Huh? Abraham Lincoln, labor union supporter?

I don't consider myself an expert on Abraham Lincoln, although I'm well above average in regards to Lincolnalia. For instance, I know that our 16th president was a vampire hunter. But I was not aware that Honest Abe was a supporter of the labor movement.

Yesterday public-sector union members held a rally in Marquette, Michigan where they voiced their opposition to some money saving measures backed by the state's new governor, Republican Rick Snyder. The Mining Journal says 1,000 attended, which is a huge crowd on the Upper Peninsula.

But something an AFSCME member said during at the rally is what caught my attention: "The government should take a lesson from the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. 'A country without unions is a country bound for disaster.'"

I'm going to go on a limb and declare Lincoln never said anything like that. The labor movement as we know it didn't exist until the late 19th century--long after Lincoln's assassination. The public-sector union member has a right to be wrong, but the Mining Journal, the Upper Peninsula's largest daily paper, has a duty not to advance incorrect information.

Related posts:

Marathon Pundit Series: Upper Peninsula Upventure
Thirty hours in Lincoln's Springfield, Illinois
"My earliest recollection is of the Knob Creek place"
Abraham Lincoln birthplace site
Abraham Lincoln birthplace site's log cabin
Jonesboro, site of the third Lincoln-Douglas Debate
The only statue of Lincoln in military dress is in Dixon, Illinois

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