THE LINCOLN STORY
In 1860, most Black people were slaves; by 1863, slavery was abolished in the Confederate states in rebellion. Black men—nearly 200,000 strong—began serving as soldiers and sailors in the Union Army.
By 1865, the 13th Amendment was on its way to being passed, abolishing Slavery everywhere. Though Lincoln would not live to see its adoption, he worked for its passage.
Two more amendments growing out of the Civil War soon followed: the 14th (1868) and 15th (1870).
These two additional amendments further defined the rights and citizenship of the recently freed Black people, including the right to vote for Black men.
Lincoln, while he yet lived, had suggested in a letter to the Governor of Louisiana that Black people should have the right to vote, especially those educated and those who served their country in uniform; he again mentioned Black people voting in the last public speech he gave in early April 1865.
LINCOLN’S LEGACY
In each of the five years of the Civil War, Lincoln may have said or done something that is seized upon by others to show that he was not free from prejudice. He favored plans for resettling slaves elsewhere; he did not believe Blacks were equal to whites and he so expressed himself more than once.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that in this five year period, from 1860 to 1865, a monumental change occurred in the condition of Black people: from slave to free; from property to free human being; from oppressed slave to free Union soldier; from a person deprived of all rights to one tasting freedom for the first time.
Ahead, there is a long, difficult road toward equality for Black people and a struggle that would last another century; at least that path began to open wider in fair measure because of Abraham Lincoln.
The South, on the other hand, has always harbored a deep prejudice against Lincoln, an abiding hatred of him, looking for ways to smear his name and reputation–and there are people still trying to do the same today.
We have become obsessed with the “fifteen second sound bite”, as they call it. But that is not how mature people judge the life of another. Fair-minded people should take everything into consideration when evaluating a person’s character: all that is said and done—in short, we must look at the growth of a person and how they change over time.
We don’t typically let a single statement or action–interspersed through the long years of a full lifetime–prevent us from weighing fairly the sum total of a person’s life and all the person accomplished of a positive nature.
This approach is the fair and measured way of intelligent mature individuals to judge one another, not with envy or malice but with compassion and reason.
BLACK RESPONSE
No one could be more keenly sensitive to every form of racism than Black people, especially those who started their lives as slaves, and yet many of them came to idolize Lincoln beyond measure. For them, he truly was the Great Emancipator and “Father Abraham”.
Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became an outstanding orator, writer, and leader of the Anti-Slavery movement, praised Lincoln’s leadership in his heartfelt eulogy for the Freedmen’s Bureau unveiling of a monument dedicated to President Lincoln in 1876..
Douglass and Lincoln were friends; Douglass knew Lincoln personally; he knew the man. His sober calm words are among the best we have describing Lincoln, as well as his unforgettable remark that Lincoln was the only white man Douglass knew who never made him feel self-conscious about the color of his skin or his humble origins. And that, from the great Frederick Douglass himself!
LINCOLN’S REPUTATION
People should think twice before accusing Lincoln of being nothing more than a racist when the Black people of his own generation knew and understood a different, deeper truth about him. His occasional expression of prejudice does not overthrow all that he said and did; in some ways, it endears him to us even more.
It shows us that he was human: a product of his age where racism was nearly universal, where chattel slavery still existed, and where Black people lacked opportunities to prove they had capacity and potential beyond what most people believed about slaves.
Black people knew who their friends were and who their enemies were! They were not confused about the difference between slave owners–with their flesh-cutting whips and dehumanizing brutal punishments–and a man like Lincoln with his deep-thinking, compassionate, and purposeful ways.
It is, indeed, quite instructive to learn that even a man like Lincoln was not free from racial prejudice. It helps us to understand better how truly widespread and god-awful such prejudice was, to have stained the whole country from top to bottom.
If people opposed to slavery were not yet free from all racial bias, how deep and pervasive was the racially charged atmosphere of the entire country!
LINCOLN’S RACISM
Part of the problem in trying to assess fairly Lincoln’s views on race arises from the faulty interface between two very different eras. Today it is sometimes blithely assumed that Lincoln must have had modern moral values regarding equality and justice for all. Because he struck the fatal blow against Slavery, Lincoln became a legend in the eyes of succeeding generations of Americans.
As a result, many Americans (schoolchildren and adults both) assume he believed in the legal and social equality of the races when such was not the case. Only a few of the Abolitionists and Radical Republicans ever took steps in that direction; they were in a decided minority at the time and Lincoln did not align himself with them.
