Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 3.
Speech at Carlinville, Illinois [1]
August 31, 1858
...Sustain these men and negro equality will be abundant, as every white laborer will have occasion to regret when he is elbowed from his plow or his anvil by slave niggers.
...
Douglas tries to make capital by charges of negro equality against me. My speeches have been printed and before the country for some time on this question, and Douglas knows the utter falsity of such a charge. To prove it Mr. L. read from a speech of his at Peoria in '54 in reply to Douglas as follows:
``Shall we free them and make them politically and socially our equals? MY OWN FEELINGS WILL NOT ADMIT OF THIS, and if they would the feelings of the great mass of white people would not. Whether this accords with strict justice or not is not the sole question. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot safely be disregarded. We cannot then make them our equals.. . . Is it not rather our duty to make labor more respectable by preventing all black competition, especially in the territories?
But what about Jefferson Davis? Was he a racist by any standard at all? Yes or no?