I did indeed use the quote from the SCV site. It came up in the search engine. It is incorrect ONLY as to which debate he said it in. He said it in Charleston, at at their fourth debate. They are his words exactly, and you damn well knew it. The SCV is no more a hate group than those organisations of union descendants. I will correct the location of his quote now. Here is what he said At the Charleston debate:
"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, that 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; and 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."
That perfectly proves the first two points I made, just as it did the first time I quoted him. At their debate in Quincy he repeated the above quote verbatim, and then said:
"Now, I wish to show you that a month, or only lacking three days of a month, before I made the speech at Charleston, which the Judge quotes from, he had himself heard me say substantially the same thing. It was in our first meeting at Ottawa - and I will say a word about where it was, and the atmosphere it was in, after awhile - but at our first meeting, at Ottawa, I read an extract from an old speech of mine, made nearly four years ago, not merely to show my sentiments, but to show that my sentiments were long entertained and openly expressed; in which extract I expressly declared that my own feelings would not admit a social and political equality between the white and black races, and that even if my own feelings would admit of it, I still knew that the public sentiment of the country would not, and that such a thing was an utter impossibility, or substantially that."
You try out of context quotes to suggest interpretations that the record won't support.
ROFLMAO - Did you read your own quote??? It starts out thus:
"Now gentlemen, I don't want to read at any greater length, but this is the true complexion of all I have ever said in regard to the institution of slavery and the black race. This is the whole of it, and anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and political equality with the negro, is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse."
Bwaaaahaaaahahaaahaa! That's what you keep trying to do, Walt! Lincoln chastises you from the grave!
MY quotes were completely in context. MY quotes were exactly in context. They perfectly prove my point that YOUR use of his words are completely unsupported by the record. I do not deny that Lincoln was against slavery because he thought blacks had the right to freedom, I said that quite plainly. What I did was to KEEP HIS REMARKS IN THE CONTEXT IN WHICH HE CLEARLY STATED THEM. He made it clear he wanted them to excercise those rights somewhere away from whites. He was NOT advocating black suffrage and their inclusion in white American society as you try to make it sound by misquoting him time and again. Here's another quote, this one from Ottawa when touching on the subject of what should be done with the blacks (since he did indeed think they had rights and should not be slaves):
"If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, - to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me that whatever of high hope (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough to me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South."
Lincoln was a long time advocate of ending slavery and colonizing the blacks back in Africa, and then later, in Central America. In the debates with Douglas he never advocated black suffrage and their inclusion in white American society. Never, not one single time.
I wouldn't look to those lying bums at the Sons of Confederate Veterans for my facts if I were you.
They may have incorrectly stated which debate it came from, but the quote was correct, word for word. But you knew that, didn't you Walt? That's what gets my goat, you know darn well that you deliberately misquote Lincoln and you do it anyway. If anyone is a lying bum it's you, and that has been proven time and again. What do you do for an encore, claim that Frederick Douglass said Lincoln wasn't prejudiced?
[Once again, I am not saying I think Lincoln evil because of his commonly held views of blacks, I am only refuting your revisionist claptrap that attempts to make him into something he wasn't. Historical perspective is everything, GET SOME.]
I didn't know it. Parts of the speeches are very similar.
Lincoln made the comment that blacks were included in the Declaration of Independence, and had a right to the fruits of their labor at Ottowa. At Charleston, he toned down this considerably, saying something to the effect that just because the negro didn't get everything didn't mean he got nothing. That is pretty watered down.
Charleston, I believe, is a lot further south than Ottowa. I'll grant that Lincoln played to the more southern audience in Charleston.
But he was still taking a position much advanced from most people of the day, and the SCV was still quoting the record in a skewed fashion to support an ahistorical interpretation. They preach honor, and then act dishonorably.
Walt