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Lincoln in Singapore – Wiegers Calendar November

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Wiegers calendar SingaporeDavid Wiegers 2020 calendar takes us to Singapore, where Abraham Lincoln stands proudly in the courtyard of the Parkview Square building. Except he doesn’t. At least not when I was there.

Parkview Square is an elite (read: expensive) office building in downtown Singapore. In additional to executive suites it houses the Consulate of Oman and the Embassies of the United Arab Emirates, Austria, and Mongolia. The art deco style building has a beautiful open plaza that has been compared to Piazza San Marco in Venice. For a while, the plaza hosted a stunning array of bronze statues of world figures, including Sun Yat-sen, Salvador Dali, Mozart, Chopin, Picasso, Rembrandt, Shakespeare, Plato, Dante, Einstein, Winston Churchill, and Abraham Lincoln. Key words – For a while.

I arrived in Singapore in December 2018 after a small ship (200 passengers) took me from Hong Kong, through various stops in the Philippines, the Malaysian part of Borneo, and Brunei. In keeping with my aquarium obsession, one of my first stops was the S.E.A Aquarium on Sentosa Island. Having watched Crazy Rich Asians on the plane, I of course went to see the famous Marine Bay Sands tripartite building, Gardens by the Bay, and the Super Trees. At night I rode the Singapore Flyer Ferris wheel that gives a panoramic view of the city. Not surprisingly, I ate a lot of Chinese and other Asian fusion food.

Having been tipped off in advance by David Wiegers that there was a statue of Lincoln in Singapore, I duly determined which MRT train to take from Chinatown to Parkview Square. Upon arrival I marveled at the collection of modern art statues in the courtyard plaza. There was the odd grouping of five walking men standing on each others shoulders. There was a huge snail with a woman’s head and crown. There were four men dressed in orange standing outside looking into a square cage of bars. There were some more traditional Asian figures. But no Churchill. No Einstein. And definitely no Abraham Lincoln. Thinking maybe I was mistaken to expect them in the plaza I wandered into the breathtakingly expansive lobby where I found four large Salvador Dali sculptures hugging the corners. Still no Lincoln. Ah, there’s a concierge. Alas, she told me that the owners of the building periodically remove the artwork and feature other statues, like the four by Dali inside and the modern pieces outside.

So where was the Lincoln statue, I asked. Oh, she says, it’s probably being stored in the corporate offices in Hong Kong.

Where I had been two weeks before.

So once again I was in a place that had – or was supposed to have – a Lincoln statue and I either missed it or it had been removed. David Wiegers has featured Lincoln statues around the world in his calendar, and despite my having been in almost all the locations, I saw very few of them. Insert “sigh” here.

I do plan to return to some of these places in the (hopefully soon) post-COVID world. I definitely plan to go back to Edinburgh (the January 2020 statue, and where I lived for three months in the past). Others are less likely, but possible. As I write that sentence I realize I haven’t been out of the United States since my trip to Cuba in May of 2019. No wonder I’m feeling the wanderlust. Here’ hoping 2021 will get me back on the road, in the air, on the sea, and on the hunt for Abraham Lincoln (and aquariums) wherever I go.

This is Thanksgiving week in the United States. I find much to be thankful for this year notwithstanding ducking pandemics and feeling the walls edge ever so slowly closer together. Best wishes that all of us may see the silver linings. And please stay home, avoid large gatherings, wash your hands, wear a mask, and stay safe for the time to come where we can all celebrate each other’s existence in person again.

David J. Kent is an avid traveler, scientist, and Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World as well as two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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Sabotaging the Transition from Outgoing President to President-Elect

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Buchanan cabinetVoters exhausted by four years of scandal and fraud opted to vote out the sitting president after one term, voting in a new president who offered a change in direction. But there would be months of transition before the president-elect’s inauguration, months that would present a national and international crisis as the outgoing administration sabotaged the nation.

The outgoing single-term president was James Buchanan. The president-elect was Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln had won the popular and electoral vote by significant margins in a contentious 1860 election on November 6th. The inauguration would not be for four months, on March 4, 1861. Seven states seceded from the Union before Lincoln could take office. James Buchanan did not stop them. While Buchanan and Attorney General Jeremiah Sullivan Black both declared secession to be unconstitutional, yet also believed that the federal government had no authority to keep them in the Union. Buchanan blamed the crisis on “intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States,” and suggested that those Southern States “would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the Government of the Union.” This did not surprise anyone as Buchanan had always been a “doughface,” the derogatory name given to northerners with southern sympathies. Slaveholding states knew that Buchanan would do nothing, and indeed he took no action to resist secession, preferring to leave the growing crisis for the new president despite the president-elect having no power himself to act until he had taken the oath of office.

But Buchanan was not alone. Members of his cabinet actively acted to sabotage the Union during the transition. Even prior to election day, Major David Hunter wrote to Abraham Lincoln and offered precise information on the “treasonous” shifting of military resources in preparation for succession. This treason was under the direction of former Virginia governor John Floyd, who was acting in his current position as Buchanan’s Secretary of War. Floyd ordered large numbers of arms to Charleston, South Carolina, the state that was already planning to secede once the election took place. Floyd also sent munitions and soldiers into the South, not to stop secession, but to reduce a possible Union response to secession. He also ordered the Union’s limited navy offshore or further South. Other Buchanan cabinet members also violated their oaths of office to assist the seceding states. Secretary of the Treasury Howell Cobb of Georgia left to become President of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States. Secretary of the Interior Jacob Thompson of Mississippi denounced the incoming administration, then resigned to become Inspector General of the Confederate Army. Later he led the Confederate Secret Service and moved to Canada, from which he organized many anti-Union plots and was suspected of meeting with John Wilkes Booth. Secretary of War John Floyd also left his position after decimating the Union army; he was immediately commissioned a Confederate Major General and bragged about his disloyalty. Floyd was also found to have committed massive fraud while serving as Buchanan’s Secretary of War, lining his pockets through crooked land deals.

