[weikel]

I have no dcelusions about him believing in racial equality but he was an abolitionist( a realistic one) that statement from him proves nothing. All it says is that he wanted the territories to be places for poor whites to go and make a better life for themselves. He knew that slavery had all sorts of negative effects the freed blacks actually went to the territories in large numbers after the civil war( something like 25% of cowboys were black).

[billbears]

but he was an abolitionist( a realistic one)

Hmmm, would that be why he was quoted in British newspapers as not wanting to be painted with the 'abolitionist brush' in 1861? Or maybe that's why he wrote his letter to Horace Greely saying he didn't care if the slaves were freed or not as long as the union was saved? If he was an abolitionist at heart than Davis was a Catholic