[Ixa]

Abraham Lincoln and the Problem of Slavery

Most historians prefer to ignore Abraham Lincoln's views on slavery and race. By today's standards he was an uncompromising white supremacist.

by Edward Kerling


In 1989, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President George Bush invited a number of black leaders to the White House. In his remarks on that occasion, the President said he looked forward to the day when Abraham Lincoln's vision would be fully realized, and a black man would sit in the oval office.

With all due respect for President Bush, one can say with complete confidence that Lincoln never envisaged a black president. He made it clear on many occasions that he abhorred the very thought of social or political equality for blacks, and that although he considered slavery an evil, he saw no future in America for free blacks. He thought that the races should be separated, and until the very end of his life he did everything within his power to remove blacks from the territory of the United States. The Abraham Lincoln of history is vastly different from “the great emancipator” whose racial views have been increasingly shrouded in myth.


Views on Slavery


Though he did not, himself, own slaves, Lincoln showed no marked antipathy for those who did. In his legal practice, before entering politics, he represented slaveholders in cases involving runaway slaves. During his career as a Whig Congressman, he mustered party support for the slaveholder Zachary Taylor's 1842 bid for the presidency. His wife, Mary Todd, was the daughter of one of Kentucky's most prominent slaveholders, and when the South seceded many of his in-laws went with it.



After he switched to the newly-formed Republican party and received its nomination for the presidency, Lincoln outlined his views on slavery in the famous Cooper Union speech of February 27, 1860. He endorsed Thomas Jefferson's view that slavery should neither be extended into new territories nor abolished in those regions where it was already practiced:

“As those [founding] fathers marked it, so let it again be marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to be tolerated and protected only because and so far as its actual presence among us makes that toleration and protection necessary.” Speaking for his party, he said, “this is all Republicans ask—all Republicans desire—in relation to slavery.”

From today's perspective, such a position seems hopelessly ambiguous, and even at the time it was subject to attack. Anyone who described slavery as an evil sounded like an abolitionist, but the question all abolitionists had to answer was how to treat the slaves once they had been freed.
Lincoln had answered this question during his 1858 campaign against Steven Douglas for the U.S. Senate. Abolition was a topic of much debate, but the notion of equality for blacks was resisted by most Americans. Douglas’ supporters tried to undermine Lincoln by spreading rumors that he was an egalitarian, but on September 18 he made his position clear, in words that sound quite shocking today: “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; I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor intermarry with white people.”

The offices from which blacks were to be barred presumably included the presidency. Lincoln went on:

“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.”

Lincoln, like many thoughtful people of his time, faced a serious moral and social dilemma. Chattel slavery was an abomination, but a multi-racial society of mutual equality was unthinkable. What, then, was the status of the black American to be? Was there a humane, ethical solution to this problem?

Lincoln lived in an era in which even a politician could get a nickname like Honest Abe. In his analysis of the race problem—which was then, and still is, the most sensitive and controversial one facing the nation—he lived up to his reputation. As early as 1857, in a speech at Springfield, Illinois, he had struck the theme to which he would adhere for the rest of his life:

“There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races. A separation of the races is the only prevention of amalgamation . . .

“Such separation . . . must be effected by colonization . . . . The enterprise is a difficult one, but where there is a will there is a way, and what colonization needs now is a hearty will. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be.”

In Lincoln's mind, the establishment of colonies of blacks outside the territory of the United States was the only way to navigate between the twin evils of slavery and multi-racialism. After his election as President he used his office as best he could to follow this course.