Members of Congress from Southern states also engaged in sabotage by strategically leaving their positions in the House and Senate in such a way that they could block any compromise that might reverse secession. Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis and former Congressman Alexander Stephens renounced their citizenship to become President and Vice President of the Confederacy. Many military officers, including Robert E. Lee, who had turned down an offer of leading the Union army to instead lead the fight against the Union. Most of the West Point-trained officers joined the Confederacy.

By the time president-elect Lincoln was sworn into office, the Union military and navy was in shambles. Relations with foreign governments, especially Great Britain and France, were tentative at best. The economy was undergoing a major upheaval as northern textile mills relied on southern cotton.

All of this reinforces the importance of a smooth transition from the outgoing office-holder to the president- and vice president-elect.

Buchanan acknowledged Lincoln’s win in the election and rode with him to the inauguration, as is customary for all American presidents. Buchanan then hightailed out of town as fast as he could, telling Lincoln that “if you are as happy entering the presidency as I am leaving it, then you are truly a happy man.”

 

David J. Kent is an avid traveler, scientist, and Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World as well as two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

 

[Photo credit: Wikipedia Commons: By Mathew Brady – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Buchanan#/media/File:Buchanan_Cabinet.jpg]

 

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Abraham Lincoln’s Long Road to Emancipation

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Emancipation Proclamation with LincolnAbraham Lincoln has been called “The Great Emancipator” for the Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War. The Proclamation, and his role in promoting the 13th Amendment so eloquently displayed in the Steven Spielberg’s movie, Lincoln, secured Lincoln’s recognition for ending slavery in America. And yet, some have argued that Lincoln was “forced into glory” and that he was a reluctant emancipator. These claims are without merit. In fact, Lincoln was an active emancipator and completely consistent in his beliefs about slavery and how to overcome the constraints on its removal from American society.

Lincoln first encountered slavery as a child in Kentucky. While only seven years old when the family moved to the free state of Indiana—partly on account of slavery—Lincoln was already aware that black people were treated differently than white people. The Baptist church was splitting into pro-slavery and anti-slavery branches; his family adamantly followed the northern anti-slavery route. Though still very young, he knew that slavery existed and it was somehow wrong.

Jump forward to 1837. Twenty-eight-year-old Lincoln is now a state legislator in Illinois. As with many free states, Illinois was being pressured by slaveholding states to ban abolitionist societies and criminalize anti-slavery “agitation.” The bill passes overwhelmingly, 95-6. Lincoln is one of the six and decides to write a protest to explain his vote. He and fellow legislator Dan Stone lay out their beliefs:

  • The institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy.
  • But, abolition doctrines increase rather than abate its evils.
  • Congress has no power to interfere with slavery in the states.
  • But, Congress does have the power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.

These four principles lay out Lincoln’s positions on “the peculiar institution.” He remains consistent with these principles his entire career. In short, he believes slavery is immoral and ought to be ended. The question is how to accomplish this goal. He felt that the abolitionist tendency to demonize slaveowners put them on the defensive, thus making it harder to get them to free the men and women they held in slavery. Additionally, abolitionists wanted Congress to arbitrarily ban slavery in the states in which it still existed, an unconstitutional act that would invite a pro-slavery Supreme Court to strike down the legislation and damage other attempts to convince slaveholding states to end enslavement. But, Lincoln said, Congress does have authority over federal territories such as the District of Columbia and the substantial acquired lands from the Louisiana Purchase and the war with Mexico. These principles guided his path forward.

In 1849 Lincoln was a U.S. Congressman. While most freshman congressmen are instructed to sit in the back of the room, keep their mouth shut, and vote the way they are told, Lincoln decided to draft a bill to emancipate the slaves in the District of Columbia, consistent with his beliefs a dozen years before in Illinois. Initial support for the bill fell through after slaveholding powers pressured fellow legislators, so he was forced to withdraw the bill before introduction. His first attempted toppled domino.

Flash forward another baker’s dozen years. As President in 1862, Lincoln worked with Congress to produce and sign the DC Compensated Emancipation Act. The Act immediately freed approximately 3,100 enslaved African Americans in the District. The first domino had finally fallen. But Lincoln didn’t stop there. He repeatedly encouraged the four border states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware)—slave states that had remained in the Union—to voluntarily enact state laws ending slavery, similar to what had just been done in the District. Lincoln even persuaded Congress to cover the cost of owners’ compensation. Despite several attempts by Lincoln to convince them, the border states rejected his efforts. These dominos remained standing.

Lincoln still wasn’t finished. Over the summer of 1862 he continued to explore every option he could find; more dominos. In August he responded to influential New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley with a now famous public letter outlining how he would save the Union. “If I could save the union without freeing any slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.” These words have been twisted by some to suggest Lincoln only reluctantly freed the slaves, but the opposite is true. Lincoln had already drafted the Emancipation Proclamation, holding only for a Union victory to release it. His letter to Greeley prepared the public to accept his actions.

When he did release the Proclamation, it was entirely consistent with his views expressed years ago in Illinois. Congress, he said then, was constitutionally restricted from banning slavery in the states in which it existed. But, he argued, the Constitution gave him, solely in his role as Commander-in-Chief during a time of insurrection, the power to take whatever steps were deemed a military necessity to protect and save the Union. This is why the Proclamation is rather dry language; it’s a legal document, a military order, because that is the only authority Lincoln had at his disposal. By freeing the slaves only in those areas in rebellion—the border states remaining in the Union could not be touched because of the Constitution—Lincoln could remove the assistance enslaved men were forcibly providing to Confederate troops while increasing the number of Union troops available to fight. Indeed, up to 50,000 men held in bondage were freed immediately, with many more gaining their freedom as they escaped into encroaching Union lines. Meanwhile, close to 200,000 African American men, many of them having newly gained their freedom, fought gallantly for the Union Army and Navy. Not only had more dominos fallen, they had begun exerting greater force.

