<
https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2023/mar/29/lest-we-remember-how-britain-buried-its-history-of-slavery>
"Slightly tucked away from Manchester’s main thoroughfares, in a quiet square
that bears his name, there is a statue of Abraham Lincoln – as it happens, just
outside the windows of the
Guardian’s offices in the city where the newspaper
was founded nearly 202 years ago.
Manchester acquired the sculpture by chance. It was meant to appear outside the
Houses of Parliament in London, as a symbol of Anglo-American cooperation –
until the American donors were riven by fighting over its “weird and deformed”
depiction of the famously homely president, and a more “heroic” statue was sent
in its stead.
Manchester was keen to have it for a reason. Lincoln developed a deep affection
for the city during the American civil war after Lancashire cotton mill workers
resolved to back him at considerable cost to themselves. Manchester was the
largest processor of cotton in the world at the time; the American
slave-holding south was the largest producer. Lincoln, seeking to isolate and
economically cripple the south, implemented a naval blockade of its cotton,
which wrought great hardship on the mill workers in the north of England.
The British government was officially neutral. Many merchants in Liverpool,
prioritising wealth at home over freedom abroad, backed the Confederate south
and organised warships to support the enslavers. But in Manchester, a coalition
of liberals, cotton workers and abolitionists came together to back the north.
After a famous public meeting at the Free Trade Hall on 31 December 1862,
Manchester’s workers resolved to endure the privations of the blockade and lend
their weight to the fight against slavery. (The
Guardian did not support
them: its leader on that day warned that “English working men” should “know
better than to allow the organised expression of their opinion as a class to be
thrown into one scale or the other in a foreign civil war”.)
Months later, Lincoln wrote a letter of thanks to the “working-men of
Manchester”, part of which is inscribed on his statue. “I know and deeply
deplore the sufferings which the working-men of Manchester, and in all Europe,
are called to endure in this crisis,” he wrote. “Under the circumstances, I
cannot but regard your decisive utterances upon the question as an instance of
sublime Christian heroism which has not been surpassed in any age or in any
country.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
