Capturing the Real Abraham Lincoln

Not in context. The U.S. government had armies in the field in Confederate territory and did indeed have the means to enforce the terms of the proclamation over time.

More to the point, the proclamation's immediate purpose was as a war measure to disable the Confederacy's economic ability to wage war. It also was a warning to the South that slavery would de facto be abolished should the war continue.

Because it was a war measure, Lincoln did not believe it could be applied to the border states still within the Union, aside from the political complications such an application would have caused.

The proclamation, as a war measure, succeeded brilliantly and was partly responsible for Great Britain's decision not to recognize the Confederacy.

Lincoln, like most other white Americans of the time, had racist tendencies, but a reading of the Lincoln-Douglas debates shows a clear distinction between him and other non-abolitionist politicians.

"I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races.

There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects — certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."

— First Lincoln-Douglas debate, 1858

Lincoln supported colonization, although always voluntary, partly because he believed it would eliminate surplus labor that depressed wages for white Americans, partly because he believed it was the only way to deal with social problems that would be created by emancipation.

His ideas evolved over time, which I believe was a result of his actually meeting black people in settings other than the plantation and slave market. He was especially moved by the 200,000 black Americans who enlisted in the federal army.

"It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers," he said shortly before his assassination, and indication that he would support civil rights for blacks.

A good deal of mythology has grown up around Lincoln that obscures that he was, first of all, a pragmatic politician who hated slavery but considered that his highest duty was preserve the Union.

 

I doubt that's the best book about Lincoln. DiLorenzo almost completely ignores the influence of slavery on the causes of the war. And there's really nothing new in it.

 

Absolutely. The last straw, though, for Booth, was Lincoln's consideration of voting rights for literate blacks and those who served in the army — which he talked about in a torchlit speech at the White House April 9 after receiving news of Lee's surrender.

"That's the last speech he'll ever make," said Booth, who was in the crowd.

 

Hogwash. Nice try, Poncho, but I would think your research on the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commsion, the Illuminati and the Bilderbers would have prevented an assay into numerology.

The fact that it is "one history lesson people don't mind reading" means nothing. As it has been for the decades I've heard it.

Besides ... what it is supposed to mean? That Kennedy was a martyr or that Kennedy was a despot? Take your pick.

Don't pass on chain e-mail. It's bad luck.