I believe you did not link, cite or quote Frederick Douglass, and once again failed to do your due diligence.Here you are.
Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, 14th paragraph
"I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."
One of your confederacy defender friends referred to this as a "nauseating hagiography" here.
Your last link goes to #308 by FLT-bird.
You are reminded about Frederick Douglass' Oration at paragraph 9, from which I quoted in my #429, and which you choose to ignore:
He was preeminently the white man’s President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country. In all his education and feeling he was an American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential chair upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own race. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the states where it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of the slave system anywhere inside the slave states. He was willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though his guilty master were already in arms against the Government. The race to which we belong were not the special objects of his consideration. …
Frederick Douglass absolutely eviscerated your absurd argument that Lincoln was an abolitionist.
The statements of Abraham Lincoln eviscerated any rational claim that he was an abolitionist. There is Abraham Lincoln who at Worcester, Massachusetts in September 1848, stated:
I have heard you have abolitionists here. We have a few in Illinois, and we shot one the other day.
Lincoln referred to Elijah Lovejoy. See Herndon's Informants, 1998 Ed., Part I, pg. 681.
And in April 1864, Lincoln wrote to A.G. Hodges,
When, early in the war, Gen. Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When a little later, Gen. Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested the arming of the blacks, I objected, because I did not yet think it an indispensable necessity. When, still later, Gen. Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not yet think the indispensable necessity had come. When, in March, and May, and July 1862 I made earnest, and successive appeals to the border states to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity for military emancipation, and arming the blacks would come, unless averted by that measure. They declined the proposition; and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it, the Constitution, or of laying strong hand upon the colored element."
CW 7:281-82.
Lincoln to Gen. John Schofield, June 22, 1863:
Your despatch, asking in substance, whether, in case Missouri shall adopt gradual emancipation, the general government will protect slave owners in that species of property during the short time it shall be permitted by the State to exist within it, has been received. Desirous as I am, that emancipation shall be adopted by Missouri, and believing as I do, that gradual can be made better than immediate for both black and white, except when military necessity changes the case, my impulse is to say that such protection would be given. I can not know exactly what shape an act of emancipation may take. If the period from the initiation to the final end, should be comparatively short, and the act should prevent persons being sold, during that period, into more lasting slavery, the whole would be easier. I do not wish to pledge the general government to the affirmative support of even temporary slavery, beyond what can be fairly claimed under the constitution.
CW 6:291
Lincoln wrote to Orville Browning, September 22, 1861:
Again, if we reject Louisiana, we also reject one vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the national constitution. To meet this proposition, it has been argued that no more than three fourths of those States which have not attempted secession are necessary to validly ratify the amendment. I do not commit myself against this, further than to say that such a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be persistently questioned; while a ratification by three fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and unquestionable.I repeat the question. "Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State Government?
What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to other States. If a commanding General finds a necessity to seize the farm of a private owner, for a pasture, an encampment, or a fortification, he has the right to do so, and to so hold it, as long as the necessity lasts; and this is within military law, because within military necessity. But to say the farm shall no longer belong to the owner, or his heirs forever; and this as well when the farm is not needed for military purposes as when it is, is purely political, without the savor of military law about it. And the same is true of slaves. If the General needs them, he can seize them, and use them; but when the need is past, it is not for him to fix their permanent future condition. That must be settled according to laws made by law-makers, and not by military proclamations. The proclamation in the point in question, is simply dictatorship.'' It assumes that the general may do anything he pleases—confiscate the lands and free the slaves of loyal people, as well as of disloyal ones. And going the whole figure I have no doubt would be more popular with some thoughtless people, than that which has been done! But I cannot assume this reckless position; nor allow others to assume it on my responsibility. You speak of it as being the only means of saving the government. On the contrary it is itself the surrender of the government. Can it be pretended that it is any longer the government of the U.S.—any government of Constitution and laws,—wherein a General, or a President, may make permanent rules of property by proclamation?
CW 4:531-32
It was Lincoln's stated plan to bring all the Confederate states back into the Union before Congress came back into session, freezing Congress out of the process, just as he did at the start of the war.
