"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway 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. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois" (September 18, 1858), pp. 145-146.


You may find more Abraham Lincoln quotes @
http://members.aol.com/RV...coln2.html

That's a pretty damning quote (2 say the least!). Clearly Lincoln was a racist after all. Ironically,when i was at school,he was somewhat romantically portrayed as an emancipator.

,that's politics..., it's too easy to rewrite the past with today's glasses,risking nothing.
"Linclon was a racits, like Hiltrer"

I can't back this up, but I heard that one time he bought a slave just to free him, and the slave decided to stay on.

I'm not trying to stir the pot here, but has anyone heard about this? Is this just some nice story some white people made up, or did this really happen?

Although that is clearly a "racist" statement, he was not taking the same position as actual "racists" who owned slaves. According to the plantation owners, the black slaves were nothing more than animals to tend their fields. Read that last sentence and realize that the slaves would have been damned for a lot longer had it not been for good ole Abe.

First of all, i'd like to know the context of this quote. Secondly, as organgrinder said, the statement may show that abe was a racist, but the truth remains that he still helped us get to where we are today. That was such a radical idea back then.. i'm sure he needed to ease the general population into it.. then again, politics is always sticky..

anemone said:

Exactly my point. Surely that was a very bold statement in the climate of the day. To actually espouse the very notion (and later issue the emanicpation proclamation) that the black race should not be denied everything is not exactly what I'd call racist. At least not in the same context of racism as it exists today.

Wow. This is definitely not anything I learned in grade school or high school about Lincoln. While signing the document to free slaves is a good thing, his comments are definitely racist. No race is more than or less than any other. Maybe someday, hopefully, everyone will realize we are all one.

Maybe the portions of history we are taught should be abandoned. We could replace those classes with teachings that help us be better humans. Our children need to learn to love one another, appreciate diversity and differing opinions.

Just a thought.

Please consider the context. Sure, if someone made those comments today, he would be racist, end of story. But maybe, in order to further his mandate/political career/whatever, he felt he had to sound more "moderate." Consider the prevailing attitudes at that time... many whites thought blacks were (like someone mentioned above) property. In order to get through to a lot of these people that slavery was wrong, he probably had to temper his statements. If he had come out and said, "We are all totally equal," how far do you think his cause would have gone?

The TIMES were racist. I don't think we can judge an individual's actions/statements without considering how people thought back then.

Hey, let's muddy the waters even more. Consider this. Lincoln is in the middle of battling the South and all problems therein. By declaring that all of the Southern slaves are free, he can effectively cripple the South and perhaps increase the number of folks fighting against it, thus making the African American a pawn in his war with the South. No matter which way you turn, we were used. Sure, he freed us. But the reasons were more economic than anything else.

I'm still stunned that people are bent out of shape by this information. This is not new information for anyone who went to a culturally conscious HBCU.

angellm said:

Most of what you learned in school about Lincoln, Columbus, and many others was fucked up in various ways. If you're interested, read A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, or Lies My Teacher Told Me (I forget the author's name).

orangesky said:

I disagree. I don't excuse any racism because of the period in which it exists. "Silence = Complicity"

teacherlady88 said:

Thank you!!

That makes him all the more great for overcoming his personal biases and freeing the slaves.

I knew about this and brought it up in here a long time ago.
He freed the slaves basically to save the union.

4LOVE said:

2 birds with one stone then. great AND efficient.

fragisexy said:

While silence does equal complicity, it's unfair to judge historical events with our enlightened eyes. We were taught that Lincoln was an emancipator because, ultimately, he was. We didn't get the backstory, but that part remains accurate, regardless of his beliefs or intentions.

AaronForever said:

Let me clear this up a bit.This guy says it better than me.

Abraham Lincoln
When I tell people that I believe Lincoln was a scum bag I get the oddest look from them. Even the most intelligent conservatives keep a stunned look. Of course, they fill with anger before they can ever listen to rational thought. So I am explaining this now.

Abraham Lincoln keeps the typical sob story about a poor boy who becomes president, the same thing we heard with Clinton. Most credit Lincoln with saving the Union, this is absolutely wrong. The union that Lincoln established was different, it was a union of big federal government and weak local governments. Our forefathers created just the opposite. Lincoln did not save the Union, he actually destroyed what was left of it.

At this point I see tears swelling in the eyes of a liberal: They cry about the freed slaves. I quickly tell them who really freed the slaves, the Southern slaves freed themselves: That is the ones who made it out before the end of the war. Lincoln was actually quite racist, but I never held that against him. He had a jaded view of the black man; and so did many of his Northern countrymen. Besides this, the war was not over slavery. Does anyone actually think that any Northern white boys fought to free slaves they had never met? Come on, would you die for someone you'd never met? No, they fought to "save the union." Little did they know they were just killing the torn and frayed union that remained after the secession.

