But in that sense, the contention that Lincoln was a product of his time is absolutely correct. If he had not said that in the Douglas debate, he would certainly not have been elected, such was the prevailing opinion on race in the volotile hothouse of late 1850’s American politics.
Hard a saying as it may be, it is perfectly true that Thomas Jefferson, asked whether “negroes” were inferior, truthfully said that he couldn’t actually say. Based on the fact that, as he knew, blacks as he knew them were the products of a system designed to prevent any black person from having confidence in him/her self. At this late date, and with examples such as Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams - and others - before us, we are not under the same handicap.We do however still face the confounding influence of culture, and anyone can be raised to be violent. We don’t have quite as bad a case of it - not quite - as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But if we continue to elect people who actually like that idea, that might change.