Emancipation Proclamation Cabinet

Again, Lincoln wasn’t finished. During 1863 and 1864 he continued to tip dominos as Union armies regained control of southern states. He sent former Senator Andrew Johnson, the only member of Congress to remain with the Union when his state seceded, back to Tennessee as a military governor. Lincoln did the same with North Carolina and Louisiana, slowly pushing to reconstruct them back into the Union, yet always working every option within the constraints of the Constitution. Understanding that the Emancipation Proclamation would become moot once the war ended, Lincoln worked with Congress to amend the Constitution. The Senate passed the bill on April 8, 1864. Shortly thereafter the House voted in the majority, but short of the two-thirds needed to pass an amendment, setting the stage for Spielberg’s epic film. Lincoln worked throughout 1864 both for his own prospects and the success of Republicans in the November elections. Finally successful pushing the House over the line on January 31, 1865, Lincoln knocked over another domino in his quest for permanent African American freedom.

Sadly, the last domino he tried to tip would become the rationale for his murder. On April 11, 1865, Lincoln made a speech from the White House window on reconstruction, using Louisiana as an example because it was furthest along the process. Lincoln had privately encouraged the state to include African American suffrage in its new constitution, which it failed to do. On this fateful night Lincoln publicly asserted for the first time. “It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man,” he said, adding that “I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers.” John Wilkes Booth was among the crowd on the White House lawn who heard these words. It would stir him to assassinate Lincoln four days later.

Abraham Lincoln deserves the sobriquet “Great Emancipator.” He was not reluctant in any way. Indeed, he was utterly consistent in this lifelong belief that slavery was wrong but the Constitution prohibited Congress from banning it where it existed. Congress could, however, ban slavery in the District of Columbia and federal territories in accordance with the Constitution, which it did under Lincoln. All of the northern states ended slavery within their boundaries by state law, so Lincoln encouraged the four border states to do the same (Maryland would become the first border state to end slavery in November 1864, followed by Missouri in January 1865). The Emancipation Proclamation was also consistent with Lincoln’s unique powers as Commander-in-Chief in time of war. Permanent emancipation occurred by amending the Constitution, again, consistent with the founding document and the principles outlined by Lincoln back in Illinois.

The Emancipation Proclamation could have occurred only during a time of war, and Lincoln used it as one more tool to set the dominos in motion toward ultimate freedom for all. And as Lincoln understood, each domino toppling can exert enough power to tip an even bigger domino, growing in intensity and power until great things happen. Each of us has the power to exert our forces for the greater good. I encourage all of us to do so.

[The above was published in The Lincolnian November 2020 issue and is based on a presentation I gave on September 5, 2020 for the Rock Creek Civil War Roundtable. The Lincolnian is sent to all Lincoln Group of DC members.]

David J. Kent is an avid traveler, scientist, and Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World as well as two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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Those Who Choose to Vote Constitute the Political Power – Abraham Lincoln

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Lincoln voteAbraham Lincoln once stated:

“Hence it is not the qualified voters, but the qualified voters, who choose to vote, that constitute the political power of the state.”

He was writing in 1862 about the imminent admission of West Virginia into the Union, a kind of secession from secession by Virginia’s western counties. But his point has wider meaning.

Only those who vote exercise their power to affect the political decision-making of the state and the nation.

We are now faced with a constitutional crisis as serious as that faced by Lincoln. While the possibility of an armed conflict such as the Civil War is remote, we find ourselves in an inflection point. Do we live in a nation where the concept “all men are created equal” and our rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” applies to ALL Americans? Or do we fall into an authoritarian state were these rights apply to only some Americans? This isn’t a rhetorical question, nor is it hyperbole. American historians – those people who have studied and best understand our history – see our democracy on the cusp of destruction. We must take action to restore the constitutional rights for ALL Americans or sorely lose it for EACH American.

The way we do that is vote.

Abraham Lincoln understood the importance of voting. He encouraged soldiers to vote in the 1864 election despite the United States being in the midst of a desperate civil war. He ensured that the polls remained open so that all eligible voters could vote. He made sure that Nevada became a state in time for the election and prompted the residents to cast their first votes in the presidential election.

This year is especially important for naturalized Americans to vote. Immigrants now have great power to transform our national priorities – but only if they vote. There are now enough Asian Americans to swing the election in key states. The same is true for Latinx heritage Americans.

This year is also critical for African Americans, Native Americans, Women, and the LGBTQ community, whose votes will help determine if the nation will finally address the issues that affect their lives. Racism, bigotry, and misogyny have been driving much of the inequity of our society. This election will determine whether we can build on our gains, or lose more ground in the fight for equality.

Abraham Lincoln fought for progress. He knew he couldn’t end racism, but he took the steps to end the institution that promoted racism. Today we still have work to do. And today we’ve seen how easy it is to lose what progress has been made. The forces of racism, bigotry, and misogyny don’t go away on their own. We must vote them out and then continue to put our efforts into creating the legislative and institutional change that will lead us to the ideal of a more perfect union, an ideal that we’ve moved closer to despite pushback by reactionary forces.

It is the qualified votes who choose to vote who control the power.

Vote. It’s how we change for the better.

When we all vote, we move mountains. If we don’t vote, we let the status quo survive and strengthen.

VOTE!

See here for last minute voting information. If you haven’t voted already, you MUST vote IN PERSON on Tuesday, November 3, 2020.

