In Defending Dixie’s Land: What Every American Should Know About The South And The Civil War, Jeb Smith argues that the winner writes the history. This is evident in many ways and categories. The North propped itself up and vilified its enemy, the South. Today, we will take a look at Abraham Lincoln and race.
This is part 1 in a series of extended articles form the author related to the US Civil War.
A U.S. Postage stamp issued in 1958. It commemorates the 1858 Lincoln and Douglas debates.
People are taught that Lincoln was a strong abolitionist, a champion of racial equality, and a great emancipator. They portray Lincoln as going to war to free the slaves; Lincoln advocated freedom and liberty for all; he is the savior of the Union and Constitution to boot. Lincoln was a kind, warmhearted, caring person, who never told a lie, and a great leader who united and led America to renown. This image comes perhaps from a desire for who they want him to be rather than who he was. Just as Southerners idolize their heroes, modern statists do the same with theirs, such as Lincoln. What most people think they know about Lincoln is well off the mark. We will look at his views on race below.[1]
"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."
-Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln-Douglas Debate Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858
I understood Lincoln as someone who desired equality for all. Instead, I found Lincoln was a white supremacist who viewed blacks as inferior beings. During a debate with Stephen A. Douglas on August 21, 1858 in Ottawa, Illinois, Lincoln stated, "Free them and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this…We cannot then make them equals." In response to the Dred Scott ruling, Lincoln said, "I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment." At the eulogy of Henry Clay in 1852, Lincoln gave a speech in which he called the declaration of independence the "The white man's charter of freedom."
Fear
Lincoln often used the N-word, and was known for his racist jokes. Abolitionist John Hume described Lincoln as "strongly prejudiced against the black man." According to Bennett's calculations, Lincoln stated publicly, at least twenty-one times, that he was opposed to equal rights for Blacks. Bennett writes, "Lincoln never pretended to be a racial liberal or a social innovator. He repeatedly said, in public and in private, that he believed in white supremacy." Lincolns close friend and biographer Ward Lamon said Lincoln had an "abhorrence of negro suffrage and negro equality." According to Lincoln, God has "Made us separate." Lincoln feared whites and blacks interbreeding. A former slave turned influential abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, spoke of Lincoln as "The white man's president."
"Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man. He was preeminently the white man's President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country.…he still more strangely told us that we were to leave the land in which we were born; when he refused to employ our arms in defense of the Union; when, after accepting our services as colored soldiers… he told us he would save the Union if he could with slavery; when he revoked the Proclamation of Emancipation of General Fremont; when he refused to remove the popular commander of the Army of the Potomac, in the days of its inaction and defeat, who was more zealous in his efforts to protect slavery than to suppress rebellion; when we saw all this, and more, we were at times grieved, stunned, and greatly bewildered."
-Frederick Douglass Oration in memory of Abraham Lincoln April 14, 1876
"If Mr. Lincoln were really an Abolition President, which he is not; if he were a friend to the Abolition movement, instead of being, as he is, its most powerful enemy...Whoever lives through the next four years will see Mr. Lincoln and his Administration attacked more bitterly for their pro-slavery truckling, than for doing any anti-slavery work. He and his party will become the best protectors of slavery where it now is...Slavery will be as safe, and safer, in the Union under such a President, than it can be under any President of a Southern Confederacy. This is our impression, and we deeply regret the facts from which it is derived."
