I cannot afford to hang men for votes.

Abraham Lincoln

see NY Times. Execution 150 Years Ago Spurs Calls for Pardon



Who protects the artist, the pursuer of a calling, "the savage Indian" from the needs of the news bite? The artist has enough difficulty himself feeling justified about his own pursuits. Good to read an example of such an effort in the annals of American History.

One might gather Lincoln had some familiarity, some personal experience with such protections.

The artist, like the imagined Native American living off the land, follows his own traditions and 'logic,' habits which would be strange to the economic developing world of a growing powerhouse bent on settlements and industry. The native lives in an artistic way, in ways an artist might try to recreate and re-imagine. The savage and the artist think in similar ways, if we had to say. And both are still a mystery in the modern world, and bound perhaps to be judged for their organic habits, and found to be wise.

A modern problem: forgetting the basic innocence of man.