David J. Kent is an avid traveler, scientist, and Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World as well as two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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Do We ‘Erase History’ by Removing Confederate Monuments?

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Confederate monumentsA week ago I wrote a post titled, “The Rational Case for Removing Confederate Monuments.” There were a couple of important comments that I addressed on that post, but one in particular that I would like to address here – Do we ‘erase history’ by removing confederate monuments?

The short answer is no, but the longer answer reveals that this question is more complicated. In fact, the question is really two questions: First, do Confederate statues accurately reflect history? Second, does removing statues disable us from learning history? Keep in mind that when I say monuments I include Confederate statues as well as naming schools, army bases, and roads after Confederate generals and political leaders.

As I noted in my original post, the history that these monuments honor is a false history, which is commonly referred to as “The Lost Cause.” Confederate monuments were a concerted attempt to rewrite history to deny slavery’s role in antebellum America and its fundamental causation of secession and the Civil War. Erecting Confederate monuments joined with Jim Crow laws and intimidation by white supremacist groups like the KKK to both undermine the voting rights of African Americans and promote a white superiority political power structure.

Why? One reason is inherent in the paragraph above – to maintain white-dominated political, social, and economic power. Prior to the Civil War the South was dominated by a plantation economy based on the existence of slave labor. Small farmers were bought, or forced through intimidation, out of the cotton market (as well as tobacco and sugar markets) because they couldn’t compete with huge plantations. This put all economic and political power in the hands of the wealthy few. Since vast acreages of cotton required significant manual labor, Americans of African origin were held in enslavement and forced to do the work. For a variety of reasons, this slave-labor based economic system grew in the South while diminishing in the North. Compromises in the Constitution, in 1820, and in 1850 tried to limit the spread of slavery as the geographic area of the United States expanded (because of the Louisiana Purchase and Mexican War, for example) while also securing continuing rights of slaveowners in those states in which slavery existed. The Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 and Dred Scott decision in 1857 gave more power to slave states, again focused on the power of wealthy plantation owners. With the near-election of John C. Fremont in 1856 and the actual election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, these wealthy plantation slaveowners felt that slavery was in danger. Worse, they saw that potential racial equality would eliminate their white superiority power structure. Thus, the slaveholding states decided to secede and go to war to protect and expand slavery, and along with it, their belief that whites were superior to blacks. That perceived racial superiority continued to drive actions to disenfranchise black rights as guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.

But there is a second reason for why the Lost Cause mythology caught hold, and why the United Daughters of the Confederacy and others focused on erecting statues in the early 20th century. As with most Americans, I am rightly proud of my father’s service in World War II. Others are proud of their own personal or family service in fighting for our nation. But consider the position of sons and daughters of Confederate veterans. Their fathers fought in a war to break up the United States and expand the right to enslave other people. True, most rank and file soldiers were probably not slaveowners themselves and may not have even been all-in on the idea of the war (which is why their leaders lied to soldiers, telling them it was a “war of northern aggression”), but to some extent their descendants must have felt similar to what the sons and daughters of Nazi soldiers felt in the decades following WWII. We all want to honor the bravery of our ancestors. The Lost Cause fabricated a mythology that allowed us to honor them. Even today there are many members of Civil War roundtables who proudly trace their heritage back to Confederate soldiers. Now, I’m going to stop here on this particularly topic because it requires a much deeper dive into history that I’ll attempt in a future post. I’ll leave by saying that I think people today should still warmly regard their ancestors that fought in the rank-and-file for the Confederacy. They should do so with a full understanding of the history, both of the Civil War (including pre- and post-) and their ancestors’ specific circumstances. I highly encourage genealogy and historical studies on both sides of the conflict.

To summarize this first part of the question – Confederate monuments do not accurately reflect our history. Instead, their purpose is to deflect from actual history and create a feel-good alternative, and false, history.

Which gets us to the second part of the question: Does removing statues erase history, or perhaps better put, keep us from learning and understanding history?

In fact, removing Confederate statues may actually allow us to better understand our history. Once these monuments to a false history are removed, we can focus on doing a better job of communicating our actual history. In essence, the monuments distract us from learning history by replacing it with a political and social debate. A more accurate view of our history would need to include an honest discussion of the dominant role of slavery from our Constitution through the Civil Rights acts and beyond. It would require an accurate recounting of the pervasiveness of slave-based economic system, including the relationships between cotton plantations of the South, financiers and shipbuilders of New York, and the textile mills of New England. With respect to specific monuments, here is what I wrote in response to a comment on my original post:

As for “real historical information,” most would define that as accurate and complete history of individuals and the times. For example, Robert E. Lee might include his service in the United States Army prior to rejected the Union and fighting for the Confederacy to protect and expand slavery. His time after the war as president of Washington College (renamed Washington and Lee after his death) might be relevant if any of his actions were relevant to his standing. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s history would obviously included his Confederate Army service, as well as his roles in the murders of black Union troops (USCT) at Ft. Pillow and elsewhere, as well as his role as grand dragon of the KKK. In all cases, the full story would need to be told.

All of this and more would be necessary for us to gain a fuller understanding of our shared history.

So does this mean that all Confederate monuments should come down? Maybe. Or maybe not. The goal here is to encourage a rational debate on the fate of Confederate monuments, but also in a larger sense, a discussion of our often complicated and not-always-admirable history. Rather than call for feel-good propaganda – a hallmark of fascist and authoritarian states, not democracies – we should be calling for a more complete understanding of the principles and actions of our nation. Individual statues might remain or moved or provided with additional context. A rational discussion of Confederate monuments can help us communicate the realities of our history to the public such that the public can make more informed and rational choices. The more we can do this proactively, the less we’ll see of uninformed mob action.

