oh for shame ~ !

[lookingland]

found this bit of choice meanness while reading this morning (in When the Bells Tolled for Lincoln by Carolyn L. Harrell:

General Ord had issued an order for Richmond citizens to pray for President Lincoln... [A] Richmond minister found only five or six persons in the congregation who would gather for the required memorial service. Hattie Blenheim, one of the congregants, later wrote that when the minster spoke from the pulpit, he said:

My friends, we have been ordered to meet here by those in authority for humiliation and prayer on account of the death of Lincoln. Having met, we will now be dismissed with the doxology: "Praise God from whom all blessings flow!"

not the least of which is disturbing about this is how impossible it is to imagine a government that would mandate such a service on a defeated people in the first place. yuck.

: o p


a bonus tidbit from the Chicago Tribune, April 17, 1865

Comments

[countrysoaper.livejournal.com]

How nice of the Tribune to go into such detail about how these men were executed for something covered under the First Ammendment.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i love America ~ !

: D

p.s. in defense of the Tribune tidbit, the men weren't killed ~ just tortured (the difference between "hung" and "hanged"). not that it makes it any better, really.