I was delighted to read Scott Johnson's post at Powerline, Apartheid, Hawaiian Style.

Okay, I don't mean delighted exactly. Appalled by what he's reporting, which links to a John Fund column in Opinion Journal, Aloha Apartheid.

As Johnson describes a bill pending in Hawaii:

The bill would create a race-based government for Native Hawaiians, creating something like the tribal system that has done so much for American Indians. Fund notes: "Just 5,000 or so--less than 0.5% of the state's population--are of pure native blood. Over 90% of self-described natives are more than half some other ethnicity." Like all fans of race based programs, the old slave code's "one drop of blood" rule is an important element of the program.

What a boon for Hawaii's grievance industry. I can only imagine the extremes taken by those with opporunity and avarice enough to milk this island cow!

What I was so pleased about, was to find a major blogger quoting Lincoln! Johnson quotes from an 1855 letter from Lincoln to his friend Joshua Speed:

Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].

Johnson suggests that alert readers will be able to glean the modern inheritors of both sides of the great contention Lincoln described here, and led our Nation in battle to resolve some 6 to 10 years hence.

(We might speculate if Lincoln might have really considered emigration to Russia if the Union and slavery had both remained intact, or had the Union dissolved. I would think not. After all, even the most fervent Bush haters have decided against a move to Canada.)

My long-time readers will no doubt remember that I am a devoted fan of Lincoln, with recent posts here and here. I also have a backlog of about 6 more, all tieing elements of Lincoln's speeches or Civil War travails to our modern era, and our Global War on Terror.

Time, I need time, there is so much writing left to do ...