This process has another benefit. The discussion may help us come closer to the Founders’ ideal of “all men are created equal” endowed with the unalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The goal isn’t to remove anyone’s rights but to ensure the rights imbued by our Constitution apply to ALL Americans.

I’ll continue with future posts addressing other rebuttals or concerns to my original post outlining a rational case for removing Confederate monuments. If you have any thoughts, either in support or refutation of what I’ve written, feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll do my best to provide a response. As always, any rational and respectful comment will be addressed. Non-respectful, racist, or vulgar diatribes will not. The goal here is rational dialogue.

[Photo credit: (Abdazizar/Via Wikimedia Commons)

David J. Kent is an avid traveler, scientist, and Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World as well as two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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Lincoln in Paris – Wiegers Calendar October

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Ah, Paris in the spring, er, fall. October takes me back to Paris on the David Wiegers 2020 calendar. Given lack of travel in the time of COVID, this is as close to Europe as I have gotten this year. Last year I went only to Costa Rica and Cuba (my “C” year), so it’s been a while since I’ve seen the old country.

I don’t recall offhand how many times I’ve been to Paris. My first trip was the tail end of a London/Paris week back in 2002. Those photos are stuck somewhere in storage as I was still clinging to 35-mm film at the time. I went back a few years later for a few days to get away from the grind. In 2008 I moved to Brussels, Belgium to begin my three-year stint working from my previous company’s European office. That’s where the fuzziness comes in. Soon after arrival I took the ultraspeed train from Brussels to Paris and spent the day at a consortium meeting for a client, and occasional work would take be back. I also had friends and family visit me in Brussels, and usually that meant hopping the train to Paris because, well, everyone wants to visit Paris. I became quite adept at the “highlights tour,” both in the city itself and the Louvre. I’ve also been to Paris once or twice (or thrice?) since I returned to the states and even after quitting my job at that company. It’s been a while since I’ve been so finding this month’s calendar featured photo was a treat.

Wiegers calendar Paris

This particular statue is unique in that it is the work of two men. In 2009, the American embassy commissioned a statue, which was dedicated at the University of Chicago Center in Paris, located a bit upstream on the Seine River from the traditional tourist areas. The structure of the statue itself was created by Henri Marquet. It shows a standing Lincoln with one arm to his side and the other stretched above his head. But all but the head of this structure is covered by the mosaics of Vincent Charra. Interestingly, the original statue structure included an homage to new U.S. President Barack Obama’s “Yes we can” campaign slogan. This was covered up by the mosaics, but the visible pattern does include “Captain O’ My Captain,” Walt Whitman’s poem about Abraham Lincoln following his assassination.

As with other statues in this calendar, I wasn’t aware of this one until after my last visit to the City of Lights. I’m eager to go again.

COVID is keeping me traveling solely by memory and photographs this year, but hope reigns that next year I’ll be back on the road and the air and the sea.

[N.B. The next post will get back to answering rebuttals to my “Rational Case for Removing Confederate Monuments” post.]

David J. Kent is an avid traveler, scientist, and Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World as well as two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

 

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What Killed Abraham Lincoln’s Mother?

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Nancy Hanks LincolnNancy Hanks Lincoln died October 5, 1818 of “the milk sick.” Or did she? While Abraham Lincoln biographers generally attribute her death to milk sickness, a possibility exists that it might have actually been something else. The story goes like this:

Early in October, Thomas and Elizabeth Sparrow, relatives of Nancy who had joined them in Indiana the previous year, died of the milk sickness. Within two weeks, Nancy began showing symptoms and after a week of agony, died. While the Lincolns and others knew vaguely it was associated with milk, no one had yet connected the disease with the ultimate source. Some had noticed the seasonality of the disease and that it seemed to occur more often in years in which natural forage vegetation was in short supply. Less than normal rain in 1818 had resulted in dusty conditions and low crop yields. As a result, the Lincolns’ livestock instinctively foraged for food wherever they could find it, often into the underbrush of the neighboring forest. What they found was a weedy plant now known to be white snakeroot (current scientific name Ageratina altissima).

While early observations suggesting plants as a source occurred before Nancy’s death, it was not until 1834 that a physician and scientist named Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby learned the connection to white snakeroot and led a campaign to eradicate the weed from her Rock Creek, Illinois community. Ohio farmer William J. Vermilya independently implicated white snakeroot in 1837. Given the lack of scientific infrastructure, these early discoveries were insufficient to settle the issue and as late as 1841 the Kentucky legislature was offering $2,000 to anyone “who shall, within five years after the passage of this act” succeed in discovering “the true cause of the disease, now known to be caused by the poisonous effects of the wild, flowering white snakeroot transmitted by the milk, butter, and flesh of cattle consuming the plant.”

That “true cause” was a natural toxin called tremetone that remains active even after the plant was dried for hay. Sometimes farmers noticed listlessness, trembling, and peculiar odors found in the breath of cattle, sheep, and horses. The tremetone easily passes into the milk, which was how most humans were exposed to the toxin. Milk sickness was not a pleasant disease. One of the symptoms is a scent similar to acetone (similar to today’s nail polish remover). Persistent vomiting, abdominal pains, muscle stiffness, and eventually tremors, respiratory distress, and agonizing pain were obvious to the Lincoln family. Not seen was the intense inflammation of Nancy’s gastrointestinal tract, enlarged liver and kidneys, and swelling of her heart. Milk sickness was a painful death.

The definitive conclusion that milk sickness was caused by tremetone was not determined until the early twentieth century. In 1818, all the preadolescent Abe could do was helplessly watch his mother die. Death from the lack of scientific knowledge was one reason Lincoln later supported the greater use of science in agriculture—and the broad dissemination of information to farms of all sizes throughout the nation.

