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To: WhiskeyPapa
Lincoln was clearly a gradual abolitionist

Like his solution to ship all the blacks back to Africa?

431 posted on 11/23/2001 5:06:56 PM PST by stainlessbanner
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To: stainlessbanner
Like his solution to ship all the blacks back to Africa?

Ho hum.

"By the close of the war, Lincoln was reccomending commissioning black officers in the regiments, and one actually rose to become a major before it was over. At the end of 1863, more than a hundred thousand had enlisted in the United States Colored Troops, and in his message to Congress the president reported, "So far as tested, it is difficult to say they are not as good soldiers as any." When some suggested in August 1864 that the Union ought to offer to help return runaway slaves to their masters as a condition for the South's laying down its arms, Lincoln refused even to consider the question.

"Why should they give their lives for us, with full notice of our purpose to betray them?" he retorted. "Drive back to the support of the rebellion the physical force which the colored people now give, and promise us, and neither the present, or any incoming administration can save the Union." To others he said it even more emphatically. "This is not a question of sentiment or taste, but one of physical force which may be measured and estimated. Keep it and you can save the Union. Throw it away, and the Union goes with it."

...For the newly freed and the newly enlisted black men who served in the Union army--in the end more than 179,000 of them---perhaps the greatest moment was when they they too, shared the experience of paying their respects, of marching past their presidents in their new uniforms, looking as smart and martial as any. On April 23, 1864, and again two days later, newly mustered black regiments in a division attached to the IX corps passed through Washington on their way to the Virginia front. They marched proudly down Pennsylvania Avenue, past Willard's Hotel, where Lincoln and their commander, Burnside stood on a balcony watching. When the six black regiments came in sight of the president they went wild, singing, cheering, dancing in the street while marching. As each unit passed they saluted, and he took off his hat in return, the same modest yet meaningful acknowledgement he gave his white soldiers. He looked old and worn to the men in the street, but they could not see the cheer in his breast as he witnessed the culmination of their long journey from slavery, and pondered, perhaps, what it had cost him to be part of it. Even when rain began to fall and Burnside suggested they step inside while the parade continued, Lincoln decided to stay outdoors. "If they can stand it," he said, "I guess I can."

--"Lincoln's Men" pp 163-64 by William C. Davis

"it is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers."

April 11, 1865

President Lincoln did float the idea of colonization for a time in 1862. But he is clearly on the record favoring black equality and black suffrage later in the war. You only look a fool not to know these -very- basic facts from the American Civil War.

Walt

432 posted on 11/23/2001 5:45:45 PM PST by WhiskeyPapa
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