Near the very end of Lincoln's last public address on April 11, 1865 he stated,
Again, if we reject Louisiana, we also reject one vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the national constitution. To meet this proposition, it has been argued that no more than three fourths of those States which have not attempted secession are necessary to validly ratify the amendment. I do not commit myself against this, further than to say that such a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be persistently questioned; while a ratification by three fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and unquestionable.I repeat the question. "Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State Government?
What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to other States.
Italcs as in original. CW 8:404
LINCOLN'S LAST CABINET MEETING
Excerpted from:
Lincoln and Johnson, Their Plan of Reconstruction and the Resumption of National Authority
First Paper
by Gideon Welles
Galaxy Magazine, April 1872, pp. 525-527 (article from 521-33)
At the close of the session Mr. Stanton made some remarks on the general condition of affairs and the new phase and duties upon which we were about to enter.He alluded to the great solicitude which the President felt on this subject, his frequent recurrence to the necessity of establishing civil governments and preserving order in the rebel States. Like the rest of the Cabinet, doubtless, he had given this subject much consideration, and with a view of having something practical on which to base action, he had drawn up a rough plan or ordinance which he had handed to the President.
The President said he proposed to bring forward that subject, althought he had not had time as yet to give much attention to the details of the paper which the Secretary of War had given him only the day before; but that it was substantially, in its general scope, the plan which we had sometimes talked over in Cabinet meetings. We should probably make some modifications, prescribe further details; there were some suggestions which he should wish to make, and he desired all to bring their minds to the question, for no greater or more important one could come before us, or any future Cabinet. He thought it providential that this great rebellion was crushed just as Congress had adjourned, and there were none of the disturbing elements of that body to hinder and embarrass us. If we were wise and discreet, we should reanimate the States and get their governments in successful operation, with order prevailing and the Union reestablished, before Congress came together in December. This he thought important. We could do better; accomplish more without than with them. There were men in Congress who, if their motives were good, were nevertheless impracticable, and who possessed feelings of hate and vindictiveness in which he did not sympathize and could not participate. He hoped there would be no persecution, no bloody work, after the war was over. None need expect he would take any part in hanging or killing those men, even the worst of them. Frighten them out of the country, open the gates, let down the bars, scare them off, said he, throwing up his hands as if scaring sheep. Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and union. There was too much of a desire on the part of some of our very good friends to be masters, to interfere with and dictate to those States, to treat the people not as fellow citizens; there was too little respect for their rights. He did not sympathize in these feelings. Louisiana, he said, had framed and presented one of the best constitutions that had ever been formed. He wished they had permitted negroes who had property, or could read, to vote; but this was a question which they must decide for themselves. Yet some, a very few of our friends, were not willing to let the people of the States determine these questions, but, in violation of first and fundamental principles, would exercise arbitrary power over them. These humanitarians break down all State rights and constitutional rights. Had the Louisianians inserted the negro in their Constitution, and had that instrument been in all other respects the same, Mr. Sumner, he said, would never have excepted to that Constitution. The delegation would have been admitted, and the State all right. Each House of Congress, he said, had the undoubted right to receive or reject members; the executive had no control over the matter. But Congress had nothing to do with the State governments, which the President could recognize, and under existing laws treat as other States, give them the same mail facilities, collect taxes, appoint judges, marshals, collectors, etc., subject, of course, to confirmation. There were men who objected to these views, but they were not here, and we must make haste to do our duty before they came here.
Mr. Stanton read his project for reorganizing, reestablishing, or reconstructing governments. It was a military or executive order, and by it the War Department was designated to reorganize those States whose individuality it assumed was sacrificed. Divested of its military features, it was in form and outline essentially the same as the plan ultimately adopted. This document proposed establishing a military department to be composed of Virginia and North Carolina, with a military governor. After reading this paper, Mr. Stanton made some addtional remarks in furtherance of the views of the President and the importance of prompt measures.
