# "Lincoln was a racist." Idiot high school children **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 20, 2003, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-was-a-racist-idiot-high-school-children/176381 "2003-05-20T20:36:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-was-a-racist-idiot-high-school-children/176381/41 "2003-05-21T17:55:27Z")
> [@](#): > > but you get credit for being PC. How does siding with one or the other of lumpers and splitters turn into a charge of Political Correctness? (Or is it true that “PC” has no meaning beyond “stuff I wish other people wouldn’t say”?) Just curious. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-was-a-racist-idiot-high-school-children/176381/42 "2003-05-21T18:41:58Z")
If you read the post “for various POLITICAL reasons…” :rolleyes: It is more than the battle between “lumpers & spliters”, this re-naming has political over tones. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-was-a-racist-idiot-high-school-children/176381/43 "2003-05-21T19:24:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Johnny L.A. \* > **I think Lincoln was ambivalent about slavery. He said something like, "If I could save the Union by freeing all of the slaves, I would do it. If I could save the Union by freeing _none_ of the slaves, I’d do that. If I could save the Union by freeing some of the slaves and letting others alone, I’d do _that_."** That remark (like Lincoln’s attitudes toward Negroes generally) has to be considered in its context. In addition to his “House Divided” speech already mentioned, there’s the reality that in 1860, he ran on a platform of permanently confining slavery to the 15 existing slave states, and was unwilling to bend on _that_ pledge in order to save the Union, as evidenced by the fact that he didn’t back down on that pledge as Southern secession went from threat to reality. So Lincoln would have been willing to save the Union without freeing a single slave, _as long as slavery’s expansion to new territories was ended_. That’s the key qualifier here. Minor factual nitpick: there were four slave states in the Union - Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri. At the time of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln did not have the authority to end slavery in these states, because they were still in the Union. People seem to forget this. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-was-a-racist-idiot-high-school-children/176381/44 "2003-05-21T20:34:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RexDart \* > Really, Lincoln gets waaaaaaaaay too much credit for ending slavery. He’s easy enough to give all the credit to in a simplified high school history textbook, so they do it. So everybody learns about the one good thing he did, “freeing the slaves”, singlehandedly of course :rolleyes: , and for power-hungry reasons. You never hear about the litany of crappy things he did, the suppression of civil liberties under his reign. The guy issues one self-serving proclamation for strategic military reasons, and suddenly he’s above criticism. I’m a big fan of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, on account of Henry Mayer’s excellent bio, _All On Fire_. Garrison did a lot to move Northern public opinion to the point where Lincoln could take the stands he did, and get elected. But Lincoln was still the guy who made it happen. And until he did, it was hardly inevitable that American slavery would end in the nineteenth century. So IMHO, he deserves the credit. I think your claim that Lincoln freed the slaves “for power-hungry reasons” needs to be backed up. And sure, keeping England from recognizing the Confederacy was part of the calculus behind the Emancipation Proclamation, but is there any doubt that Lincoln was already antislavery? > [@](#): > > Nobody before the war thought it was a good idea for blacks and whites to live side-by-side. > \ > Either way, it’s fair to say that even the most staunch abolitionists were probably separatists. The movement was driven largely by the idea that slavery as an institution was damaging to society, not by any sort of sympathy with the slaves themselves. I would highly recommend that you read _All On Fire_, which puts paid to all of that bushwa. Garrison and his followers largely regarded blacks as fellow human beings, not as some lesser breed, and were unquestionably motivated by the plight of American blacks themselves. Many of them were demonstrably ready to live side-by-side with blacks. That is not to say that there wasn’t a goodly chunk of the Northern populace who were against slavery because they resented what they perceived as the institution’s damaging effect on the price of labor. But they weren’t really part of any movement (and the abolitionist movement was unquestionably an organized movement); they were just voters who disliked slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Super\_Gnat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Super\_Gnat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Super_Gnat)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-was-a-racist-idiot-high-school-children/176381/45 "2003-05-21T21:10:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Payton’s Servant \* > \*\*No, he works at Blair, and he’s retiring in June. \*\* That explains it then. I have a few friends that went to high school there, and they told me (with pride) that the entire history department had been liberals for the last 20 years or so. Unsurprisingly, they’re all liberals too. What I should have said, but didn’t, was that it’s not a point of pride to have gotten a view of history with only one slant. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-was-a-racist-idiot-high-school-children/176381/46 "2003-05-21T21:36:37Z")
"We’ll take the niggers and the chinks, but we **don’t want the Irish!** “Un-un, baby! Its everybody or no deal.” “Aw, hell! Everybody then!” Something about this thread made me think of this scene for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-was-a-racist-idiot-high-school-children/176381/47 "2003-05-21T22:44:09Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by DrDerth > Lincoln even today would hardly be considered “vehemently” racist. But whose fore-fathers weren’t “racist”? I didn’t call Lincoln vehemently anything, as I don’t consider him a founding father. For instance, Jefferson’s racism wasn’t just simple prejudice. He often justified his racist beliefs with pseudoscience (but whether or not it was junk science “for that time”, I don’t know). He vehemently supported the idea of negro inferiority and concocoted asshat justifications for their enslavement. He denigrated the accomplishments of exceptional blacks because they challenged his racist views. Jefferson was a fantastic politician, but as a person he was a creep. And the enormous number of slaves this Father of Freedom owned takes away some of his “greatness”, IMHO. His being a Founding Father does not mean I have to kiss his ass. If this makes me stupid, I guess that’s what I am. As for other founding fathers in other places, I don’t know. > [@](#): > > If everyone was “racist” the