-Fredrick Douglass Douglass' Monthly, December 1860
According to Bennett, for over two decades in Illinois as a lawyer and politician, Lincoln never supported abolitionists, rights for blacks, or their progress in that direction. Lincoln never spoke out against the state laws that did not allow blacks to gather in large numbers, learn to read, or play percussion instruments. In 1848 Lincoln supported the Illinois state law of not allowing blacks to migrate to the state and not allowing blacks citizenship. In 1836 Lincoln voted in support of denying blacks the right to vote, and he also voted for an Illinois state law that taxed blacks without representation. In 1858 Lincoln refused to sign a bill that would allow them to testify against whites in court. In Charleston, Lincoln declared, "I tell him very frankly that I am not in favor of negro citizenship." and "I will to the very last stand by the law of this state, which forbids the marrying of white people with Negroes"
As a lawyer, Lincoln helped defend the fugitive slave law, publicly supported the fugitive slave law, and spoke out against its repeal. Nathaniel Stephens said Lincoln had a "wholehearted, one might say, serene, support of the fugitive slave law." Ward Lamon said Lincoln was the "steady though quiet opponent of abolitionist Owen Lovejoy." Donald Riddle said: "He did not make any attempt to advocate or support anti-slavery or abolitionist messages." In 1858 Lincoln declared, "I have said a hundred times, and I have now no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the slave States, and interfere with the question of slavery at all."
When asked what he thought of having abolitionists in his party, Lincoln said: "As long as I'm not tarred with the Abolitionist brush." Bennett quotes multiple sources, such as Lincoln's close friend General James Wadsworth saying the welfare of Blacks "didn't enter into his policy at all." Donn Piatt said Lincoln "Laughed at the abolitionist as a disturbing element easily controlled." Eli Thayer said Lincoln spoke of abolitionism "In terms of contempt and derision." Abolitionist Sumner said Lincoln "does not know how to help or is not moved to help" and "I do not remember that I have had any help from him... he has no instinct or inspiration." Abolitionist John Hume stated, "The president was in constant opposition" to abolitionism. The abolitionist Journal The Liberator editorial on July 13, 1860, called Lincoln "The slave hound of Illinois" for his support of the fugitive slave law. Lincoln scholar David Donald in Lincoln Reconsidered states plainly, "Abraham Lincoln was not an abolitionist."
Bennett argues Lincoln has received the glory that the white and black abolitionists, citizens, newspaper editors, churches, members of Congress, and pastors had worked decades for. The most prominent abolitionists in the political sphere were men like Senator Sumner, Senator Lyman Trumbull, Salmon Chase, Wendell Phillips, etc. They deserve the glory that Lincoln was falsely given. Congress were the ones that abolished slavery in the territories and authorized black troops. And the people of the states, both North and South, passed the amendment to outlaw slavery after Lincoln's death.
Forever Free From African Americans
"I wish to make and to keep the distinction between the existing institution, and the extension of it, so broad, and so clear, that no honest man can misunderstand me, and no dishonest one, successfully misrepresent me."
-Abraham Lincoln Peoria, Illinois: October 16, 1854
Lincoln never intended to end slavery where it already existed, only the extension out into the West. In December 1860, Fredrick Douglass said, "With the single exception of the question of slavery extension, Mr. Lincoln proposes no measure which can bring him into antagonistic collision with the traffickers in human flesh, either in the States or in the District of Columbia." Lincoln did not want the West to become "An asylum for slaves and n******." On October 16, 1854, Lincoln stated, "The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these [new western] territories. We want them for the homes of free white people."
The West was to be kept for whites to be segregated from blacks' presence, live off Republican federal land grants, and become industrial. Southern agrarians were to be fenced into the South; otherwise, they would bring their despised black slaves along. Robert Fogel summarizes the abolitionist stance by quoting William Seward and Owen Lovejoy, among others, as "They were quite sincere when they assured voters that as "True republicans" they "Cared nothing for the N*****" and that the republican party aimed to make white labor respectable and honorable by keeping negroes, free and slave, out of the West." In Lincoln Unmasked, Professor Thomas DiLorenzo quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson saying, "It is the black man whom the abolitionist wishes to abolish, not slavery."