It may seem like a historical contradiction to us today, but back then it was quite possible to be opposed to slavery for its cruelty without being in favor of full legal and social equality for Black people. Such was Lincoln’s stance which today would be labeled racist; on more than one occasion he specifically denied believing in racial equality.
Yet these occasionally expressed prejudices of Lincoln’s appear devoid of any strong racial animus. He did not use the racist “n” word or rail about the dangerous inferiority of Black people. He preferred “negro”, “black”, or “colored” and often softened his bias by further explaining his point of view. After the Dred Scott decision, Lincoln said:
“Now I protest against that counterfeit logic which concludes that, because I do not want a black woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. I need not have her for either, I can just leave her alone. In some respects she certainly is not my equal; but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands without asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others.” (1857)
Historians who admire Lincoln do so not because he was free from all racial prejudice, but because he became more mature and wiser as the years passed; we can watch his progressive views evolving during his political career, especially the acceleration that occurred between the Dred Scott decision and the Emancipation Proclamation.
REMAINING FAIR TO LINCOLN
Remarks taken out of context and without reference to his growth as man and president, should not be allowed to undermine everything that he accomplished in defending the democratic principles of the nation, as he understood them, embodied in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the writings of the Founding Fathers.
From humble beginnings, to store clerk, to lawyer, to state representative, to Congressman, to president of the United States . . . the story of Lincoln still speaks to us, still resonates within us, still touches the deepest chords of human sympathy and compassion. If we are willing to overlook some of his foibles, there is good reason to do so.
While the wider publishing of Lincoln’s prejudices, hitherto known only to a few scholars, may tarnish his reputation, in the end I would venture to say the American people will remain loyal to the memory of the man and his life. He is held in the highest esteem by millions of people, in this country and abroad, and for the best of reasons.
I understand how hurtful it must be for young people in college (previously led to believe he was perfect and saintly) to be told Lincoln uttered words which what today would be considered undeniably racist comments, but it is also part of a student’s moral education to seek the broader truth about a person in all of its historical complexity.
This unvarnished truth is absolutely necessary in order to help students establish an accurate and balanced view of a person’s life, especially when dealing with a vastly different historical era. Discovering new facts about Lincoln, however, does not immediately or automatically overthrow previous interpretations of his life thus far developed.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS’ OPINION
In this sense, if we do this with Lincoln, I don’t think we will find him lacking in those basic human qualities we tend to admire most in people: honesty, intelligence, courage, and compassion.
Rather, I believe we will come to agree with Frederick Douglass in his masterful eulogy when he describes Lincoln as the pivotal figure during these tumultuous years: the man who kept the Union together and smashed slavery with his Emancipation Proclamation.
Lincoln, however slowly he moved at first, developed into a great man and a great leader in the eyes of Douglass–and this opinion came from an escaped slave who had known the repeated sting of the whip. Douglass said that Lincoln was the only white man he knew who did not make him feel self-conscious about his race or the color of his skin.
If we cannot trust Douglass’ judgment about Lincoln, who else, then, should we believe?
WISHING LINCOLN FAREWELL
The story of Abraham Lincoln lives on and is passed down from generation to generation. You must make up your own mind about him and who he was and what he did. As for me, I consider myself a Lincoln man, a teacher who is always eager to learn more about him and eager to discuss new interpretations of his actions as man and president.
I remain firmly convinced that America should always remain thankful that she had, at the time of her great national crisis, a man like Lincoln to steer the country on its difficult journey through the treacherous and uncharted waters of the Civil War. He was at the helm of the ship of state during the final smashing of Slavery when that hateful and dreadful institution finally received its death blow, to never rise again!
If we are here in a nation of fifty states with slavery abolished and Black people free, it is in no small part due to the words and actions of Abraham Lincoln. Had I lived back then I surely would have voted for him in both 1860 and 1864–and I have not yet heard anything so shocking about him that would ever make me regret such a vote.
Few presidents have had such an impact on the nation as America’s 16th president. Whatever else might be said of him, we know he accomplished his two main goals: he kept the country whole and intact by defeating the Southern rebellion and he led the way to the destruction of the institution of slavery, once and for all!
And for me and many another that is enough, in and of itself. Lincoln has won a place in the hearts of the American people like no other president before or since—and here he shall stay, with love and honor in our hearts, for as long as his story be truthfully told–and for as long as people cherish freedom.
“Now he belongs to the ages . . .”
IN MEMORIAM
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
1809-1865
