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“But ... ask a black what Party, Lincoln, who freed the slaves was with, Democrat or Republican. You’ll be surprised at the answer. Just try it. Talk about failure of the education system, it is a good “test”.”

It certainly is.

As for the Great Emancipator himself, as most blacks are aware, he believed in the deportation of slaves he thought were absolutely inferior to whites in every way...while welcoming European immigrants with promises of streets paved with gold.

Lincoln quoted approvingly from a speech given by Clay in 1827: “There is a moral fitness in the idea of returning to Africa her children,” adding that if Africa offered no refuge, blacks could be sent to another tropical land.”

Lincoln concluded:

“If as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of our countrymen shall by any means succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery, and, at the same time, in restoring a captive people to their long-lost fatherland, with bright prospects for the future, and this too, so gradually, that neither races nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a glorious consummation.”

In January 1855, Lincoln addressed a meeting of the Illinois branch of the Colonization Society. The surviving outline of his speech suggests that it consisted largely of a well-informed and sympathetic account of the history of the resettlement campaign.

In supporting “colonization” of the blacks, a plan that might be regarded as a “final solution” to the nation’s race question, Lincoln was upholding the views of some of America’s most respected figures.

Between late August and mid-October, 1858, Lincoln and Douglas traveled together around the state to confront each other in seven historic debates.

On August 21, before a crowd of 10,000 at Ottawa, Lincoln declared:

“I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”

“I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.”

In other words, he was all for freeing them ... just as long as it was somewhere else. The original NIMBY.

The speeches are widely available and are irrefutably his position.

Before the start of the September 18 debate at Charleston, Illinois, an elderly man approached Lincoln in a hotel and asked him if the stories were true.

Recounting the encounter later before a crowd of 15,000, Lincoln declared:

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people.”

He continued:

“I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

This constant attempt to build the “free the slaves” virtue of Abe is inexplicable to me. There was far more at play in the War of Northern Aggression than the race panderers would care to admit.

Mr. Zak makes his living stirring up this mess. The history is the history. Pervert it at your peril; you will not win any blacks by this shameless pandering. I believe you will lose those who are not already fully aware of this charade and they are many. The bullying and pugnacious Republican Party Platform of 1860 has no reference to ending slavery, only the attempt to stop its spread to new territories, but the platform reeks of threat. Little wonder it provoked a fight and led to the imminent invasion of the South.

That is why Black folks are more than a little ambivalent about Abe. History is there to find if you look for it. If you are not black, read the quotes and read it as if you were. Then consider it was two years into the war before the toothless “Emancipation Proclamation” was enacted. And how was the war going for the north prior to the Proclamation?

"That is why Black folks are more than a little ambivalent about Abe. History is there to find if you look for it. If you are not black, read the quotes and read it as if you were. Then consider it was two years into the war before the toothless “Emancipation Proclamation” was enacted. And how was the war going for the north prior to the Proclamation?"

If you try to apply today's standards of "political correctness" to our ancestors of 150 years ago, then no one alive at the time could measure up.

But consider: Lincoln was a well known anti-slave politician, though his "campaign" for election in 1860 included no comments on the subject whatever.
Indeed the issue in 1860 was not whether any slaves should be freed, but rather: should slavery be expanded into non-slave territories and states?

Despite Lincoln's silence, the South took his previous anti-slavery remarks as a great affront and justification for secession.
In the process of seceding, the South seized many Federal properties (forts, ships, customs houses, armories, a mint), fired on Federal ships and forces (all before Lincoln inaugurated), and eventually took Fort Sumter by force of arms (April 1860).

Then Lincoln responded to put down the insurrection, as he called it.
None of this had anything to do with freeing the slaves, much less granting them full rights of citizenship.

For two years, it's fair to say, the South had the best of the war -- with better generals and more highly motivated troops, they were often able to overcome disadvantages in numbers and materials.

So, did the Emancipation Proclamation change the North's fortunes of war?
No, the North's improving results on the battlefield made the Emancipation even possible.

Further, it could be argued that once war began, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was inevitable.
But first the Union armies must do better in battle, and this finally seemed to happen at Antietam / Sharpsburg in September 1862.

Point is this: for the first two years of the war it was only about secession, not emancipation.
Therefore sequentially: Lincoln deserves credit for first preserving the Union, then beginning to free the slaves.