War-time Colonization Policy


By the time Lincoln took the oath of office on March 4, 1861, seven southern states had already seceded. The nation faced an urgent crisis that many believed would plunge it into war. Only a month later, the Confederates captured Fort Sumpter and the conflict had begun. It is astonishing to realize that even at this time of great fear and turmoil, Lincoln was spending precious hours working out a colonization plan. The war was only a month old by the time he had prepared a five-point program to free the slaves and separate the races:

• (1) The states must voluntarily emancipate the slaves, because slavery was an internal matter, subject to state authority.
• (2) Slaveholders were to be paid for the loss of their property.
• (3) The federal government would give the states financial aid to help compensate slaveholders.
• (4) The actual freeing of slaves would be gradual, so as to prevent economic dislocation. Some states might wait until the year 1900 to free their last slaves.
• (5) Free blacks were to be persuaded to leave the United States and be colonized.

Lincoln soon began looking for suitable territories for colonization. Ambrose Thompson, a wealthy shipping magnate, had gained control of several hundred thousand acres in the Chiriqui district of what is now Panama. He proposed to develop coal mines in this territory and to use colonized blacks as labor. Later, the blacks would work their own plantations of cotton, sugar, and tobacco. Lincoln appointed a special commission to investigate the feasibility of this plan.

Late in 1861, while Thompson's plan was being studied, Lincoln personally drafted an emancipation bill for the state of Delaware. Delaware was a slave state, but it had only 1,800 slaves in 1860, and had decided to stay with the Union. Lincoln's proposal would have offered federal compensation to slaveholders, and the President hoped that it would become a model for the three other slave states that had stayed loyal to the Union. Eventually, he hoped to persuade the Confederate states to adopt the same scheme. To his disappointment, the bill was defeated in the Delaware legislature by a combination of pro-slavery sentiment and partisan conflict.

Lincoln did not give up. In his first annual message to Congress on December 3, 1861, he proposed that all blacks who had fallen into the hands of Union forces should be deemed free. He proposed that “steps should be taken for colonies for them . . . at some place or places in a climate congenial to them. It might be well to consider, too, whether the free colored people already in the United States . . . could be included in such colonization.”

Just a few months later, in April, 1862, Lincoln succeeded in applying his freedom plan to the only portion of United States territory over which he felt the federal government had appropriate jurisdiction: Washington, D.C. The district's slaveholders were to be compensated an average of $300 for each of their 3,185 slaves, and an additional $100,000 was appropriated “to aid in the colonization and settlement of such free persons of African descent now residing in said District, including those liberated by this act . . . .” When he signed the bill, Lincoln noted with satisfaction that his two principal approaches to the problem of slavery—compensation and colonization—had been incorporated into the law.

In July of the same year, Lincoln signed a bill that provided $500,000 for use by the President in colonizing blacks who fell into the hands of the Union army. This was in addition to the $100,000 voted earlier. Coming at a time when the war was going very badly for the North, and when the budget was swamped with military expenses, these appropriations suggest how fervently Lincoln desired the separation of the races.

Lincoln did not hesitate to state his case directly to blacks. On August 14, 1862, he spoke to the first delegation of blacks ever to be invited to the White House:

“You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any two races . . . . [T]his physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffers very greatly, many of them, by living among us, while ours suffers from your presence.”

“It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated,” he concluded, and urged the delegation to find men who were willing to move, with their families, to Central America.

Lincoln had even appointed a Commissioner of Emigration, Reverend James Mitchell, whose job it was to organize colonization. The day after the meeting with the black delegation the commissioner placed the following ad in newspapers: “Correspondence is desired with colored men favorable to Central American, Liberian or Haytien [sic] emigration, especially the first named.” He also issued a memorandum to black ministers, urging them to promote emigration.

These measures met with some small success, and were supported by many whites. When a group of 61 blacks passed through Cleveland on its way to Boston for passage to Haiti, the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote, “We hope the remainder of our dusky brethren will follow their example.”

On September 12, 1862, five days before Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, the federal government signed a contract with Ambrose Thompson for colonization on the Thompson lands in Chiriqui. The contract included a signed statement from the President directing the Secretary of the Interior to execute the contract.

The very day before issuing the Proclamation, Lincoln signed a contract for the resettlement of 5,000 free blacks on an Island near Haiti. Tragically, the contractor turned out to be a cruel swindler, who rounded up several hundred ex-slaves and left them on an uninhabited island, where most of them died.


