The sickening historical lie that Abraham Lincoln wasn't interested in abolishing black slavery.

[YoungDemCA]

Instead of using a couple of out-of-context quotes to "trap" supporters of Abraham Lincoln into buying into him being a white supremacist hypocrite who had no interest in freeing the slaves beyond using them as a political weapon against the South in "the War of Northern Aggression", let's examine a greater number of Lincoln's quotes, from the 1850s onward.

"Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VIII, "Speech to One Hundred Fortieth Indiana Regiment" (March 17, 1865), p. 361.

"What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent. I say this is the leading principle - the sheet anchor of American republicanism." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Speech at Peoria, Illinois" (October 16, 1854), p. 266.

"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, "Letter to Albert G. Hodges" (April 4, 1864), p. 281.

"In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Lincoln-Douglas Debate at Quincy" (October 13, 1858), p. 276.

I think slavery is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Speech at Cincinnati, Ohio" (September 17, 1859), p. 440.

I do not wish to be misunderstood upon this subject of slavery in this country. I suppose it may long exist, and perhaps the best way for it to come to an end peaceably is for it to exist for a length of time. But I say that the spread and strengthening and perpetuation of it is an entirely different proposition. There we should in every way resist it as a wrong, treating it as a wrong, with the fixed idea that it must and will come to an end." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Speech at Chicago, Illinois" (March 1, 1859), p. 370.

"Now, I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral, social and political evil, having due regard for its actual existence amongst us and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the constitutional obligations which have been thrown about it; but, nevertheless, desire a policy that looks to the prevention of it as a wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when as a wrong it may come to an end." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Lincoln-Douglas Debate at Galesburg" (October 7, 1858), p. 226.

"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Letter To Henry L. Pierce and Others" (April 6, 1858), p. 376.

"Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it, is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks, and throes, and convulsions must ceaselessly follow." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Speech at Peoria, Illinois" (October 16, 1854), p. 271.

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, (August 1, 1858?), p. 532.

"I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any abolitionist." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Speech at Chicago, Illinois" (July 10, 1858), p. 492.

"So plain that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a plainly selfish way; for although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Fragment on Slavery" (April 1, 1854?), p. 222.

"This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Letter To Henry L. Pierce and Others" (April 6, 1859), p. 376.

"I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Speech at Peoria, Illinois" (October 16, 1854), p. 255.

"If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Speech at Chicago, Illinois" (July 10, 1858), p. 501.

"Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Fragment on Free Labor" (September 17, 1859?), p. 462.

"We were proclaiming ourselves political hypocrites before the world, by thus fostering Human Slavery and proclaiming ourselves, at the same time, the sole friends of Human Freedom." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Speech at Springfield, Illinois" (October 4, 1854), p. 242.

"Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue." Lincoln's Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.

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I think it's pretty fucking clear where Lincoln stood on the issue of slavery - especially when you consider just how violently (literally) supportive of slavery, and opposed to abolition and black rights (the horror!!!) that the Slave Power and its Northern apologists were in the same time period.

Flawed as Lincoln was, he was a goddamn saint by comparison to most of the politicians of his day - especially (but by no means exclusively) the white Southern Confederates. And the fact that he set in motion the process for abolishing black slavery, and the long, painful, and bloody struggle for keeping and expanding black freedom afterward, demonstrates that Lincoln did not merely talk the talk on the defining issue of his day.

[JHan]

1. great list of quotes, thank you.

[brer cat]

2. Posting for a friend.

From Mr. Lincoln's speech at the 4th Debate, Sept. 18, 1858:

While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people. [Great Laughter.] While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it. I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]-that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied every thing. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. [Cheers and laughter.] My understanding is that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men. … I will also add to the remarks I have made (for I am not going to enter at large upon this subject,) that I have never had the least apprehension that I or my friends would marry negroes if there was no law to keep them from it, [laughter] but as Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be in great apprehension that they might, if there were no law to keep them from it, [roars of laughter] I give him the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last stand by the law of this State, which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes. [Continued laughter and applause.]”

https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debate4.htm

[stevenleser]

3. I remember hearing some time ago about that part of that debate

I guess what everyone has to decide is which Lincoln do they think is the real one.

