# Lincoln after 150 years: Sainted liberator or hypocrite racist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 5, 2015, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711 "2015-06-05T14:54:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/1 "2015-06-05T14:54:58Z")
April 2015 was the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination. Like most great figures in history, he has gone through the ups and downs of apotheosis and villainy. He has been painted as the holy martyr for freedom, and (especially by neo-confederates) as an opportunistic hypocrite who was as racist as any southern slave owner. Some of the supposedly “damming” evidence trotted out by Lincoln detractors are the VERY racist comments he made in the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates and the 1860 Presidential campaign, his letter to Horace Greely in which he said he would have been satisfied to leave slavery intact and just preserve the Union, his proposal to liberated slaves be shipped to Central America or Africa, and his frequent assertions that blacks could never be the equal of whites. After reading and studying extensively on Lincoln, and since I am an unabashed Lincoln lover and Union supporter, I have come to the conclusion that every bit of “evidence” of his supposed racism and hypocrisy can be explained with reference to context and his need not to get too far ahead of what was an incredibly racist America in the 1860s, both SOUTH \*\*AND NORTH \*\*. More on the incredible and largely ignored racism of northern whites later. For the time being, what opinion should we have of Lincoln 150 years after his death? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/2 "2015-06-05T15:02:12Z")
AFAIK the wishes for the leaders of the Confederacy was to eventually go south and conquer territories like Central America. IMHO if Lincoln had not fought to keep the Union and eliminate slavery chances are that the big world wars of the 20th century would also had involved the Americas even more. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/3 "2015-06-05T15:15:47Z")
Lincoln fought the hardest battle he could win, and won it, and created a legacy that made the US a better nation and the world a better place. In doing so he cut some corners, broke some rules, ignored some aspects of the chosen problem and other problems altogether, and paid a terrible price for the victory. It’s easy to second-guess things 150 years later. It’s easy to sneer at the slave-owning “founders of democracy.” It’s easy, in fact, to sneer at any changer of history who made mistakes, overlooked what seems obvious now, didn’t anticipate future shifts in perception and thought and may have had personal failings. With no grade-school blinkers or rah-rah patriotism, I think Washington and Lincoln are considered the pillars of the US for very good reasons, reasons that stand the test of all petty debate over, say, being a slave-owner in the colonial era or testing the limits of habeas corpus in time of a nation-dividing war. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/4 "2015-06-05T15:29:33Z")
A lot of history books give the impression that pre-civil-war America was made up of slave states filled with horrible oppressive racists, and “free” states where blacks lived in freedom and equality with their white brethren. This is a complete fabrication. For blacks, “free” states were free only in the sense that they could not be put on the auction block and sold. When you judge comments made by Abe Lincoln in his election campaigns, stop and consider: [ul] [li]Most free states did not allow blacks to vote[/li][li]Most free states did not allow blacks to testify against a white or to take legal action against whites[/li][li]Blacks had to pay school taxes but could not send their children to public schools[/li][li]Blacks were commonly refused service in 80-90% of establishments[/li][/ul] Lincoln’s own state of Illinois, where he was attempting to get elected, bordered slave states and it was illegal for blacks to take up residence in the state. Opposition to slavery in the north rarely had anything to do with recognition of the rights of blacks. It was much more based on the fear of lower-class whites that slavery, if allowed in their state, would compete with their labour and depress their wages. Any politician who said blacks could be equal to whites would have been tarred and feathered. Northern whites were terrified of “negro equality” and were convinced that if abolition occurred, four million former slaves would flood their states, their labour markets, etc. Abolitionists were lynched in the south, but they were often attacked and killed in the NORTH as well. Remember that Lincoln in 1860 DID NOT run on a promise to abolish slavery. If he had he probably would not have won a single northern “free” state. He merely proposed that slavery be kept out of the territories that were eventually going to be admitted to statehood. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/5 "2015-06-05T15:33:43Z")