A few moments elapsed, and no one else speaking, I expressed my concurrence in the necessity of immediate action, and my gratification that the Secretary of War had given the outlines of a plan embodying his views. I objected, however, to military supervision or control, and to the proposition of combining two States in the plan of a temporary government. My idea, more perhaps than that of any other of the Cabinet, was for a careful observance, not only of the distinctive rights, but of the individuality of the States. Besides, Virginia occupied a different position from that of any other of those States. There had been throughout the war a skeleton organization in that commonwealth which we had recognized. We had said through the whole war that Virginia was a State in the Union — that her relations with the Government were not suspended. We had acknowledged and claimed that Pierpont was the legitimate and rightful Governor, that the organization was lawful and right under him; that the division of the State, which required the assent of the legal State government, had been effected, and was claimed to be constitutional and correct. Were we now to ignore our own acts — to say the Pierpont Government was a farce — that the act creating the State of west Virginia was a nullity? My position on that question was different from others, for though not unfriendly to the new State, I had opposed the division of the State when it took place. The proposition to reestablish a State government in Virginia where there was already a State government with which we were acting, with Pierpont as governor, or to put it under military control, appeared to me a grave error. The President said my exceptions, some of them at least, were well taken. Some of them had occurred to him. It was in that view he had been willing that General Weitzel should call the leading rebels together, because they were not the legal Legislature of Virginia, while the Pierpont Legislature was. Turning to Mr. Stanton, he asked what he would do with Pierpont and the Virginia Constitution? Stanton replied that he had no apprehension from Pierpont, but the paper which he had submitted was merely a rough sketch subject to any alteration.
Governor Dennison thought that Pierpont would be no serious obstacle in the way, were that the only difficulty; but there were other objections, and he thought separate propositions for the government of the two States advisable.
I suggested that the Federal Government could assist the loyal government of Virginia in asserting, extending, and maintaining its authority over the whole State, but that we could not supersede or annul it.
The President directed Mr. Stanton to take the documents and have separate plans presented for the two States. They required different treatment. "We must not," said he, "stultify ourselves as regards Virginia, but we must help her." North Carolina was in a different condition. He requested the Secretary of War to have copies of the two plans for the two States made and furnished each member of the Cabinet by the following Tuesday — the next regular meeting. He impressed upon each and all the importance of deliberating upon and carefully considering the subject before us, remarking that this was the great question pending, and that we must now begin to act in the interest of peace. He again declared his thankfulness that Congress was not in session to embarrass us.
The President was assassinated that evening, and I am not aware that he exchanged a word with any one after the Cabinet meeting of that day on the subject of a resumption of the national authority in the States where it had been suspended, or of reestablishing the Union.
Clearly, Lincoln's plan was to start and finish the reconstruction of the South before Congress, and the Radicals, came back into session. That night, Lincoln caught a bullet in the head and that was the end of that.
- - - - - - - - - -
Roy P. Basler (executive secretary and editor-in-chief of the Abraham Lincoln association 1947-1952; editor of The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, (9 volumes); wrote The Lincoln Legend and in his preface stated,
It has been a part of my study to attempt, at least, to keep Lincoln the man continually before the reader as he studies the legend, for nowhere is it easier to hang oneself upon the horns of historical dilemma than in the study of this man and this myth. It has not been my purpose to ‘debunk’ Lincoln, or to give, primarily, a definitive study of his character and achievement; but rather to show how poets, writers of fiction, dramatists, and occasionally biographers have, with the help of the folk-mind, created about Lincoln a national legend or myth which in conception is much like the hero-myths of other nations.
In The Lincoln Legend, 1935, pg. 203-04, Basler stated, "Although Lincoln was convinced throughout his early life that slavery was morally wrong, he did not feel any of the zeal for its abolition which was inspiring young men in New England. All attempts to make Lincoln an early Abolitionist are futile."
With reference to Lincoln's 1855 revisionist letter to James Speed about their 1841 rafting trip, Basler noted at page 205:
[I]n 1847, he had been engaged by a slaveowner in an attempt to send a negro mother and her children back into slavery, and, apparently, he had no compunction in accepting a fee for a service which, according to his later statement, should have been torment to him. The torment which the sight of slaves in 1841 gave him does not appear in the letter written at the time....