But wait. Tremetone? Virtually everyone that mentions milk sickness says the toxic is called tremetol, not tremetone. For those who are into organic chemistry, the “-ol” means it is the alcohol version of the chemical; the “-one” means it is the ketone version. [Since this isn’t a chemistry lesson, you can look up the difference.] Tremetone is found in tremetol, which is actually a toxin mixture from the aforementioned white snakeroot plant. While most sources say the tremetol is the toxic component, biomedical researcher and Lincoln historian Edward Steers, Jr. argues that tremetone is the actual toxic chemical. Like Steers, I’m also both a scientist and Lincoln historian, so I think I’ll go along with him on this one.

But wait, there’s more.

Steers also suggests that Nancy may not have died of milk sickness at all. When you think about it, the circumstances seem suspect, not the least of which is the fact that no one else in the Lincoln family died despite all of them drinking the same milk and eating the same food. Steers suggests that Nancy may possibly died of brucellosis, a bacterial disease associated with unpasteurized milk or undercooked meat, especially from goats but also from cows and pigs. Symptoms are similar to milk sickness, including fever, sweating, vomiting, weight loss, and muscle pain. Because it is contagious, Nancy may have gotten it when she was nursing the Sparrow family.

So was it milk sickness, brucellosis, or something completely different? In truth, we don’t really know. The series of symptoms and deaths were attributed to milk sickness at the time, but as we’ve seen, they didn’t really understand what was causing the disease, just that it had some vague connection to milk. Or so they thought. Since it’s impossible to accurately diagnose from the limited anecdotal hearsay available from family and friends, biographers stick to the generally accepted story that Lincoln’s mother died from milk sickness. But maybe she didn’t. This is an important reminder that historians need to be careful when they simply report old sources without fully researching the details. And perhaps, that more scientists need to be historians.

[Adapted from my forthcoming book]

David J. Kent is an avid traveler, scientist, and Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World as well as two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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When Abraham Lincoln Appointed a 10th Supreme Court Justice

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LincolnAbraham Lincoln is the only president to appoint a tenth justice to the Supreme Court. He made five appointments, one of the most prolific appointers-in-chief in our history. And it all started because of Dred Scott.

In 1857, Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote the 7-2 majority opinion denying Dred Scott and his family the right to live as a free man, returning him to slavery. Taney further declared that African Americans can never be citizens and had no rights to which white men were bound to respect. One of the two dissenters, Justice Benjamin Curtis, was so disgusted he left the court to return to private practice. The second dissenter, John McLean, died a few weeks after Lincoln’s inauguration in 1861. John Campbell, a pro-slavery firebrand, resigned from the Court to become the Confederate Assistant Secretary of War. Lincoln had several vacancies to fill immediately. He did so by nominating Noah Haynes Swayne, Samuel Freeman Miller, and his old friend David Davis, all of whom the Senate quickly confirmed.

While all of us today have seen nine justices all our lives, the Constitution doesn’t actually specify how many Supreme Court justices will sit. Early on that number varied between five and nine. Congress decided to deal with the complications of the Dred Scott decision (including its rather pro-slavery leanings) by adding a tenth justice to the Court. So in 1863 Lincoln was able to fill the extra seat with Steven Johnson Field. Chief Justice Roger Taney then died in October of 1864. After Lincoln won the election in November, he nominated his former Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase as the new Chief Justice, his fifth justice appointed. Interestingly, the Court still ruled against Lincoln posthumously in an 1866 case known as Ex parte Milligan in which they determined the Lincoln administration had exceeded its authority by relying on a military tribunal to convict Lambdin Milligan and three others, stating that Indiana civil court should have been employed for the trial.

After Lincoln’s assassination, Congress decided it needed to limit the ability of his successor, Andrew Johnson, from appointing pro-slavery justices to the Court, so they reduced the number to seven. Immediately after Johnson was out of office, Congress reset the number again to nine, and since 1869 that has been the standard to today.

Which means there is precedent for changing the number of justices on the Supreme Court to thwart racist and anti-American behavior by presidents (and the Court itself). That said, there is a reason that the Court has remained stable at nine justices since the aftermath of the Civil War. Also, ten – or any other even number – sets up the potential for a Court mired in constant ties, for which there is no remedy (unlike the Senate, where a tie is broken by the Vice President’s vote). Which means any change in current circumstances would have to be to add two justices to reach eleven. Can it be done? Yes. Should it? That depends on the honesty and integrity of the Senate and President, something that we’ve seen is not always guaranteed.

David J. Kent is an avid traveler, scientist, and Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World as well as two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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The Party of Lincoln

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Lincoln RoomAbraham Lincoln was the first Republican President of the United States. As the southern slaveholding states seceded from the Union, Lincoln was faced with an existential crisis that would define, or destroy, the last best hope on earth. Today, both the Republican and Democratic parties claim the mantle of Lincoln. So who has the better case?

Lincoln’s Republican Party was cobbled together from several pre-existing parties. Lincoln himself was “always a Whig in politics,” and the Whig party was the central backbone of the new Republican party. In the 1850s the Whig party splintered and the Republican party came into being. Lincoln helped define the new party, especially in Illinois, by encouraging them to focus primarily on a platform restricting the expansion of slavery into the federal territories. Joining most Whigs were anti-slavery factions of the Democratic party, as well as similar-minded members of the Free Soil, Know Nothing, Liberty, and other minor parties. The Whigs had gotten their start as an opposition party to challenge the Jacksonian Democrats.

