Replies

Well you can start by reading the entire speech, especially the part where Lincoln spoke against slavery and the part where Lincoln said that the black man was entitled to the same rights guaranteed under the Declaration of Independence as a white man.

I've read the whole thing. I even quoted a portion of what you mention. Your point has nothing to do with the fact that Lincoln regarded blacks as inferior and wanted to deport them.

Remember this was in response to Chief Justice Taney's Scott v. Sanford decision where he said that the black man, free or slave, was not entitled to any rights that a white man was bound to recognize. Lincoln was in total opposition to Taney and Douglas in that respect. Yet you place him below either man in terms of racism.

I place him near the same level in terms of racism. I place him above them in levels of dishonesty. Given the fact that the writers and signers of the Declaration continued to keep slaves, it is patently dishonest to claim that the document was intended to apply to slaves.

It sounds like Abraham Lincoln was applying the "living constitution" doctrine to the Declaration of Independence.

No, it didn't mean that when it was written, and to say it did is to be dishonest.

You may be th3e first person I’ve come across who believes the Dred Scott case was decided rightly.

Given the fact that the writers and signers of the Declaration continued to keep slaves, it is patently dishonest to claim that the document was intended to apply to slaves.

I guess the slaves should have invoked self-evident natural law and declared themselves free.

Given the fact that the writers and signers of the Declaration continued to keep slaves, it is patently dishonest to claim that the document was intended to apply to slaves.

""I can clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union, by consolidating it in a common bond of principal."
George Washington
--------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Jefferson was a consistent opponent of slavery his whole life. Calling it a “moral depravity” and a “hideous blot,” he believed that slavery presented the greatest threat to the survival of the new American nation. Jefferson also thought that slavery was contrary to the laws of nature, which decreed that everyone had a right to personal liberty. These views were radical in a world where unfree labor was the norm.
At the time of the American Revolution, Jefferson was actively involved in legislation that he hoped would result in slavery’s abolition. In 1778, he drafted a Virginia law that prohibited the importation of enslaved Africans. In 1784, he proposed an ordinance that would ban slavery in the Northwest territories.
But Jefferson always maintained that the decision to emancipate slaves would have to be part of a democratic process; abolition would be stymied until slaveowners consented to free their human property together in a large-scale act of emancipation.
To Jefferson, it was anti-democratic and contrary to the principles of the American Revolution for the federal government to enact abolition or for only a few planters to free their slaves.
Source: http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/thomas-jefferson-and-slavery
------------------------------------------------------------
Ben Franklin petition to Congress to abolish slavery.

Want some more examples of what the Founders really thought of slavery? I can give them to you if you want. They knew it was wrong and they knew damn well it would eventually tear the nation apart. But they didn't have the power to deal with it in their time.