[FLT-bird]

Fredrick Douglass changed his mind about Lincoln because he believed Lincoln changed his mind about African-Americans. I could supply the quotes, but it's easy to find them if you want to look for them.

Ah the famous "oh but he channnnnnged" excuse. There is no evidence for it. He was still trying to deport Blacks until the last year or so of his life. His sarcastic remake that they would have to "root hog or die" came in his last year of life. That was entirely consistent with what he'd said before.

I never said Lincoln believed in racial equality. I said he didn't. But he was never as racist as most of his countrymen, and his true feelings about race were far more complicated than your oversimplifications.

He was never as racist as his countrymen? Again, there is zero evidence to support this claim and considerable evidence to support the claim that he was extremely racist.

You didn't address the quote I gave:

My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desire to do, and I have only to say, let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man, this race and that race, and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position, discarding our standard that we have left us. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.

It was from an speech Lincoln gave to abolitionists on July 10, 1858. Stephen Douglas repeatedly referred to that speech and quoted from it in his debates with Lincoln, so that Lincoln, to avoid losing the election had to disassociate himself more forcefully from the idea of racial equality than he ordinarily would have. That accounts for some of his remarks in his own speeches at the debates, so that the meaning behind those remarks is not necessarily to be taken at face value.

Here is another quote from the speech to the abolitionists:

I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it! [Voices—”me” “no one,” &c.] If it is not true let us tear it out! [cries of “no, no,”] let us stick to it then, [cheers] let us stand firmly by it then. [Applause.]

And another: So I say in relation to the principle that all men are created equal, let it be as nearly reached as we can. If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature.

That Lincoln was a very slick lawyer and corporate lobbyist who was naturally suited to be a weasel-like politician who told audiences what he thought they wanted to hear in order to gain their support I do not doubt. That he was however anything but a convinced die-hard racist I very much do doubt.

You see, he was perfectly happy to orchestrate passage of the Corwin Amendment through the Northern Dominated Congress and through several state governments....the constitutional amendment which would have expressly protected slavery effectively forever AFTER making such statements. He was also only too happy to commit ethnic cleansing and genocide against native people after giving those speeches. So much for all men being created equal.

I notice that you also have never responded to the fact that Southern planters wanted to keep the freed slaves on their plantations because they needed the labor and they used debt and other devices to do so.

sure they did. What of it? The system that became standard after the war was sharecropping. There wasn't much actual money to lend to anyone - especially not after the crushingly high Morrill Tariff which tripled tariff rates and left them in place until well into the 20th century and not after the crushingly high taxes corrupt carpet bagger governments imposed before promptly stealing everything in sight.

But Confederate leaders were already condemned by the standards of their own time. It was post-war revisionism that made people forget that.

But they weren't and this is just the standard false Union propaganda.

I don't deny that Lincoln and most Northerners look awful on race by today's standards. I do oppose trying to make them look worse than they were at the time by holding them up to standards they were barely (or not at all aware of).

Ah So NOW presentism is bad. NOW its unfair, ridiculous etc to compare people who were products of their time to moral standards of over a century and a half later. I see. As the old expression goes "ya came to jesus a little late".

Look, I'm not up at 4 in the morning for the fun of it. Going on line helps me to forget stuff I'm going through right now. But I'm not in any mood to carry on some interminable argument about nothing with everything else going on now. So I'm going to stop responding now. I've got too much going on in the real world to bother with this endless, unresolvable garbage. I posted to point out mistakes that you made and now I have done that and expressed my own point of view which you have ignored or found unconvincing. No need to drag things out.

I'd say I did not make mistakes and you did but I can respect that you've consistently been honest, not trolling and have not resorted to the ad hominem. I hope whatever difficulties you are dealing with soon pass.

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird: "You see, he was perfectly happy to orchestrate passage of the Corwin Amendment through the Northern Dominated Congress and through several state governments....the constitutional amendment which would have expressly protected slavery effectively forever AFTER making such statements."

Once again, on Corwin:

1. First proposed by Democrat Senator Jefferson Davis in December 1860, before Mississippi declared secession.
   Davis intended it to prevent Southern states from declaring secession by protecting their biggest interest: slavery.

2. Pushed in Congress by Democrat President Buchanan and supported by all remaining Congressional Democrats.

3. Opposed by the majority of Republicans in Congress, a minority big enough to pass it was flipped by New York Senator Seward, then signed by Democrat President Buchanan.

4. Lincoln's role consisted entirely of saying he did "not object" because he believed it would make no change in the existing Constitution, as he understood it.

5. Three Northern and two Southern states ratified Corwin, one each later revoked their ratification.

Bottom line: Corwin was a typical Democrat meaningless gesture which would have produced no changes and went nowhere.
Today, typical Democrats, Lost Causers wish to blame Lincoln for Democrats own misdeeds.

FLT-bird: "He was also only too happy to commit ethnic cleansing and genocide against native people after giving those speeches.
So much for all men being created equal."

The charge of "ethnic cleansing" is based on a body-count of over 1,000 white settlers massacred in Minnisota versus 150 Indians killed.
When it was over Lincoln authorized 38 of 303 convicted Indians hanged.
See this thread for details