The one who made the quotes YoungDemCA posted in his OP or the one from the second of the Lincoln/Douglas debates.

I think the former. One thing I would exhort everyone to remember is that Lincoln was a politician. He acknowledged as much and he understood that sometimes he had to do what he needed to do to win.

In 1858 in a national election, saying you wanted to have full equality would likely have been electoral suicide. So should we not have had an abolitionist President because he was unwilling to say a few unfortunate things in a debate to try to prevent Douglas from demagoging him on the subject.

[JHan]

4. Unfortunately , by even those standards, he was considered liberal for his time.

.. because he believed Slavery to be immoral. That said, his solution was not to integrate Slaves into the American project, but to send them to Africa to establish their own colonies.

Lincoln may be remembered as the Great Emancipator, but his views on slavery and race were not as simple as his contemporary reputation. To be sure, as Fredrickson makes clear, he was always adamant in his opposition to slavery: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Yet he was not an abolitionist. Far from it. As much as he hated slavery, he revered the Union, the Constitution and the law more. He would stand on principle in opposing the extension of slavery into the territories (even to the point of arguing against Stephen Douglas’s democratic solution of letting the people in the territories settle the question for themselves). But he would do nothing to undermine the Peculiar Institution where it was already legal, hoping instead that it would die a natural death sometime in the future. This is a stand that will not sit well with those modern readers who prefer luxuriating in the purity of their ideals (especially if those ideals don’t cost them anything) rather than trying to understand the difficult compromises a pragmatic politician is forced to make. But in Lincoln’s day a refusal to compromise led to the terrorism of John Brown — just as in our own time it leads to other kinds of fanaticism.

More problematic were Lincoln’s views on race. He held opinions not very different from those of the majority of his racist countrymen. Even if slavery was wrong, “there is a physical difference between the white and black races that will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality.” His solution was a form of ethnic cleansing: shipping blacks off to Liberia, or Haiti, or Central America — anywhere as long as it wasn’t the United States.

Lincoln’s views may have started to change once he saw how bravely black troops fought for the Union cause, but even at the time of his death, he was willing to leave the fate of emancipated slaves in the hands of bigoted state legislators. “Whether Lincoln ever went beyond being an anti-slavery white supremacist,” Fredrickson writes, “is a question that is difficult to resolve.”

And Lincoln wasn't the only one who was problematic: if you delve deep into the writings of Abolitionists they were frequently racist. At the very least, they were patronizing: just one example - the tension between Douglass and the Garrisonians, where Douglass' views on Northern racism weren't welcome on Anti-Slavery platforms.

"In 1870 Thomas Burnett Pugh, an ardent abolitionist prior to the Civil War, invited Frederick Douglass to participate in the “Star Course” lecture series he had organized at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. However, Douglass “learned with some surprise considering our recently improved civilization, that in servile deference to a vulgar and senseless prejudice against my long abused and proscribed people, the Directors of that popular Hall persist in refusing to allow it to be used for a lecture to which my race shall be admitted on terms of equality with others.” In this strongly worded letter refusing the speaking engagement, Douglass conveyed his disgust not only with the academy’s policy but also at the “intensity of [Philadelphia’s] wolfish hate and snobbish pride of race.”

