When you look at where his thinking about race started and how far he came, it's quite impressive.
By the end of his life Lincoln was willing to countenance giving at least some African-Americans the vote -- at a time when Dickens was mocking the idea.
“When you look at where his thinking about race started and how far he came, it’s quite impressive.”
I was asking if you thought Lincoln was a white supremacist. If you don’t think he was, just say, “Lincoln was not a white supremacist.”
As were they all. I keep pointing out that so many of you keep trying to apply modern morality to a different time period, showing no comprehension of the zeitgeist of that era.
Their motivation and decisions must be looked at from perspective of the era in which they lived, not from the perspective of 2016 USA.
By the end of his life Lincoln was willing to countenance giving at least some African-Americans the vote -- at a time when Dickens was mocking the idea.
This is not at all inconsistent with a claim that political power was paramount to him. Newly enfranchising voters who were guaranteed to vote for your party will insure political supremacy and therefore power.
It is not unlike the tactic which modern Democrats use in importing all sorts of third worlders (especially non whites) who can be counted on to reliably vote for handouts, meaning Democrats.
A cynical man would assert this was just a raw grab for more power by Lincoln, and this actually dovetails quite nicely with the assertion that the whole Civil War was about power anyway.
Whoever controls the government gets to spend the money, and more importantly get to set policy that can enrich their friends and cronies. I will once again point out that the era subsequent to Lincoln was an occasion of the worst graft and corruption the nation had ever seen.
George Washington improved in his lifetime. Lincoln still wanted to deport them out of the Country just prior to the end of his.