The new Republican party carried on the Whigs support for internal improvements. With Lincoln as its premier champion in Illinois, internal improvements were government funded infrastructure such as roads, canals, navigable rivers, and railroads. These improvements would enable economic expansion and a chance for all men to better their condition. Whigs, and Lincoln, believed that education was of critical importance to the growing population of the United States. As one scholar put it, whiggery was the triumph of the cosmopolitan and the national over traditional folkways and customs. The Whig and Republican parties believed in giving all men a fair chance at advancement. They were a party of diversity of views, including those driven by moral reform, anti-slavery abolitionists, and those opposed to Andrew Jackson’s harsh and racist treatment of Native Americans in his rush to expand the nation’s border. Whigs also favored passing relief legislation (aka, stimulus packages) in response to the financial panics of 1837 and 1839. In short, Whigs were for a strong central government that supported education and federal investment in people’s lives such that all had an equal opportunity to make their lives better. Today they would be called a progressive party.

The Republican party ran its first presidential candidate in 1856. John C. Fremont lost that election, but was close enough that he could have won if a few more states’ electoral votes had gone his way. This scared the slaveholding class of the South who had controlled the federal government since its inception. Seeing a trend that would reduce their federal power, slaveholding states immediately stepped up their activities to protect and expand slavery, and by extension, their power. The Dred Scott Decision of the pro-slavery conservative Supreme Court in 1857 helped their case, but Stephen A. Douglas, the most prominent Democrat in the nation and the likely nominee for the 1860 election, while he himself was racist and didn’t care if slavery spread into the territories, let Southerners know that under his Popular Sovereignty mechanism of the Kansas-Nebraska Act most states would probably choose to be free, not slave, states. The Lincoln-Douglas Senate debates of 1858 reinforced southern slaveowner belief that Douglas was not going to protect slavery expansion. This split the Democratic vote (Southern Democrats and Northern Democrats ran different presidential tickets), a decision which ensured their loss in the 1860 election. When a Republican won, the southern slaveholding states chose to destroy the Union rather than take a chance of losing their system of slavery. In its essence, the Civil War was about rich plantation owners protecting their profitable business model; profitable because it required the forced enslavement of Americans based on the color of their skin.

In addition to the progressive economic views of the Whig party, the new and diverse Republican party added to their platform the restriction of expansion of slavery into the federal territories, which by this point included not only the remaining Louisiana Purchase lands but also the rest of the land to the west coast acquired at the end of the war with Mexico in 1848. Republicans did not seek to ban slavery in the states where it existed, merely to restrict its expansion in the belief that slavery would eventually die under the weight of its own immorality and bad economic policy. Lincoln reiterated many times that he believed (as did most Americans) that, in its tacit acknowledgement of slavery while avoiding the actual words, the Constitution allowed slavery to continue in those states where it existed. Still, slaveholding states felt that to protect slavery they must break apart the Union. Most Northern Democrats were pro-slavery but also pro-Union, as were at least some Southern Democrats who but for circumstances would have been against secession.

So we have Lincoln’s Republican party as the progressive party favoring a federal government that actively supports its citizens, advocates for government support of infrastructure projects that benefit the masses, and federal intervention in times of crisis to protect the ability of the people to better their condition. Lincoln’s party sought to remove unfair labor practices, provide for equality for all, and “do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but cannot do, at all, or cannot, so well do, for themselves.” Undoubtedly Lincoln’s party would support equal rights, the end to discrimination, federal support for high-speed rail and other internal improvement projects, and stimulus bills during extreme financial crises that threaten the individual and national economy. Lincoln never forgot his impoverished upbringing and always sought to bring the benefits of science, technology, and economic development to the masses, not just to the super-rich. Lincoln’s Republican party was progressive and Hamiltonian in its economic philosophy.

The Democratic party of Lincoln’s time was conservative. They favored status quo policies that protected the rights and profits of the wealthy, including the idea that whites were superior to non-whites and thus could enslave other people. The Jacksonian Democratic party of the time was significantly more racist and exclusionary; it was also more Jeffersonian in its economic philosophy, that is, more rural and agronomic on a large scale.

Today, of course, these primary characteristics are reversed. The Republican party held control through the end of Reconstruction, ending around 1877 when the former slaveholding states of the South were able to advantage their increased congressional power (they now could count 5/5ths of all African Americans rather than the 3/5ths of enslaved people) and began engaging in legal and extra-legal practices to eliminate African American voting rights. Conservative Democrats held control throughout the first half of the 20th Century, largely by implementing Jim Crow laws to segregate the populace, intimidation to restrict voting and other human rights (via the KKK and other racist organizations), and otherwise promote white supremacy in America. But by the 1950s a shift was beginning. Strom Thurmond, an openly racist Democrat from South Carolina, had run for president in 1948 under a new party mantra called the Dixiecrats (he later switched to Republican). After Brown v. Board of Education required the desegregation of schools, racist Democrats in the South began a massive shift. Democratic President John F. Kennedy began supporting civil rights for African Americans, and his successor, Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson, signed into law the 1964 Civil Rights and 1965 Voting Rights Acts. This led the Dixiecrat contingent of the Democratic party to lead the exodus of racist Democrats to the modern Republican party. Johnson’s successor, Republican Richard M. Nixon, intentionally engaged in what he called “the Southern Strategy” to recreate the Republican party as the party of the Confederacy with a stronghold in the deep South and focused on building a white supremacy-based electorate in which fear of non-whites became the central theme. This spawned today’s version of Jim Crow laws to restrict non-white citizenship and pressing a dystopian view of black violence against whites inherent in today’s screams of “law and order” and “Suburban Housewives of America.”

