Los Presidentes Washington y Lincoln

Buenas noches Sra.,

On one of my homework sheets you asked por que no me gustan los presidentes Washington y Lincoln. The biggest reason is that I see these men as symbols of the trend to concentrate more and more power in the hands of a select few.

Washington was very influential in dumping the Articles of Confederation, which provided for no executive branch or office of Commander in Chief, and switching to the present Constitution, which does both. He knew the government provided for in the Articles was not powerful enough to protect the interests of the landed elite. Also, during the Revolution, Washington introduced a class system to the Continental Army, where officers were no longer elected by their peers but now appointed, and where officers enjoyed better pay than their subordinates.

Besides killing off a large portion of the American population, Lincoln did all sorts of other abuses of power. He suspended habeus corpus, he shut down newspapers, and he tried to arrest a Chief Justice for disagreeing with him. Just about every dubious expansion of executive power (and especially wartime power) has its precedent in Lincoln's reign.

Unfortunately, it's only "natural" that patriotic holidays tend to be celebrations of bloodshed, and it's only "natural" that national "heroes" tend to be wartime Presidents and military officials. Government is by definition institutionalized violence, and it is inevitable that almost all the liturgy of the civil religion will be war-themed celebrations that unite and define the nation through the sacralazation of organized violence. I dislike Washington and Lincoln and their holiday because they are patron saints of power, and to worship them is to worship power.

Here's an article saying a little more on Washington. http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard171.html

Here's an article on Washington's orders to execute mutineers who were agitating for better pay. http://www.executedtoday.com/2009/01/27/1781-new-jersey-pennsylvania-line-mutiny/

Here's a lecture by Howard Zinn on America's three "Holy Wars". He says a few things about Washington and Lincoln, and some other figures in American history. http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2010/1/8/howard_zinn_three_holy_wars

Here's a url for a whole archive on "King Lincoln". http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/lincoln-arch.html

Even if these ideas are too uncomfortably radical for you, I do hope and am confident that you will at least find them interesting.

Sinceramente,
Isaiah