Lerone Bennett, Jr., has also addressed this Lincoln apology.
One reads everywhere or almost everywhere that Lincoln had to talk like a racist and vote like a racist because of the racist atmosphere of the time. This apology overlooks the relatively large number of white politicians who acted and voted for freedom despite racism.
In Pennsylvania, Thaddeus Stevens, the future leader of the wartime House of Representatives, singlehandedly defeated an attempt to bar Black immigration and refused to sign a constitution that limited voting to White males (Woodley, 108-12).
In Massachusetts, in 1849, Charles Sumner inaugurated the century-long public school struggle, arguing in Roberts vs the City of Boston against segregated schools.
In New York, Senator Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state, spoke out for Negro suffrage.
Will someone say that these men lived in the liberal East and that they didn't face the problems White politicians faced in the Midwest? What then are we to say about the great Ohio trio -- future senator and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, future Senator Benjamin Wade, and Congressmen Joshua Giddings -- and their brilliant campaigns in the 1840s and 1850s for Negro suffrage and repeal of the Black Laws that Lincoln supported in Illinois. In 1845, Chase called for equal suffrage and denounced "the whole policy of our legislature in relation to the colored population." Four years later, in 1849, the year Congressman Abraham Lincoln opposed an anti-slave trade resolution, Chase drafted a bill to repeal Ohio's Black Laws.
Nor was he alone.
In Michigan, Civil War Governor Austin Blair backed Negro suffrage. In the same state, DeWitt Leach, a future congressman, supported Negro suffrage at the constitutional convention of 1850.
Indiana and Illinois were in a dead heat in the contest for the worst Northern state, but three delegates who later became congressmen, Schuyler Colfax, William Dunn, and David Kilgore, opposed Negro exclusion at the Indiana constitutional convention of 1850, and another future congressman, George W. Julian, led the fight against Black Laws.
There was even some action in Illinois where John M. Palmer, Jesse O. Norton, James Knox and even Lincoln's conservative friends, David Davis and James Matheny, opposed the Negro Exclusion Act at the constitutional convention of 1847.
Year by year, while Lincoln remained silent, deprecating their efforts, sensitive Illinois representatives presented petitions calling for integrated schools, repeal of the Black Laws, and an end to taxation without representation.
With the election of the first abolitionist state representative, Owen Lovejoy, brother of the martyred Elijah Parish Lovejoy, "a new sound," Edward Magdol said, "was heard in the House" and "a new spirit breathed into the language and precepts of Jefferson and Paine," a new spirit, one might add, that was never heard in the legislature in Lincoln's day and was certainly never heard from Abraham Lincoln (121).
Elected in 1854, Lovejoy lost no time in raising the banner of freedom, introducing a bill to repeal the Black Laws that denied Blacks the right to testify in courts. The bill was tabled, but Lovejoy, undaunted, continued to raise the issue, and people came from all over on February 6, 1855, one month after Lincoln called for the colonization of Blacks, to hear him make the first abolitionist speech in the Illinois General Assembly in support of three resolutions that would have instructed Illinois representatives and senators in Congress to oppose the extension of slavery and to vote for a repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. Lovejoy said the new Republican Party had opened a new era in American life. It "had stepped forth like Minerva from the head of Jupiter, full grown, and fully equipped for the battle, and has already indeed gained no inconsiderable victories."
Lovejoy went on to say that the Fugitive Slave Law, which Lincoln supported, was degrading to all Americans and that he, an elected official of the state of Illinois, would not obey that law, even if it cost him imprisonment or death.
When Lovejoy finished, there was resounding applause, and some people cried. A boundary of sorts had been crossed in the state of Illinois, and the Springfield correspondent of the Chicago Tribune wrote: "This has been a great day for the state and the cause of Humanity. For the first time in the history of Illinois, a regular Abolitionist, in his place in the Hall of the House of Representatives, has made a speech in defense of his principles, and hundreds of persons heard for the first time, the enunciation of such principles from one whose history and character are a guaranty that he would nothing extenuate." People said later that "Lovejoy ... made the greatest speech ever made in the State House... " (Magdol 121-6, italics added).
One would have expected someone to say that about one of Lincoln's speeches to the legislature if the Abraham Lincoln of mythology had been real and if he had lived in Illinois in those days.
But, unhappily, there was no Abraham Lincoln in Illinois in Abraham Lincoln's time.
Forced into Glory, Lerone Bennett, Jr., pp. 198-201.
Dr. McPherson says that Lincoln's stance in the 1850's was at variance with as much as 2/3 of the electorate. But he still maintained that stance.
The one incident that should shut up Mr. Bennett -- lord knows why anyone would quote him -- is this incident where he was urged to rescind the EP:
He said, according to [David] Donald, "But now, if he followed their advice, he would have to do without the help of nearly 200,000 black men in the service of the Union. In that case 'we would be compelled to abandon the war in 3 weeks.' Practical considerations aside, there was the moral issue. How could anybody propose 'to return to slavery the black warriors of Port Hudson and Olustee to their masters to conciliate the South?' "I should be damned in time and eternity for so doing,' he told his visitors (Gov. Randall, and Judge Mills, both from Wisconsin). "The world will know that I keep my faith to friends and enemies, come what will.'"