Western expansion
Ward Lamon said that originally Lincoln was not against slavery in all the western territories, only those north of the 36°30′ degrees line. However, abolitionists threatened to pull support for his election unless he stood against all western expansion. Lamon also tells us that Lincoln would rather see slavery expanded than "See the union dissolved." Lamon said of Lincoln, "It was therefore as a white man, and in the interest of white men, that he threw himself into the struggle to keep blacks out of the Territories. He did not want them there either as slaves or freemen…" Bennett quotes Lincoln warning whites that if slavery was allowed in the territories, "Negro equality will be abundant, as every white laborer will have occasion to regret when he is elbowed from his plow or his anvil by slave n******." According to DiLorenzo, Indiana (which voted for Lincoln) despised blacks so much that they gave out a $500 fine to anyone who encouraged blacks to come within their state. And ten years of prison for marrying a black. Illinois senator Lyman Trumbull, quoted by DiLorenzo, said, "Our people want nothing to do with the negro." It seems Republicans believed in a form of secession based on race rather than states.
"We, the Republican Party, are the white man's party. We are for the free white man, and for making white labor acceptable and honorable, which it can never be when Negro slave labor is brought into competition with it."
-Lyman Trumbull Illinois Republican, United States Senator Quoted in The Imperiled Union: Essays on the Background of the Civil War by Kenneth M. Stampp Oxford U Press 1981
Republicans did not care for equality with blacks, and they wanted separation from them. The Northern whites worked hardest to be segregated from the presence of blacks, while southerners worked with, ate with, lived with, played with, and went to church with blacks.
"Many of those attaching themselves to the Republican party...were not in sympathy with Abolitionism. They were utterly opposed to immediate emancipation, or for that matter, to emancipation of any kind. They wanted slavery to remain where it was, and were perfectly willing that is should be undisturbed. They disliked the blacks, and did not want to have them freed, fearing that if set at liberty they would overrun what was then free soil."
-John F Hume The Abolitionists 1830-1864 G.P Putnam's Sons NY London Knickerbocker Press 1905
The fight over the extension of slavery was political. Northern industrialists needed the West free of blacks and agricultural interests. Dr. Charles Pace wrote in Lincoln As He Really Was, "Lincoln was an abolitionist when it suited him." And "Abolitionist activity was rising fast, fueled by northern capitalist and political interests needing an issue to neutralize the agrarian south." Lincoln and northern whites would fight against its extension into the West when it was politically helpful. Secretary of State William Seward said: "The motive of those who protested against the extension of slavery had always really been a concern for the welfare of the white man, and not an unnatural sympathy for the negro." They had less concern with slaves in the South; as John Hume wrote of Lincoln, "He was opposed to slavery more because it was a public nuisance than because of its injustice to the oppressed black man."
"To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the states where it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of the slave system anywhere inside the slave states. He was willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though his guilty master were already in arms against the Government. The race to which we belong were not the special objects of his consideration."
-Frederick Douglass Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln April 14, 1876
Before military defeats and public opinion began to change, abolitionists were condemned by the President. When Union general John Fremont emancipated slaves in federal occupied Missouri, Lincoln recalled the orders and relieved Fremont of his command. When Union general David Hunter issued general order number 11, declaring all slaves in SC/GA/FL to be "Forever free," Lincoln revoked the proclamation. Hunter was then pressured into disbanding the regiment made up of freed slaves he had begun to form. Late in 1862, Lincoln supported slavery continuing in Union-held territory in V.A and L.A and encouraging the slave owners to peacefully come back into the Union. Mark Neely JR wrote that in 1861, "He more than once actually forced others who were trying to free slaves to cease doing so." Not surprising when Lincolns' wife, Mary, was from a slave-owning family in Kentucky. In August 1862, Adam Gurowski summer up Lincoln's actions writing in his diary, "The president is indefatigable in his efforts to save slavery."
Even after the war, Lincoln, the North, and the Republicans maintained slavery in states like Delaware and Kentucky. Lincoln had no problem calling on men from the slave states of the Upper South to suppress the rebellion in the Cotton States.
"The Republican party does not propose to abolish slavery anywhere and is decidedly opposed to Abolition agitation. It is not even, by the confession of its President-elect, in favor of the repeal of that thrice-accursed and flagrantly unconstitutional Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850."
