And now for the Lincoln you don't hear much about.
There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races ... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas ...
Abraham Lincoln June 26, 1857
http://www.virginia.edu/woodson/courses/aas-hius366a/lincoln.html
Yes, by any definition Lincoln was a racist. He also said:
“I will say then, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters of the negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, of having them to marry with white people. I will say in addition, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I suppose, will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of social and political equality, and inasmuch, as they cannot so live, that while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, that I as much as any other man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man.”
Lincoln Douglas Debate, Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858.
But make no mistake, he was against slavery. Lincoln was no saint. He shared many of the prejudices of his society. American was a deeply racist society, North and South. But Lincoln insisted that black people were entitled to what they call the natural rights of man — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And also that black people were entitled to what they used to call the fruits of their own labor.