With reference to the Lincoln-Douglas debate in Peoria, October 16, 1854, Basler notes at page 207:
It is not difficult to jump from such a statement to the conclusion that Lincoln was in favor of liberating all the slaves in the country, but nothing is farther from the truth. The only policy which he can be truthfully said to have advocated up until the time of his election was this: namely, recognition of the fact that slavery was wrong and its complete prohibition in all Territories subject to the Federal Government.
At page 208, Basler sums up Lincoln's aversion to extreme abolition policies:
Lincoln’s complete aversion to extreme Abolition policies is nowhere made more evident than in his disapproval of John Brown and of the sentiment which he expressed and acted on. In the 'Cooper Union Address' he thus characterized John Brown: 'An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt which ends in little else than his own execution.'Those biographers of Lincoln who perceive that the great crusade against slavery was the one sublime movement of the century cannot but lament Lincoln’s coldness on the subject. It is difficult, after having always heard of Lincoln as the emancipator, to recognize the fact that he was never an exponent of immediate emancipation and became the author of the proclamation only after the very act had been urged upon him for months. Charnwood considers Lincoln’s attitude toward John Brown a flaw in his common-sense judgment, and it is a flaw from the standpoint of one who conceives the antislavery agitation to be the spirit of the age.
Lerone Bennett, Jr. put it really succintly in the title to his book about Lincoln published in 2000: Forced Into Glory.
I didn't ignore it. I answered it with 14, which is what Frederick Douglas was building up to. Here it is again.
"I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."
The statements of Abraham Lincoln eviscerated any rational claim that he was an abolitionist.
When taken in context, they tell a story of a man who was up agaianst an era of slavery and his own demons, and overcame all of it to abolish slavery.
I have heard you have abolitionists here. We have a few in Illinois, and we shot one the other day.
Yes, Lincoln made an insensitive joke about it, similar to Reagan's Russia joke. No excuses for this one.
He also condemned this violence and indirectly blamed slavery for it in his Lyceum Address
When, early in the war, Gen. Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When a little later, Gen. Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested the arming of the blacks, I objected, because I did not yet think it an indispensable necessity. (snip)
Did you actually read this. or did you just see "emancipation" and "I forbade it" and assume he said what you wanted to hear? They were talking about recruiting blacks to serve in the Union military, which President Lincoln was hestitant to allow for fear of inducing the border states to secede and join the confederacy. Everyone knows that. The "emancipation" spoken of here has nothing to do with freeing slaves.
Once the EP was passed, the military was opened. More on all of this here.
Fighting for Freedom, Black Union Soldiers of the Civil War
The pictures themselves are worth a look.
And before you bring up the discrimination it reports, I have already conceded not all in the North were the good guys.
Lincoln to Gen. John Schofield, June 22, 1863:
I'm not even sure what you're trying to prove here, beyond the fact that until the CW ended Lincoln had constitutional challenges to deal with in abolishing slavery.
Lincoln wrote to Orville Browning, September 22, 1861:
Here Lincoln is saying what I have conceded in many ocasions, that not everyone in the Union was on board for abolishing slavery and he had to work with that. Frederick Douglas also acknowledged that in the snippet I posted above. I'll post the last line again.
"Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."
Near the very end of Lincoln's last public address on April 11, 1865 he stated,
I don't see what you're trying to prove here.
Clearly, Lincoln's plan was to start and finish the reconstruction of the South before Congress, and the Radicals, came back into session. That night, Lincoln caught a bullet in the head and that was the end of that.
I don't see what you're trying to prove here either.
In The Lincoln Legend, 1935, pg. 203-04, Basler stated, "Although Lincoln was convinced throughout his early life that slavery was morally wrong, he did not feel any of the zeal for its abolition which was inspiring young men in New England. All attempts to make Lincoln an early Abolitionist are futile."
You could have saved yourself a lot of effort by citing my posts. President Lincoln opposed slavery, but didn't think he had the legal ability to end it until the CW. He said that himself. After the CW with nothing to stop him and the abolitionists, slavery was abolished.