word loses all meaning. I’m not a historian or any other humanity academic, but my understanding is that “racism” is a stand-alone term. I’m racist if I think my ethnic group is superior to other ethnic groups. This holds for now or if I’m standing on Europa a million years from now. If everyone was “racist” then everyone was "racist. Period. > [@](#): > > Lincoln was far less racist than most other political leaders fo his time. They were great men for their time. We cannot & should not judge them by todays standards. I don’t think Lincoln was more or less racist than most other Americans at that time, and I don’t think this makes him a great anything. His emancipation of the slaves had nil to do with a lack of racial hostility. Like Jefferson, he was a great politician. But this does not necessarily make for a great man. > [@](#): > > Note that by “tomorrows” standards you, Monstro (and me and everyone else here) will very likely be considered racists & “specie-ists” and hardly better than Cro-magnons. Are you in favor of giving Dolphins the vote? Ha! I thought so! SPECIE-IST! I don’t know why you’re addressing this to me. I thought I made it clear that I understood that you should reserve judgement for people “within your time”. I just have a hard time figuring out how one chooses to delineate “times”. **MSU 1978** addressed the question I had: > [@](#): > > The only fair way to judge people is relative to their time. Relative to racism, again it depends on the era. In the 1600s, one could hardly be expected to oppose slavery. But in the 1850s, yes you should be expected to do so. In the 1870s, you wouldn’t be expected to endorse voting rights of blacks. But by 1920, you should. In the 1930s, you wouldn’t be expected to think of having integrated armed services. By 1950, you should have accepted it. In the 1950s, you wouldn’t be expected to support integrated schools. By 1970, you would. And so on. You could draw similar arguments for sexism. That’s fine and all, but aren’t you judging people by all these expected’s and should’s? Like, why should someone of 1850 be expected to support abolition? Were most people against slavery in 1850? Were most people anti-semitic during the 1940s? If so, does this explain/excuse the Holocaust? This is an extreme analogy, but for some slavery is seen as a centuries-old tragedy along the same lines as the Holocaust. It explains why the simple “it was the times” excuse is often seen as a lame cop-out. Sometimes shit is shit no matter what your time frame. But I understand that we must understand the ambient feelings of a population to judge the extremes of individuals. Lincoln was racist, just like the rest of American society back then. When young people first learn this, it can lead to hurt feelings and disillusionment (as it had once done to me… as you may have noticed, I have a hard time writing “our founding fathers”). I’m not saying the young woman is right to denounce Lincoln. I’m saying her reaction is natural and not unusual in someone so young and naive. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-was-a-racist-idiot-high-school-children/176381/48 "2003-05-21T22:48:47Z")
Something being understandable doesn’t make something right. It’s understandable that the killers in Columbine were driven to such extremes. Doesn’t make it right, does it? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-was-a-racist-idiot-high-school-children/176381/49 "2003-05-21T22:49:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Skillet38 \* > \*\*Lets all come together in a harmonious way and just agree that bitches are stupid > lol \*\* Sure, bitch. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-was-a-racist-idiot-high-school-children/176381/50 "2003-05-21T22:54:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Something being understandable doesn’t make something right. I’m pretty sure I said it wasn’t right. Perhaps I should say " it’s understandable to ME" because I shared the same feelings when I was 17. I don’t know. I’m just offering a different opinion besides “She’s so stupid and has been brainwashed by liberals”. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-was-a-racist-idiot-high-school-children/176381/51 "2003-05-21T22:59:29Z")
Well, that I can agree with. 😉 Perhaps I just get jumpy over this because I’m a historian. ---
**Author:** ![MSU\_1978](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@MSU\_1978](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MSU_1978)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-was-a-racist-idiot-high-school-children/176381/52 "2003-05-22T11:57:40Z")
This is an excellent discussion, it really deserves to be in the GD and not the Pit. > [@](#): > > That’s fine and all, but aren’t you judging people by all these expected’s and should’s? Like, why should someone of 1850 be expected to support abolition? Were most people against slavery in 1850? I wouldn’t say MOST people were against slavery in the 1850s, but certainly in the North it was beginning to fall out of favor. Connecticut was the first state to outlaw slavery in 1850. This was after slave importation was banned in 1808 and after the English banned slavery in 1838. Clearly by 1850, if you were a progressive thinker, you would have had knowledge that slavery was wrong. That’s my yardstick: when would a reasonably progressive and open minded person first start to see that something was wrong? I would draw a parallel to smoking- in the 1940s, who knew that it was bad for your health? I’d give people who started smoking in the 1940s the benefit of the doubt for having started smoking, but I wouldn’t extend that same courtesy to someone who first lit up in 1990. Regarding the Founding Fathers- We’ll probably have to agree to disagree about Jefferson. Can you define “enormous number of slaves” for us? ---
**Author:** ![missbunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@missbunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missbunny)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-was-a-racist-idiot-high-school-children/176381/53 "2003-05-22T17:50:52Z")
It’s not just high-school children who are idiots. I had someone recently insist to me – this was a person with a BA and MBA – that Lincoln was one of the largest slaveowners in the South. I said I thought Illinois was a free state, and not in the South, and anyway, Lincoln was poor and I was pretty sure he couldn’t even have afforded a part-time, bring-your-own-lunch slave, but he said I was wrong – that “everyone” knew Lincoln had hundreds of slaves. Or maybe this guy thought they were working at the White House. I think he was confusing Lincoln with Thomas Jefferson. Well, they are both male. Sigh. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-was-a-racist-idiot-high-school-children/176381/54 "2003-05-22T18:26:21Z")
Owning one slave was one too many, but Jefferson owned close to 200. Maybe not enormous for a regular rich dude back in the day, but it was enormous for a guy frequently lauded for his ideas on liberty and freedom. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lincoln-was-a-racist-idiot-high-school-children/176381.md?page=2)