http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/apr16.html
In 1849, Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln attempted to introduce a bill for gradual emancipation of all slaves in the District. Although the District's slave trade ended the following year, his emancipation attempt was aborted by Senator John C. Calhoun and others.
[Walt] Consider this text from the AOL ACW forum:
OK
[Walt] "It is useful when thinking about Abraham Lincoln's attitudes toward slavery and Blacks to remember that Lincoln was a Southerner born in a slave state to parents born and raised in slave states. His family shared some of their culture's bias toward individual Blacks, but opposed the institution of slavery.
http://www.genealogytoday.com/us/lincoln/indpress.html
http://www.genealogytoday.com/us/lincoln/genesis.pdf
[Walt quoting] This background and the early move of the family to a free state shaped Lincoln's attitudes early in his adult life. Now consider several facts about Lincoln's political career:
[Walt quoting] 1. While Lincoln was building political strength in local Illinois politics, he opposed the war with Mexico as inexpedient for several reasons, including that it was waged to increase the power of slave states in the institutions of Federal government.
[Walt quoting] 2. During Lincoln's first term as U.S. congressman from Illinois in the late 1840's, he continued to criticize the Mexican war and worked out a bill (never introduced) calling for a referendum in the District of Columbia designed to free the slaves in that Federal enclave and compensate their owners.
His FIRST TERM as opposed to what?
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/sites/uscapitol.htm
Lincoln's connections to this building are varied and rich, beginning on December 6, 1847, when he took his seat in the Thirtieth Congress. During his single term as the lone Whig Party representative from Illinois, he lived across the street at Mrs. Ann Sprigg's boardinghouse. The Library of Congress now stands in this location, just east of the building.
From the National Park Service:
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:XvDKQLe0YqUJ:www.nps.gov/liho/congress.htm+lincoln+1849&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
The first session of the 30th Congress was to convene on December 6, 1847. In October the Lincolns rented their house for $90 a year to Cornelius Ludlum, and they left for Washington via Lexington, Ky., where they visited the Todds. After an arduous stagecoach and railroad trip, the Lincolns arrived in the Nation's Capital. Though Lincoln was active as a new member of Congress, his colleagues generally appraised him as a droll Westerner of average talents. Lincoln's opposition to the Mexican War which had broken out in May 1846 soon made him unpopular with his constituents. In Illinois the patriotic fervor and hunger for new lands disspelled any doubts that the people may have had about the American cause. Lincoln's "spot" resolutions asking President James Polk to admit that the "spot" where American blood was first shed was Mexican territory and his anti-administration speeches created surprised resentment at home and earned him the nickname "Spotty Lincoln." Illinois Democrats called Lincoln a disgrace.
[Walt quoting] 3. His reentry into national politics in 1854 was clearly for the purpose of opposing the expansion of slavery into the territories under the provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He had his heart and soul involved with the idea of gradual emancipation to bring the fullest meaning to the words of Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/sites/uscapitol.htm
With his background as one of eleven managers of the Illinois State Colonization Society elected in 1857, Lincoln brought with him ideas about colonization. He supported the separation of the races for several reasons. He believed that blacks were inferior to whites and therefore not entitled to live in the same society as whites. He also rationalized that the removal of the black laborers would create a market for white laborers. "Reduce the supply of black labor by colonizing the black laborer out of the country and by precisely so much you increase the demand for and wages of white labor." His basic motive, however, for his extensive efforts was to once again have a purely white America.
[Walt quoting] 4. From 1854 to his nomination for the presidency in 1860, as James McPherson noted in his DRAWN WITH THE SWORD, "the dominant, unifying theme of Lincoln's career was opposition to the expansion of slavery as a vital first step toward placing it in the course of ultimate extinction." In those years he gave approximately 175 political speeches. McPherson notes that the "central message of these speeches showed Lincoln to be a "one-issue" man - the issue being slavery." Thus, Lincoln's nomination to the presidency was based on a principled opposition to slavery on moral grounds, and that position was clear to voters both in the South and the North.
Negro equality. Fudge! How long in the Government of a God great enough to make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue knaves to vend and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagoguism as this? (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, Rutgers University Press, 1953, September 1859 (Vol. III p. 399))
[Walt quoting] 5. In his early speeches and actions as president-elect and president, he was clear in his opinion that he had no legal authority to interfere with slavery in the slave states. However, he was persistent and consistent in his efforts to encourage and aid voluntary emancipation in the loyal Border States, territories and the District of Columbia. These efforts predated his publication of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
With his background as one of eleven managers of the Illinois State Colonization Society elected in 1857, Lincoln brought with him ideas about colonization.
He wanted to remove Blacks from America. He wanted to send them to any land mass other than North America.
[Walt quoting] In summary, I think one can safely say that Lincoln was clearly a gradual abolitionist from the beginning of his political career.
Nah. This began with his second term as a congressman.