Lincoln was a man of his times; while there is nothing to indicate that he personally was rascist and desired an end to slavery, he did at times feel that perhaps blacks would not be comfortable in the predominately white (and predominately racist) nation that existed in the mid-1800’s. It is known that he discussed gradual emancipation with Border state politicians, with the US Government paying the going rate for their slaves and then gradually freeing them (rejected by those politicians). It is also known that he discussed (at least as a hypothesis) either returning blacks to Africa, or more likely to a Central of South American country. This concept was rejected by free blacks, who knew that after 200+ years, the slaves were, whatever else they may be, Americans. And of course the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to slaves in states that were currently in rebellion; states like Deleware, Maryland and Kentucky got to keep thier slaves… All that said, once it became obvious that relocation or other ‘solutions’ were not going to happen, Lincoln recognized it and set out to try and reconcile a nation to the new realities and too make it as ‘painless’ as possible. That was probably too much to ask of anybody, and if John Wilkes Booth had failed and Lincoln remained president, I suspect his last 3 years in office would have been frustrating and we would have had the same history play out as it has for the last 150 years. Or maybe not. Lincoln was not the smartest President (I’d vote Jefferson for that) or the most beloved (Washington), but he was (IMHO) the finest political mind that ever has occupied that office, then or now. Too bad we’ll never know. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/6 "2015-06-05T16:04:25Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > A lot of history books give the impression that pre-civil-war America was made up of slave states filled with horrible oppressive racists, and “free” states where blacks lived in freedom and equality with their white brethren. This is a complete fabrication. For blacks, “free” states were free only in the sense that they could not be put on the auction block and sold. > > When you judge comments made by Abe Lincoln in his election campaigns, stop and consider: > > [ul] > [li]Most free states did not allow blacks to vote[/li][li]Most free states did not allow blacks to testify against a white or to take legal action against whites[/li][li]Blacks had to pay school taxes but could not send their children to public schools[/li][li]Blacks were commonly refused service in 80-90% of establishments[/li][/ul] Yes, but in practice the situation for blacks in the north was not as extreme as the one you paint. > **[Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895](https://books.google.com/books?id=cCMbE4KKlX4C&pg=PA153&lpg=PA153&dq=Most%2Bfree%2Bstates%2Bdid%2Bnot%2Ballow%2Bblacks%2Bto%2Bvote&source=bl&ots=xWkKBY-iwK&sig=PW_YbkgGzFCm-kNp803HyAgSgsg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=SsJxVfikH8rYggT514DoBw&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=Most%20free%20states%20did%20not%20allow%20blacks%20to%20vote&f=false)** > > It is impossible to understand America without understanding the history of African Americans. In nearly seven hundred entries, the Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895 documents the full range of the African American experience during... > [@](#): > > Despite the registration laws, the free black population grew by over 500 percent between 1800 and 1810 and continuedto grow in every decade, reaching 9,568 by 1830. Most blacks entering the state did not actually register under these laws, and there is no record of any court’s ever forcing a black to leave the state for failing to register. While they were denied access to public schools, Ohio blacks were able to create their own schools and other institutions. > > Unlike the situation under the slave codes and black codes of the South, African Americans in Ohio were free to own property, enter a profession, and travel and move about without a pass system. By the 1850s there was at least one black attorney in Ohio, John Mercer Langston, and although his fellow African Americans were denied the franchise, his white neighbors would elect him to public office. > > The greatest threat to blacks from the state came from their inability to testify against whites and the fear that the registration laws might be enforced against them. Ohio repealed most of its black laws in 1849. - Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895 Indeed, while a lot of laws and regulations existed in the north against blacks the situation was changing and legislation was actually being changed **before** the civil war on the northern states, as there were more politicians with not just abolitionist ideas, but also had more that did subscribe to more radical ideas and made new laws to make them a reality. The south was also looking at that and grumbled about those legal moves from the northern states with dread. And then the Dred Scott decision came in and angered many on the north and instead of causing obedience to the law caused many to radicalise even more in the north. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/7 "2015-06-05T16:17:13Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > After reading and studying extensively on Lincoln, and since I am an unabashed Lincoln lover and Union supporter, I have come to the conclusion that every bit of “evidence” of his supposed racism and hypocrisy can be explained with reference to context and his need not to get too far ahead of what was an incredibly racist America in the 1860s, both SOUTH \*\*AND NORTH \*\*. More on the incredible and largely ignored racism of northern whites later. I mostly agree, but I’m pretty sure he held views, at least during part of his lifetime, that would be considered racist if a person today held them. (For instance, he was doubtful, at least for some time in his life, whether full equality and peaceful coexistence of blacks and whites was possible or even desirable.) I’ve seen no evidence of hypocrisy. He was always opposed to slavery, but he wasn’t an Abolitionist in the sense that it was the number one goal that defined his life, and he was aware of the political and practical limitations to what he or the government could do about it. He certainly could have been more outspoken against slavery than he was. It’s not at all clear to me that he could have actually done more, effectively, to end it than he did. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/8 "2015-06-05T16:26:55Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > A lot of history books give the impression that pre-civil-war America was made up of slave states filled with horrible oppressive racists, and “free” states where blacks lived in freedom and equality with their white brethren. Which history books are these? It’s certainly not what I was taught. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/9 "2015-06-05T16:38:10Z")
