get along?"
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Maybe someone needs to go back to Math class. 2009 - 200 is 1809 which is also 200 years since Lincoln was born and not the start of the American Civil War. Also if you reread the article you linked you'd realize that the statistics say African Americans made up 14% of the overall population and 11% of those were free if you do the math.
Now if you ignore all your errors how many opportunities were available to "freemen" in 1861? They had to fight and die on the side of the Union, (which despite not having slavery at the time) which had basically treated them like 2nd class citizens, to even gain any sort of recognition of being remotely honored.