The Emancipation Proclamation


In the Proclamation itself, made public on September 17, Lincoln repeated his desire to compensate slaveholders within the Union for the emancipation of their slaves, and to promote colonization.
However, this was only a proposal; the President made no attempt to free the slaves in the four slave states that had remained in the Union, nor in those parts of the Confederacy that were under Union control. The only slaves whom he unilaterally declared free were those in territory controlled by the Confederates, and who were therefore entirely beyond his power to free. Moreover, Lincoln promised the states of the Confederacy that their practice of slavery would remain unmolested if they stopped their “rebellion” within 100 days.

By means of the Proclamation, Lincoln was clearly adhering to a policy he had spelled out in a letter to the New York Times less than a month earlier:

“My paramount objective in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all slaves I would do it; and if I could save it be freeing some and leaving others alone I would do that.” [Emphasis in the original.]

Historians still wonder how Lincoln thought he could help save the Union by claiming to free slaves over whom he had no control. Some believe that he hoped to counteract the military benefits the Confederacy enjoyed by its efficient use of slaves. Others argue that he hoped to gain foreign credibility by giving the war a moral rather than a strictly geo-political purpose. It is also possible that he meant to head off radical abolitionists who wanted to emancipate all slaves unconditionally. In any case, it is clear that freedom for slaves was strictly subordinate to other purposes.

It is no surprise, therefore, that in his next message to Congress on December 1, 1862, Lincoln had little to say about the Proclamation, and much to say about his favored plan:

“That portion of the earth's surface which is owned and inhabited by the people of the United States is well adapted to be the home of one national family; and it is not well adapted for two, or more.”

He continued:

“I have urged colonization of the Negroes, and I shall continue.

“My Emancipation Proclamation was linked with this plan . . .

“I can conceive of no greater calamity than the assimilation of the Negro into our social and political life as our equal . . .

“We cannot attain the ideal union our Fathers dreamed, with millions of an alien, inferior race among us, whose assimilation is neither possible or desirable.”

Lincoln then went on to propose an amendment to the Constitution that would give Congress the power to appropriate money and send free blacks, with their consent, to places outside of the United States


The Plan Fails


This was not to be. Nor did the Thompson plan for Colonization in Chiriqui prove feasible. On September 5, 1862, a scientist reported that the Chiriqui coal was very low grade and that the land “will always be of little or no value to its owners.”

Furthermore, no other country wanted the freed blacks. On September 19, the Washington representative of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras denounced the attempt to cast upon Central America “a plague of which the United States desired to rid themselves.” The diplomat hinted that the territories he represented would use force to repel any colonizing expedition.

Lincoln was forced to set aside his plans for colonization, but they remained an important part of his thinking. General Benjamin Butler reported a conversation with the President in early April of 1865, by which time the war had been won and Lincoln's assassination was only a few days away. Lincoln said to him, “But what shall we do with the Negroes after they are free? I can scarcely believe that the South and the North can live in peace, unless we can get rid of the Negroes.” Lincoln then spoke of Butler's experience in moving large numbers of men by sea, and mentioned that the United States had a large navy. He asked Butler to draw on his wartime experience and devise a plan to send blacks overseas.

Throughout his presidency, therefore, Lincoln tried to implement the plan outlined by Jefferson: gradual emancipation, compensation to slaveholders, colonization of freed blacks, and the promotion of white immigration to take the place of black labor. It is only by means of the most willful disregard for the historical evidence that Lincoln can be construed as a champion of racial equality. In his mind, emancipation was linked to colonization, and he might well have opposed it if he had thought that free blacks would remain in the United States.

There is a sad irony in the fact that our current President should be so ignorant about his predecessor's thinking as to believe that Lincoln looked forward to the day when the United States would elect a black to its highest office. To be sure, Lincoln did meet the first black delegation ever to visit the White House—but only to urge them and their brethren to leave the country forever. Today, thinking about race is so clouded that it obscures even the past.