The scheme to “colonize” freed slaves to Africa or Central America and the alleged support given to this scheme by Lincoln is a prime example of how the man must be judged in context. Most anti-Lincolnites will claim that he wanted to ship blacks out of the country and was therefore obviously a racist. Historians are now pretty much convinced that Lincoln never really subscribed seriously to the idea, but that he floated it like a trial balloon to help appease the fears of whites who were terrified at the concept of four million former slaves moving around freely in America. Consider also: 1. Lincoln took the unprecedented step of inviting black leaders to the White House in August 1862 to ask their opinion of colonization, shaking their hands and receiving them with full dignity and equality. That the President would receive these blacks as if they were equal to whites, and actually consult them, enraged millions of white Americans. 2. Lincoln’s speech to these leaders was 100% free of racism. He did not for one second imply that blacks were inherently inferior or unfit to live in America. What he essentially said was that American whites were so racist that blacks could never expect fair treatment and equality. “Your race are suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people.” He went on to say that even after they are freed, blacks continued to suffer from discrimination, and might always do so. Considering present-day conflicts in America, even with a black President, you have to wonder… . . . . This meeting on colonization, widely reported in the press, was just a few weeks before the first announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation. In other words, it served to pacify a lot of whites who thought that colonization of freed blacks was really in the cards. Can we accuse Lincoln of being dishonest here? Not really. Politicians have always used trial balloons and strategically timed announcements. Besides, was it not the President’s duty to look at all options, even the unlikely ones? ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/10 "2015-06-05T16:43:31Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Which history books are these? It’s certainly not what I was taught. I don’t mean that history books literally say that blacks in free states were 100% free and 100% happy. I just mean that history books using the term “free states” often do not adequately cover the depth of white racism in northern states. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/11 "2015-06-05T16:49:02Z")
Ironically, northern whites were often more “negrophobic” than southern whites. For example, northern whites in restaurants might often object to the “revolting” sight of a black hand holding their plate and serving their food. Southern whites, on the other hand, were usually very used to black servants in the kitchen and dining room. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/12 "2015-06-05T16:50:24Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > Ironically, northern whites were often more “negrophobic” than southern whites. For example, northern whites in restaurants might often object to the “revolting” sight of a black hand holding their plate and serving their food. Southern whites, on the other hand, were usually very used to black servants in the kitchen and dining room. Again, the history book cited and what in practice took place in the Northern states shows that you are ignoring a lot to get a very weak point across. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/13 "2015-06-05T16:54:17Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > I don’t mean that history books literally say that blacks in free states were 100% free and 100% happy. I just mean that history books using the term “free states” often do not adequately cover the depth of white racism in northern states. You have a cite for this? And who is the judge of what is “adequate” or not? I’m sure that no matter what is done, some folks are not going to think it is “adequate” enough. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/14 "2015-06-05T16:55:33Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > Ironically, northern whites were often more “negrophobic” than southern whites. For example, northern whites in restaurants might often object to the “revolting” sight of a black hand holding their plate and serving their food. Southern whites, on the other hand, were usually very used to black servants in the kitchen and dining room. Emphasis added. You misspelled slave. