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How times change: what Abe had to say about race
Barack Obama’s hero would have been shocked by today’s inauguration of a black man as president
The train journey from Philadelphia to Washington; the speeches dripping with Abraham Lincoln quotes; the swearing-in using the very bible Lincoln used in 1861. By turning so many aspects of his inauguration into a homage to Lincoln, the President-elect has left no doubt as to which of his predecessors he'd most like to emulate. But what would Abe have thought about Obama?
Whatever else, he would have been surprised, to put it mildly. Lincoln was a man of his time - a revolutionary who fought to end slavery, but a man of his time nonetheless. Which means that while he loathed slavery on moral grounds, he did not believe whites and blacks were equal.
Lincoln called for slaves to be deported from America to Liberia
Consider this, from a speech that the Great Emancipator made in 1858, "I will say then that I am not, nor have ever 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."
Based on this it would seem Abe could no more have prophesied a black man becoming President than he could have foreseen Americans walking on the moon.
That 1858 speech, and other evidence, was used in 2000 by the black historian Lerone Bennett Jr to counteract the previous hagiographic biographies of Lincoln and persuade Americans that Lincoln was actually a racist.
Bennett's book, Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream, included stories about Lincoln shouting for an encore at a negro minstrel show, making jokes about 'darkies', and using words like 'Sambo' and 'Cuffee'. Bennett also made the point that on several occasions Lincoln called for slaves to be deported from America to Liberia, and, long before he became president, supported an 1853 law stopping blacks from moving to his home state of Illinois.
Once in office Lincoln met with more black leaders than any other president
But Bennett was looking at remarks made in the mid-19th century through a 21st century prism. Springfield, Illinois, where Lincoln worked as a young lawyer, was a frontier town inhabited by white southern settlers. Very few of the hundred or so blacks who lived there had any level of education and it was not until Lincoln moved to the White House that he had any real chance to meet black people on an equal footing. This was the background to Lincoln's prejudice.
However, as Henry Louis Gates Jr and John Stauffer wrote in the New York Times this week, once in office Lincoln met with more black leaders than any president before him. By 1865, after the Civil War, Lincoln was advocating giving the vote to the African-Americans who had fought with the Union.
And the politician whose view he most wanted to hear on a draft of his famous second inaugural speech - "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away" - was a black man, Frederick Douglass.
As Lincoln told Douglass: "There is no man in the country whose opinion I value more than yours".
Editor’s note: Our photograph has been manipulated. The original words carved in marble above the seated figure of the 16th President at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington are: 'In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he served the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever'. ·
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What confused comments! The first is the most cogent, but is still somewhat excusing of Lincoln, surely everyone didn't hold racist views then, or are we to believe every person in America was a racist? There are always clear thinkers who don't go with the herd, that Lincoln wasn't one of them is no surprise, he was a politician and they as a class of people are never the free thinkers, they are intent on getting well paid jobs by saying what they think people want to hear. There were plenty of white people who viewed slavery as an abomination, and who didn't think of themselves as superior to people with different coloured skin. They just didn't get eulogies written about them.
The second comment, from Peter Melia, is pretentious. According to him the First Post was supposed to 'allude' to Lincoln's racism, but not to spell it out. And what does he mean by 'lost subscribers'? Does he pay to read the First Post?
The last comment is nonsense and has nothing to do with the article.
About time demi-gods like Lincoln were defalted and exposed for what they were. Lincoln owned slaves before he became an abolitionist, and the pressure to abolish slavery came from lots of other people. Lincoln, as politicians all over the world, was following what he saw as a trend, leaders rarely lead, but follow where what they think will best serve them. Hypocrites, liars and posers, yet we are supposed to think of Lincoln as a great man. No more heroes please.
This article was well timed and overdue.
Next you might concoct an article praising Maddoff for exposing the SEC's regulation regime !!
The Editor,
First Post Daily.
Sirs,
I wish to protest about your inclusion of certain racist remarks attributed by Abraham Lincoln.
Let us agree on the absolute necessity for free speech to continue as a right. Then in this case the right must be accompanied and balanced by a duty of restraint.
In the 20th January issue issue of your publication, you accepted the right, but failed to exercise the duty.
There are many journalistic ways of approaching the statement said to be by Mr Lincoln, as you well know, much better than me. The remarks could have been alluded to, or could have been referred to, or could have been paraphrased.
On my first reading, I was amused, not at the quotation, but at the thought that Mr Lincoln was only a man of his times after all. I was also amused at the thought that Mr Obama could well be more careful about his choice of role models, lest opposition parties select quotations from the same role model to counteract his own statement.
In the case of the speech in question this latter has not happened, because, I think, for the inherent decency of Mr Obamas political opponents, who would never think of using such an inflammatory passage for their own ends.
The sole exception has been "First Post Daily", which has shown itself to be a disreputable publication.
I would suggest that you seriously reconsider your editorial policy, to continue on your present course will surely end up in your being marginalised, and reduce your advertising revenue, by virtue of lost subscribers, such as myself, for I am withdrawing my name from your circulation list, as of now.
Why is this surprising? Lincoln - as all human beings - is a product of our time and place. Guess what? He did not live in 21st Century post-Obama election, post-desgregation America. He lived in a country that was deeply bigoted - along with the rest of the world - at a time when there was serious debate whether human beings with black skin were in fact, well, human. For his time, his views were considered extremely enlightened. Republicans at this time - 1862 - were actually physically beaten for daring to be "negro worshippers" by advocating that slavery was wrong. Abolitionists were despised, and it wasn't terribly hard to find convincing proof in the Bible that slavery was indeed "from God."
Lest anyone here think they are all that "above" Lincoln as racist, remember that you, too, are a product of your time and place. There is serious debate in the UK and the US over whether gay people are entitled to full and equal rights - in a word, "fully human." We, too, will be looked upon in the not too distant future with equal contempt by our own descendants for our bigotry and hatred.
It is at all times wrong to judge people and cultures of another time and place using our own current values. They didn't exist then. Fortunately, ours will not either, in a few more years.