Then they tell me that he did free the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation. Let's look at what it really said: All slaves of the REBEL states would be free. Now if a state is in rebellion from a government, does that government have any power over it, No! So then can it exercise law there, no again. This means that it did not free the slaves. In fact it did not mean anything after the war either, because after the war there were no rebel states! So did Lincoln free the slaves, no. The slaves and the men who actually fought the war freed the slaves. Lincoln just sat on his cowardly behind and took bullets in his useless head.

The next objection is that Lincoln did not start the war. Unfortunately that is in error too. The North declared war, unofficially, when it held Fort Sumpter. A Fort in one of the Carolinas. Forcefully and illegally holding land in someone else's country is an act of war. The South had every right to fire. Lincoln, the Commander in Chief, started the Civil War by ordering Anderson the hold the fort. The President can start a war, he just cannot declare war.

I rank Lincoln right up there with jerks like Bill Clinton and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Abraham Lincoln was a politician saving his butt in the eyes of history. He did a good job of it too. Although I give much credit to the Public Schools for not telling the whole truth about him.

By Chris Hilton

everyone who's had a conversation on race relations with Abraham Lincoln raise your hands.







...

AaronForever said:

All we can do is take what others from the past left us and make our own conclusions.
[This message was edited Wed Oct 9 17:52:57 PDT 2002 by 4LOVE]

4LOVE pasted:

find someone that doesn't feel the need to incorporate some modern-day talk radio political rhetoric into his argument against Lincoln, and i'd me more convinced.

AaronForever said:

Why do I get the feeling that this is the nature of your response to anything that doesn't jive with your particular views? What was so loony about that post?

fragisexy said:

it's straight out of the Limbaugh, Liddy, Ollie Stone, Sean Hannity playbook. painting liberal heroes as big-government devils. blah blah blah.


and no, that's not always the nature of my resopnse. just this time. that piece of pasted text has red flags all over it.

I wonder who is going to be the P.C. Fagnatic posting stop
bringing up the race bull shit we are all human so who is
this lucky person going to ad thread like this

BlackMiles said:

Nat Go eat a dick OK???

BlackMiles said:

we are all human and we all have the same access to punctuation it's sad to see so many going without...

DorianGray said:

Ugh, Lincoln NEVER said he wasn't racist. Lincoln wasn't against slavery, he was FOR popular sovereignty! That's what he and Douglas' debates were over, as I recall. Lincoln only wanted to give the people what they wanted, and the bulk of the people wanted freedom.

Go back and take U.S. History, clean the wax out of your ears, sit up, and listen on the day they speak of Lincoln, and popular sovereignty!

Edit: This was not meant as a flame, or insult to anyone, especially not DorianGray. Just a bit of a rant I had to get off my chest.
[This message was edited Wed Oct 9 18:21:47 PDT 2002 by BattierBeMyDaddy]

4LOVE said:« I quickly tell them who really freed the slaves, the Southern slaves freed themselves: That is the ones who made it out before the end of the war. »
Of course some were actors of their liberation too but it’s like saying because there was an effective french inner Resistance and another one ( de Gaulle..) based in London that the french freed themselves all alone from the German military occupation during WW2 .
Do you really think that all the southern slaves would have fight and freed themselves alone without help ?
Don’ t you think that some « house slaves », and some « ordinary » ones with « good masters » we’re in reality quite pleased of their condition?

were in reality quite pleased of their condition

Actually I don't see slavery as having ended during Lincoln's time or anytime soon after. Even as late as the 1960s slavery was alive and well within our country. And in some cases is still true today. No, no one owns another (supposedly), but yet tell that to the black man who is working a job, being paid under the table, to keep his family clothed, fed, and sheltered, and cannot take time off to find another higher paying job because he just can't afford to lose any work whatsoever. It is as though the employer is making sure to pay the barest minimum to keep the employee under his thumb so that he can't get out of the situation he is in. Slavery still exists, it's just given a new name and is even more sadistic in that it's under the guise of freedom. "He's free to choose whatever he wants to do." Actually he's not, because he has that family to feed, because he's not had the opportunities to a better education, because he has to work that low paying job and be happy for having it just to keep surviving barely.

We like to believe that we have equal opportunites but we don't. There are kids living on the streets, whole families living on the streets, and they do not have the opportunity to receive the best education available. They do not have the opportunity to receive preventative health care (and instead must rely on the emergency room as their primary care physician.) People like to believe that yes they have the same opportunities as others, they could pull themselves up out of the gutter to live a better life, they don't have the freedom to choose what they are going to do, because what they do they have to do out of necessity.

In Lincoln's time, he was considered to not be a man of vision due to his views on slavery, not his views on the status of the black man. In todays world, Lincoln very much would have been considered a racist, but in his time he was considered to be a visionary and an emancipator. Times have changed, and with those times, we have evolved a little more, but we still have a long way to go.