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/15 "2015-06-05T17:11:26Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > You have a cite for this? And who is the judge of what is “adequate” or not? I’m sure that no matter what is done, some folks are not going to think it is “adequate” enough. Look, you are making too big a deal out of an offhand observation. I remember learning about the Civil War in Grade 13 History class, and I remember looking at the map of the pre-war US, with “free states” and “slave states”. And I remember assuming that blacks in free states were generally speaking, (with perhaps some discrimination) treated about the same as whites. Maybe I should not have jumped to that conclusion, but I did. I also remember as a child reading short summaries of the civil war, and reading or being told that black people in “free” states were, well, free. It is only when I read really detailed histories like Michael Burlingame’s two-volume biography of Lincoln that I realized what the real condition of “free” blacks in the north was. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/16 "2015-06-05T17:22:11Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > Look, you are making too big a deal out of an offhand observation. I remember learning about the Civil War in Grade 13 History class, and I remember looking at the map of the pre-war US, with “free states” and “slave states”. And **I remember assuming that blacks in free states were generally speaking, (with perhaps some discrimination) treated about the same as whites**. Maybe I should not have jumped to that conclusion, but I did. I also remember as a child reading short summaries of the civil war, and reading or being told that black people in “free” states were, well, free. It is only when I read really detailed histories like Michael Burlingame’s two-volume biography of Lincoln that I realized what the real condition of “free” blacks in the north was. My Bold. That’s an understandable misunderstanding to have as a child. But surely you grew out of that, no? Blacks aren’t treated the same as whites to this day. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/17 "2015-06-05T17:31:01Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > That’s an understandable misunderstanding to have as a child. But surely you grew out of that, no? Blacks aren’t treated the same as whites to this day. Your second sentence, though true, kind of undercuts your first. It’s almost as though you’re implying that race relations and attitudes in the pre-Civil War North were the same as they are nowadays. It’s all too common for people to unconsciously assume that the past was like the present except for the ways in which we’re explicitly told it wasn’t. In this case, that assumption would be that the past was like the present except for slavery being legal south of the Mason-Dixon. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/18 "2015-06-05T17:35:43Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Your second sentence, though true, kind of undercuts your first. It’s almost as though you’re implying that race relations and attitudes in the pre-Civil War North were the same as they are nowadays. > > It’s all too common for people to unconsciously assume that the past was like the present except for the ways in which we’re explicitly told it wasn’t. In this case, that assumption would be that the past was like the present except for slavery being legal south of the Mason-Dixon. I assume you mean my third sentence. But even then I’m not sure how it undercuts my first sentence. I’m not implying anything like what you infer. Merely that Black/White relations in the north in the 1860s were tense and full of discrimination and racism. Which they were. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/19 "2015-06-05T17:36:22Z")
In judging Lincoln’s position on slavery, it is critically important to distinguish between his personal hatred of it (which he NEVER sought to hide), and the fact that he simply could not see any way to abolish the institution, given that it was so well protected by the Constitution. I think it is clear that if he had been an absolute dictator with the power to do anything he wanted, he would have gone for abolition as quickly as possible. But as a presidential candidate, he could not just declare that he was going for abolition, and to Hell with what the constitution says. I believe his long-term strategy was this. He could not immediately abolish slavery where it existed, but he COULD effectively ensure that 100% of future states would be free states, and that no further slave stages would be created. As another 15 or 20 new states were created out of the new territories, and as all of them were admitted as free states, and as world public opinion became more and more critical of US slavery, and as the northern population became even greater than the southern, the existing slave states would be too few to prevent a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (requiring 3/4 of the states). I believe the southern states seceded precisely because they knew this was the long-term plan. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711/20 "2015-06-05T17:41:14Z")
Of course Lincoln was racist – practically all white people of the period including Abolitionists considered blacks mentally inferior to whites by heredity. Lincoln and the Abolitionists merely denied that justified treating them as property – as one put it, “Sir Isaac Newton may have been endowed with reason superior to his neighbors’, but he was not therefore lord of the persons and property of other men.” Or, as Lincoln put it, “You say the negro should be enslaved because he is black? Have a care! By that argument you are liable to be enslaved by the next man you meet who is fairer than you! Oh, you say, it is not the color, but the negro should be enslaved because of his inferior intelligence? Have a care! By that argument you are liable to be enslaved by the next man you meet who is more intelligent than you!” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-after-150-years-sainted-liberator-or-hypocrite-racist/721711.md?page=2)