Fast forward to Teddy Roosevelt, considered fairly "liberal" even though pro-Eugenicist, who believed it was the job of the white man to help "lesser races". Roosevelt and his political allies believed that whites had "innate" superiority, and it was the responsibility of the white man to lift "lesser races" up to the standard of white men. He was close friends with Madison Grant:

[i]Grant has been pushed to the margins of environmentalism’s history, however. He is often remembered for another reason: his 1916 book “The Passing of the Great Race, or The Racial Basis of European History,” a pseudo-scientific work of white supremacism that warns of the decline of the “Nordic” peoples. In Grant’s racial theory, Nordics were a natural aristocracy, marked by noble, generous instincts and a gift for political self-governance, who were being overtaken by the “Alpine” and “Mediterranean” populations. His work influenced the Immigration Act of 1924, which restricted immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe and Africa and banned migrants from the Middle East and Asia. Adolf Hitler wrote Grant an admiring letter, calling the book “my Bible,” which has given it permanent status on the ultra-right. Anders Breivik, the Norwegian extremist who killed sixty-nine young Labour Party members, in 2011, drew on Grant’s racial theory in his own manifesto.

Grant’s fellow conservationists supported his racist activism. Roosevelt wrote Grant a letter praising “The Passing of the Great Race,” which appeared as a blurb on later editions, calling it “a capital book; in purpose, in vision, in grasp of the facts our people most need to realize.” Henry Fairfield Osborn, who headed the New York Zoological Society and the board of trustees of the American Museum of Natural History (and, as a member of the U.S. Geological Survey, named the Tyrannosaurus rex and the Velociraptor), wrote a foreword to the book. Osborn argued that “conservation of that race which has given us the true spirit of Americanism is not a matter either of racial pride or of racial prejudice; it is a matter of love of country.”

For Grant, Roosevelt, and other architects of the country’s parks and game refuges, wild nature was worth saving for its aristocratic qualities; where these were lacking, they were indifferent. Grant, as his Times obituary noted, “was uninterested in the smaller forms of animal or bird life.” He wrote about the moose, the mountain goat, and the redwood tree, whose nobility and need for protection in a venal world so resembled the plight of Grant’s “Nordics” that his biographer, Jonathan Spiro, concludes that he saw them as two faces of a single threatened, declining aristocracy. Similarly, Roosevelt, in his accounts of hunting, could not say enough about the “lordly” and “noble” elk and buffalo that he and Grant helped to preserve and loved to kill. Their preservation work aimed to keep alive this kind of encounter between would-be aristocratic men and halfway wild nature."

And we can go on and on, analyzing other Presidents who followed...

What I take from all this is: History is complicated.

Lincoln's Civil War was necessary, he was on the right side of History. For that, I am prepared to give him some room, and I'm wary of indulging in presentism where we apply our own standards to flawed people who did great things but had other moral failings which were typical at the time.

What guides me is systemic change ( taking the individual out of it) The problem today is an obsession with individuals as mythical heroes who did no wrong. Wouldn't it be better for schools to teach both the good and the bad, where they too often ignore the bad to keep certain myths alive to avoid conflicted/complicated discussion?

Another reason I give Lincoln room is because Confederate sentiment is now perfectly aligned with the alt-right and "nazis", and much of the critique of Lincoln is used to serve up historical revisionism- to strip Civil War History of the moral outrage which brought it about by suggesting Lincoln didn't really want to free the slaves and was against "states rights".

[brer cat]

5. "The problem today is an obsession with individuals as mythical heroes who did no wrong."

I agree, JHan. It is a shortcoming in our schools as well as in our critical thinking. The reverse is also true: say something positive about LBJ's Great Society, and someone is going to start "but, but, but Vietnam." Judging our leaders in a binary fashion as either heroes or goats causes us to miss valuable teaching/learning opportunities and imo sends a terrible message to children. Lincoln deserves enormous credit for forcibly freeing slaves, but it is wrong to not point out that he was opposed to granting them equality, even to the point of making the very idea of equality between the races the butt of jokes. Freeing the slaves was a necessary and courageous first step, but the fight for equality is still going strong over 150 years out.

[JHan]

6. agreed! ++++++

[Me.]

7. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[heaven05]

8. Lincoln was a pragmatist

he was no "great emancipator" nor humanitarian..a pragmatist relating that time and world history up to that point, as he had experienced.

I imagine what to do with all those freed African-americans was a real headache and their solution(s) caused the headache I'm dealing with and experiencing presently, the stressful racial divide in ameriKKKKa lately.