What is the first thing that David Hogg does on rising each morning?
I ask the question because while Hogg was formerly an impressive agitator for his cause of gun violence reduction, he’s now just an especially annoying social justice warrior. Indeed, one imagines that Hogg’s rising tendency is to immediately scour his social media feeds, desperately searching for that next great tweet which will launch him to new levels of wokeness. This is Hogg’s equivalent of 50 pushups. Don’t believe me?
Then consider this amazingly idiotic series of hot takes on Wednesday.
I thank my indigenous peers that brought my attention to Lincoln’s atrocities committed against native Americans.
I’m deeply sorry for not acknowledging these crimes that I was unaware of until now. I will do better in the future.
— David Hogg (@davidhogg111) February 5, 2020
Hogg had it right first.
By any measure of historical attention, Abraham Lincoln was indeed “a really good president.” Lincoln didn’t simply unify the nation to overcome its greatest existential challenge since the Revolutionary War; he did so while freeing the slaves and establishing the foundation of equality under the law that so defines the United States at its best today.
However, Hogg has no time for such a trifle matter as historical fact. The Harvard freshman finds far greater purpose in social media self-flagellation. Rather than doing more research on Lincoln when challenged about the president’s record, Hogg preferred to tweet out a link to a silly article. This, Hogg somehow believes, is enough to convince the rest of us that his self-correction is one we should emulate.
But to be clear, the article Hogg links to is silly.
While it rightly condemns the relocation of Native American tribes, it wrongly presumes that this is the best measure of the great man. And it plainly is not. It isn’t even the key measure of Andrew Jackson. More absurdly, Hogg’s article condemns the transcontinental railroad. And that railroad was crucial to the economic and social development of the U.S.
The article also ignores the context of the hangings which Lincoln authorized following the 1862 Dakota War. Again, Hogg would know this had he bothered to do what any good student, let alone a Harvard student, is supposed to do: read around a subject. Because had Hogg read David Donald’s magisterial Lincoln biography, for example, he would have learned that Lincoln was under immense pressure to execute all 303 Sioux warriors convicted by Army trial. And that Lincoln was warned that his failure to execute all 303 warriors would result in settler massacres against innocent Native Americans.
So what did Lincoln do? Did he give in to fear or the desire for mob justice?
As Donald tells us, he did not.
Instead, Lincoln “deliberately went through the record of each [of the 303] convicted man, seeking to identify those who had been guilty of the most atrocious crimes, especially murder of innocent farmers and rape. He came up with a list of 39 names … he warned the telegraph operator to be particularly careful [in transmitting the names back to the Army], since even a slight error might send the wrong man to his death.”
Is this the legacy of “not a really good president?”
No, it is the testament of a great one — of he who saved the union at the greatest personal and professional cost. And, if nothing else, of a president who deserves fairer treatment from a certain Harvard student.