Lincoln was prepared to lose the election of 1864 rather than go back on his word.
Walt
Lincoln opposed slavery throughout his entire public life.
"Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both branches of the General Assembly at its present session, the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of the same.
They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy; but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than to abate its evils.
They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power, under the constitution, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different States.
They believe that the Congress of the United States has the power, under the constitution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; but that that power ought not to be exercised unless at the request of the people of said District.
The difference between these opinions and those contained in the said resolutions, is their reason for entering this protest."
Dan Stone,
A. Lincoln,
March 3, 1837
Walt
One deosn't read that everywhere because it is not true.
"...there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. [Loud cheers.] I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects---certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."
August, 1858
Lincoln did not make what would now be called racist statements. He never said anything stronger than that he didn't -know- if blacks were the moral or intellectual equal to whites.
This is all so ridiculous. Lincoln clearly spoke well of blacks and black soldiers, and he clearly wanted them to have the vote.
People who attack Lincoln are pushing some other agenda.
DEAR FRIEND,
... It was about 8 o'clock A.M., when I called on the president. Upon entering his reception room we found about a dozen persons in waiting, among them two colored women. I had quite a pleasant time waiting until he was disengaged, and enjoying his conversation with others; he showed as much kindness and consideration to the colored persons as to the whites -- if there was any difference, more. One case was that of a colored woman who was sick and likely to be turned out of her house on account of her inability to pay her rent. The president listened to with much attention, and spoke to her with kindness and tenderness. He said he had given so much he could give no more, but told her where to go and get the money, and asked Mrs. C---n to assist her, which she did.
The president was seated at his desk. Mrs. C. said to him, "This is Sojourner Truth, who has come all the way from Michigan to see you." He then arose, gave me his hand, made a bow, and said, "I am pleased to see you."
I said to him, Mr. President, when you first took your seat I feared you would be torn to pieces, for I likened you unto Daniel, who was thrown into the lion's den; and if the lions did not tear you into pieces, I knew that it would be God that had saved you; and I said, if he spared me I would see you before the four years expired, and he has done so, and now I am here to see you for myself.
He then congratulated me upon having been spared. Then I said, I appreciate you, for you are the best president who has ever taken the seat. He replied: 'I expect you have reference to my having emancipated the slaves in my proclamation. But,' said he, mentioning the names of several of his predecessors (and among them emphatically that of Washington), 'they were all just as good, and would have done just as I have done if the time had come. If the people over the river [pointing across the Potomac] had behaved themselves, I could not have done what I have; but they did not, which gave the opportunity to do those things.' I then said, I thank God that you were the instrument selected by him and the people to do it. I told him that I had never heard of him before he was talked of for president. He smilingly replied, 'I had heard of you many times before that.'
He then showed me the Bible presented to him by the colored people of Baltimore, of which you have no doubt seen a description. I have seen it for myself and it is beautiful beyond description. After I had looked it over, I said to him, This is beautiful indeed; the colored people have given this to the head of the government, and that government once sanctioned laws that would not permit its people to learn enough to enable them to read this book. And for what? Let them answer who can.
I must say, and I am proud to say, that I never was treated by any one with more kindness and cordiality than were shown to me by that great and good man, Abraham Lincoln, by the grace of God president of the United States for four years more. He took my little book, and with the same hand that signed the death-warrant of slavery, wrote as follows:
For Aunty Sojourner Truth October 29, 1864
A. LINCOLN
As I was taking my leave, he arose and took my hand, and said he would be pleased to have me call again. I felt that I was in the presence of a friend, and now I thank God from the bottom of my heart that I always have advocated his cause, and have done it openly and boldly. I shall feel still more in duty bound to do so in time to come. May God assist me. "
Found this:
"We feel curious to know what the deluded people of the North think of the present unprecedented high prices of slaves in the South. Just at the very time when Lincoln declares that they are to be emancipated, they command higher prices than ever before. Could anything demonstrate more satisfactorily the futility of his infamous proclamation? The people of the South never felt that the institution of slavery was ever safer than at the present time. The futility of Lincoln's emancipation proclamation eclipses that of the "Pope's bull against the comet," but differs in this, that the Pope's bull against the comet exhibited no evil design, whilst Lincoln's proclamation shows that he was impelled by a motive of a fiendish character. The Pope was innocent of crime, Lincoln was not. The Pope was ignorant of astronomy, Lincoln ignorant of Southern character. The Pope was a fool, Lincoln both fool and knave."
The [Staunton, VA ]Spectator, January 6, 1863, p. 2, c. 2
Quite a contrast.
Walt