This reversal of parties also extends to economic philosophy. The slaveholding economy benefited the few richest Southerners who managed to absorb smaller farms into huge plantations. Plantation owners were immensely wealthy compared to the masses; they were the 1% of the time. Small family farms largely ceased to exist in much of the South. The wealthy plantation owners controlled not only the economy but the politics, often serving directly as political leaders or indirectly by funding – and controlling – surrogates whose function was to protect the wealth of the plantation owners, not the masses. In contrast, the North was dominated by smaller businesses ranging from family farms to cottage industry to the occasional factory employing neighbors. Northern Whigs and Republicans favored homesteading, i.e., allowing small families to move westward into the territories to start farms on federally owned parcels of land, which would become theirs after five years of production. Southerners were against any westward expansion or other free-labor arrangements because they saw it as “too much power to the federal government” (aka, cutting into their system of slave labor). Southern Democrats believed in “small government,” except of course when they controlled it. Today this reflects more the Republican party, which avers its belief in small government except when it benefits the richest Americans.

The issue is more complicated than this, of course, but in general the two parties have switched places. Lincoln’s more progressive Republican party is more akin to today’s Democratic party. Lincoln himself could be characterized as a prudent progressive. The conservative Democratic party of Lincoln’s time, and up to about the 1960s, is more akin to today’s Republican party. This isn’t a partisan position (I don’t belong to either party); it’s simply an acknowledgement of history.

To make the point more obviously, take a look at a map of the United States at the beginning of the Civil War using today’s “red state/blue state” graphics. The Confederacy was all “blue” state back then; today the same states are “red.” The Union was all “red,” today they are “blue.” The states have reversed. This isn’t because conservatives from the South all moved North. People who identify as conservative and liberal remained where they always were, they merely changed political identification (see Strom Thurmond et al. above).

Today’s Republicans proudly announce they are the “party of Lincoln.” And yet, they are the ones who cry “You’re trying to erase my heritage” to anyone suggesting that flying a Confederate battle flag is inappropriate, or who suggests taking down Confederate statues and monuments. You can’t be both the party of Lincoln and the Confederacy any more than you can wave a Nazi symbol and be pro-American.

All of this is hard to grasp in a nation where the teaching of history often promotes different realities depending on where you grow up. All presidents, and perhaps all American politicians, today seem to have a need to avow fealty to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln saved the Union from destruction and took large steps in ending slavery, so it’s no surprise that another tall transplanted Illinoisan would find common ground with our 16th president. Other presidents also crave the mantle of Lincoln but clearly don’t live up to the ideal. Still, we can all learn from Lincoln. As long as we first understand what Lincoln means.

Fire of GeniusLincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America was released on September 1, 2022.

The book is available for purchase at all bookseller outlets. Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list.

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David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Lincoln in Austria – Wiegers Calendar August

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Wiegers calendar AugustLincoln is in Salzburg, Austria. I missed it…and yet I didn’t. Each month I explore the statues and locations from the 2020 calendar prepared by David Wiegers. For August we’re in Austria.

The statue itself depicts Lincoln reading while sitting on his horse, the stead munching on some grass during a break on the circuit. Lincoln often read while traveling the 8th Judicial Circuit as a lawyer, and sometimes judge, moving from town to town and picking up cases in each district. Called “Abraham Lincoln on the Prairie,” it’s a massive piece by sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington. Huntington once studied under renowned sculptor John Gutzon Borglum, who is probably best known for Mount Rushmore and his huge bust of Lincoln that now resides in the Capitol crypt. One of the few female sculptors prominent in the New York City artist community, Huntingdon is especially known for her equestrian sculptures.

I saw the statue, not in Salzburg, but in front of New Salem, Illinois. Another copy of the statue stands in Lincoln City, Oregon to commemorate the territorial governor’s post that Lincoln turned down (yes, even places Lincoln rejected still honor him). I passed through Lincoln City on a northwest road trip a couple of years ago, and once again missed a statue I didn’t find out existed until after I was there. The same occurred in Salzburg.

It’s hard to believe that my visit to Salzburg was a decade ago. I was two-thirds of the way through my three year stint working and living in Brussels and decided a road trip was in order. A quick flight on discount airline Ryan Air got me to Bratislava, Slovakia, where I picked up a rental car at the airport. [There’s a long story about how the car would not go into reverse, but I’ll save that for another time] On a whistle-stop tour covering five countries I stayed one night in Bratislava, then a night each in Vienna (Austria), Munich (Germany), Fussen (Germany), Salzburg (Austria), squeezed in a day in Ljubljana (Slovenia), and finally two nights in Budapest (Hungary). Driving through the mountains – and the 10-mile-long tunnels – was amazing.

Like all European cities, Salzburg has its castle up on the hill and a very walkable old town replete with cobblestones. Mozart’s old house is a museum. The churches are massive, the beer is not bad, and there was an interesting 25-foot diameter golden ball on a pedestal, on top of which stood a sculpture of a remarkably anachronistic modern-dressed man. I enjoyed the city immensely. But I missed the Lincoln statue.

Salzburg, Austria

According to “the internets,” the Austrian Minister of Education had originally seen “Abraham Lincoln on the Prairie” on exhibit in the Illinois State Pavilion of the 1963 New York World’s Fair. Greatly enamored of the statue, and with many political connections, the Minister was able to have a copy gifted to Austria in 1965 and placed near the “Teacher’s House” in downtown Salzburg. Unfortunately, the location is now private property and the statue stands in the backyard. David Wiegers told me that the statue is visible through the fence and apparently no one bothered him as he stealthily moved closer to snap the photo for the August calendar month.

I’ll end with a note about my own photo above. While walking around Salzburg there are the usual street performers. This one worked a pretty cool marionette playing the piano (including a little Jerry Lee Lewis). Quite a few people were enthralled with the performance, including this little well-dressed boy, who stood there for some time communing with the puppet. As much as I admire statues, it’s real people with real emotions like this that make traveling such an amazing experience.

[Photo credits: My close up of David Wiegers August 2020 calendar page; my Salzburg photo]

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!