-Frederick Douglass Douglass' Monthly, December 1860
In his book Battle Hymns; the Power and Popularity of Music in the Civil War, Christian McWhirter quotes Federal general Phillip Kearny who said, "I think as much of a rebel as I do of an abolitionist." Today we have presented to us the idea of Northern tolerance and southern bigotry, but the reality was something else entirely.
Abraham Lincoln the Great Emancipator?
"If Mr. Lincoln had been told, when he entered on the Presidency, that before his term of office would expire he would be hailed as "The Great Emancipator," he would have treated the statement as equal to one of his own best jokes."
-John Hume The Abolitionists 1830-1864 G.P Putnam's Sons NY London Knickerbocker Press 1905
"Never did a man achieve more fame for what he did not do and for what he never intended to do," writes Bennett. Today we are brought up to believe the Emancipation Proclamation (E.P.) was part of the desired agenda to end slavery by Abraham Lincoln. Or worse, we are told with this presidential Proclamation; that all slaves were made forever free. Thus Lincoln was the great emancipator who ended slavery. But that story is far from the truth.
The E.P. did not apply to slavery within the United States, and it did not free a single slave. According to Hume, Missouri abolitionists wanted the Proclamation applied to their state, and Lincoln refused the request. Instead, the E.P. applied only to Confederate-controlled areas and not to the Northern slave states still in the Union. A Confederate state only had to rejoin the Union, and slavery would be protected. Hume writes, "It was not ...intended to help the slave but to chastise the master. It was to be in punishment of treason…The proclamation, it will be recollected, was issued in two parts separated by one hundred days. The first part gave the Rebels warning that the second would follow if, in the meanwhile, they did not give up their rebellion. All they had to do to save slavery was cease their treasonable practices." William Seward said of Lincoln's proclamation, "Where he could, he didn't. Where he did, he couldn't." The London Spectator, on October 11, 1862, read, "The Union government liberates the enemy's slaves as it would the enemy's cattle, simply to weaken them in the conflict. The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States."
The Proclamation would end with the war, and any slave freed by it would become subject to local state laws. The document did not apply to the legality of slavery. Lincoln wrote, it was "Merely a war measure" and "Have effect only from its being an exercise of war power." Lincoln stated, "It would have no effect upon the children of the slaves born hereafter."
The Proclamation was given at the end of 1862 after the North suffered multiple setbacks. Some viewed it as an act of desperation. Lincoln gave the Proclamation as a war measure, "As a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion." The war lasted longer than anticipated, and abolitionists put pressure on Lincoln; states threatened to withhold men and their support unless Lincoln helped the Northern war effort by going after slavery to weaken the South. Lincoln and his cabinet were concerned that a rebellion would start in the North if they did not begin emancipation and certainly did not want to lose some of their most ardent supporters.
Others said its purpose was to encourage slave revolts in the South. To encourage slaves to arise and kill women, children, and masters in a revolution while the men fought at the front. The Harrisonburg Patriot and Union newspaper called it a "Cold-blooded invitation to insurrection and butchery." Of course, many slaves, innocent women, and children would be killed if an uprising happened, but it was endorsed so long as it helped bring traitors under the master's authority in D.C.
The Emancipation Proclamation
The E.P. was not Lincoln’s desire, but he was "forced into glory," as Bennett would say. Bennet quotes Lincoln, "I am driven to it." And he said he had great "reluctance" about beginning emancipation. Abolitionists set up a meeting for September 24 with a plan to withhold support for the war and to call on Lincoln to resign. Knowing this meeting and the growing feeling amongst various state governors and the people, Lincoln issued the preliminary Proclamation just two days before the meeting. Lincoln said on July 12, "The pressure in this direction [immediate emancipation] is still upon me and is increasing." Lincoln said, "For a length of time, it had been hoped that the rebellion could be suppressed without resorting to it as a military measure." Lincoln scholar David Donald in Lincoln Reconsidered quotes Lincoln writing an admirer, saying, "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess that events have controlled me." In his diary, Adam Gurowski wrote, "The patriots of both houses... the American people whipped Mr. Lincoln into the glory of having issued the emancipation proclamation." Bennett described the E.P in complete contradiction to how many school children understand it when he wrote, “The high point of a brilliant campaign in favor of slavery not freedom, and was designed not to emancipate all slaves immediately but to protect the emancipation of all slaves."
