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How workers fought US slavery and earned Abraham Lincoln’s gratitude
PETER LAZENBY reports on how trade unionists in Manchester are to celebrate the role of the city’s cotton industry workers in the fight for the abolition of slavery in the US civil war
SOLIDARITY ACROSS THE POND: This Abraham Lincoln statue in Manchester was created by George Barnard, and is a replica
of one in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was presented by Charles Phelps Taft, the son of US president William Howard Taft.Some wit called it the “stomach ache statue” because of the placement of the hands
[Keith Edkins/CC]
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IN a little-known square behind Manchester Town Hall stands a statue of US president Abraham Lincoln.
Although it is hidden away, it represents a huge event in the radical history of Manchester — when thousands of workers supported an embargo of cotton during the US civil war, helping end slavery in the US but at a cost of idle mills and hunger to workers in Lancashire’s cotton industry.
Sunday is the anniversary of the date in 1863 when Lincoln wrote a letter to “the working men of Manchester” in acknowledgement of their support for the embargo of cotton from the southern Confederate states as the US civil war raged.
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