Edward Kerling lives in Michigan City, Indiana.

[Truthseeker]

Although it annoys me that these points need to be repeatedly explained over and over to people, it is regrettably necessary though because most Americans feature an deeply ingrained psychological mechanism that rejects these facts out of hand.....

The the only way to get it into their heads is:

[kidfinger]

I believe that ALL presidents should have to take some kind of American History class if for any other reason, so they dont have to pry their foot out of their mouths with a ten foot crowbar.

[Mikolaj]

So does this mean Lincoln was not a proponent of multiculturalism?

[Captain Hat]

Did he have to be a multiculturalist? Was it necessary that he not be a racist to wish to stop the spread of slavery?

Although it annoys me that these points need to be repeatedly explained over and over to people, it is regrettably necessary though because most Americans feature an deeply ingrained psychological mechanism that rejects these facts out of hand.....

You're really taking things out of context. For his day and age, and for his own personal beliefs, and for the things he accomplished, Lincoln can be considered great. But to hold Lincoln up to modern standards is to loose all historical perspective for the sake of politics.

LINCOLN AND SLAVERY

I won't argue the facts in the initial posts, because there is nothing to argue. I will argue with the analysis. His platform, in 1860, of stopping the spread of slavery, was deemed radical in much of the south. The addition of new slave states to the Union was seen by many southern states as the lifeblood of southern political power in Congress. So long as slave holding (southern) states maintained an equilibrium in the Senate, the South could always feel safe that the northern industrial (and more populus) states could not run wild and take the nation in a direction that the South did not want the nation to go.

In essence, slavery was the key to the South's influence in the Senate. By threatening its spread, Lincoln threatened the slave-holding oligarchy. However, by compromising on the issue of slavery (the radical republicans were hardline abolitionists) Lincoln and distancing himself on racial equality, he felt he could preserve the Union and avoid the blood bath that would result from Civil War.

As to colonization, the idea was dismissed by Lincoln by late 1862. And not just by Black leaders, but also by abolitionists and white supremiscists alike. It should also be noted that Lincoln's act in 1862 also mentions "settlement" which does not necessarily mean a ticket to Africa. Indeed, many more freed slaves were resettled in new towns across the south, with one of the earlist examples being a freed slave settlement on Roanoke Island, NC, established in summer 1862.

Lincoln did not hesitate to state his case directly to blacks. On August 14, 1862, he spoke to the first delegation of blacks ever to be invited to the White House:

The above is taken totally out of context. The author fails to note the response of the black leaders that gathered to meet him on that day, which, to say the least, was resoundingly negative to the idea of colonization.

Historians still wonder how Lincoln thought he could help save the Union by claiming to free slaves over whom he had no control.

Ah! But here's the kicker. The Proclamation did not free a single slave, but it altered the course of the war by changing its purpose. No longer was the war about the Preservation of the Union (which seems to indicate a shoring up of the Union as it had been), but after the proclamation, the war began an effort to build a better Union.

Now, on to the statement Lincoln made about the Union made months before the Proclamation:

“My paramount objective in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all slaves I would do it; and if I could save it be freeing some and leaving others alone I would do that.”

Now, contrast this statement with Lincoln's later actions. Especially in February 1865. During that month, the Confederacy sent out peace-feelers in the shape of CS Vice President Alexander Stephens, who proposed, essentially, that the Confederacy would give up in exchange for Lincoln's dismissal of the abolition of slavery as a condition for re-admission to the Union. Well, as we all know, this was rejected out of hand, and the war came to an end two months later.

One might say that the Confederacy was on the verge of collapse in 1865, hence Lincoln's decision. Not so. Richmond and Petersburg were still in Confederate hands, despite a siege that had been going on since the autumn of the previous year. There was still an army under Johnston on the loose in North Carolina. In essence, the Confederates, however weak, were still in the game.

[Beal]

Lincoln was a politician first, an abolitionist second. People seem to forget that the US was also a republic in the 1860s. (This isn't something we came up with just recently) Lincoln was President, not king. Outlawing slavery before the Civil War was just not possible. The irony is that by refusing to push for abolition in the southern states, Lincoln was doing the best he could to eventually abolish slavery in the southern states without a civil war.

[Attila The Nun]

“You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any two races . . . . [T]his physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffers very greatly, many of them, by living among us, while ours suffers from your presence.”

“It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated,” he concluded, and urged the delegation to find men who were willing to move, with their families, to Central America.

You're right, this is awful. Why couldn't he let them stay in America as slaves?

He probably did have racist tendancies, but remember the time period. The sending away of blacks was hardly racist for the time period. Not only that, but there is not a hint of racism in the quote. He is simply predicting the trouble blacks would have intergrating into American society, and he was right.

[Truthseeker]

Captain Hat wrote:

You're really taking things out of context. For his day and age, and for his own personal beliefs, and for the things he accomplished, Lincoln can be considered great. But to hold Lincoln up to modern standards is to loose all historical perspective for the sake of politics.

The radical republican faction existed contemporaneously and pushed for the abolition of slaver during the war. I was thus not some unthinkable futuristic ideal that he cannot be expected to have possessed.

To claim him as the champion of anti-slavery, freer of all slaves etc. when for his time and his government at that time he was visably dragging his feet is completely innacurate.

Especially in February 1865. During that month, the Confederacy sent out peace-feelers in the shape of CS Vice President Alexander Stephens, who proposed, essentially, that the Confederacy would give up in exchange for Lincoln's dismissal of the abolition of slavery as a condition for re-admission to the Union.

They proposed much more than that, they wanted an invasion of Mexico and some other stuff and at any rate were not authorized to accept very much.

More importantly it is incredibly unlikely such a thing would have been ratified and so agreeing to it have been somewhat pointless.

EDIT: oh yeah,

Attila wrote:

He probably did have racist tendancies, but remember the time period. The sending away of blacks was hardly racist for the time period. Not only that, but there is not a hint of racism in the quote

How about this one?

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 - 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 forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much 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.

[Ombrageux]

Everybody was racist in the 19th century. Move along... nothing to see here.

And is it surprising? You have Europeans whoopin' ass for 300 years: many would deduce that other peoples were just destined to suck.

[Truthseeker]

Everybody was racist in the 19th century. Move along... nothing to see here.

Not equally so

[| I, CWAS |]

Everybody was racist in the 19th century. Move along... nothing to see here.

Provide evidence of this.

[Captain Hat]

The radical republican faction existed contemporaneously and pushed for the abolition of slaver during the war. I was thus not some unthinkable futuristic ideal that he cannot be expected to have possessed

This is why they were known as the "Radical" Republicans. They were much farther ahead of the emancipation curve than the rest of the nation. The idea of emancipation as a war goal before September, 1862 would have been met with widespread anger (hell, even after the Proclamation went into effect in 1863, there were still riots) everywhere with the possible exception of New England.

To claim him as the champion of anti-slavery, freer of all slaves etc. when for his time and his government at that time he was visably dragging his feet is completely innacurate.

In many ways, Lincoln was not dragging his feet. The fact that Emancipation was met with condemnation in the North (particularly in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio), shows that in some ways, Lincoln was ahead. You should really make yourself better acquainted with the times in which Lincoln was President.

More importantly it is incredibly unlikely such a thing would have been ratified and so agreeing to it have been somewhat pointless.

The peace offered by the Confederates was also very popular in the Mid-west and anywhere there were war-weary people in the north. Portions of Lincoln's cabinet encouraged him to accept the Confederate peace terms.

[Attila The Nun]

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 - 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 forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much 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.

A public debate, but it speaks little of his private feelings.