As Bennett shows in his book, the E.P. was a conservative pushback against the radicals. On July 17, 1862, congress passed the second confiscation act. This act declared all rebel slaves in the confederacy "Forever free." On September 22, 1862, Lincoln signed the preliminary emancipation nullifying the emancipation act of congress, re-enslaving slaves. The emancipation proclamation did not free slaves in the United States, and it did not free any slave that the confiscation act would not have. It was a reaction to the radical abolitionists in congress. As Bennett writes, "The proclamation had as its purpose and effect the checking of the radical [abolitionist] program."
Both DiLorenzo's Lincoln Unmasked and Bennett correct multiple false quotes attributed to Lincoln or those taken out of context to claim he was an abolitionist or desired equality among the races. I would recommend both authors to those interested. I will let Lincoln's close friend and admirer Ward Lamon sum up Lincoln's opinions on the emancipation proclamation.
"He did so with avowed reluctance...he never at any time favored the admission of negroes into the body of electors...he claimed that those who were incidentally liberated by the federal arms were poor-spirited, lazy and slothful...he longed to see them transported to Hayti, central America, Africa, or anywhere so that they might in no event, and in no way, participate in the government of his country...he was no Abolitionist in the popular sense."
-Ward Lamon The Life Of Abraham Lincoln From His Birth To His Inauguration As President James R. Osgood And Company, 1872
The Corwin Amendment
As Professor DiLorenzo points out, the previously proposed 13th amendment was called the Corwin Amendment; and it was something Lincoln supported. The amendment would forever allow slavery in the United States and make it unconstitutional to abolish it. It reads:
No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.
In Lincoln's first inaugural address, he supported the amendment saying, "holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable." According to DiLorenzo, Lincoln then sent a letter to the governors of the states transmitting the approved amendment. He told New York Senator William Seward to advocate for it in the Senate. He also instructed Seward to pass a federal law that would repeal the personal liberty laws in some Northern states used to nullify the federal Fugitive Slave Act. DiLorenzo sees Lincoln's inaugural address as the most pro-slavery speech given by a president.
"Lincoln's first inaugural address...is probably the most powerful defense of slavery ever made by an American politician. In the speech Lincoln denies having any intention to interfere with Southern slavery; supports the federal Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution, which compelled citizens of non-slave states to capture runaway slaves; and also supported a constitutional amendment known as the Corwin Amendment that would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering in Southern slavery."
-Thomas DiLorenzo The Lincoln Myth: Ideological Cornerstone of the America Empire LewRockwell.com
Lincoln the Ultimate Segregationist
"Horrified at the thought of the mixing blood by the white and black races: agreed for once---a thousand times agreed... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation...Such separation, if ever effected at all, must be effected by colonization; ... Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and, at the same time, favorable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be."
-Abraham Lincoln Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 2 Speech at Springfield, Illinois June 26, 1857
Lincoln never wanted slaves freed and made equal. Instead, he wanted to make America white from "Sea to shining sea," as Bennett stated. He promoted the removal of slaves from America back to Africa. In his July 17th 1858 speech in Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln stated, "What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races." The same year at Ottawa, he declared, "If all earthly power were given me...my first impulse would be to free all the slaves and send them to Liberia."
It is true that Lincoln disliked slavery, but not as much as white and blacks living together. So Lincoln spent many thousands of tax dollars on his colonization plan to send the future freed slaves back to Africa. He either wanted them deported or in their all-black state. While in the White House, he held a meeting with free blacks; he asked them to lead by example for future freed slaves.
"You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word we suffer on each side….It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated…You may believe you can live in Washington or elsewhere in the United States the remainder of your life [as easily], perhaps more so than you can in any foreign country… an extremely selfish view of the case. There is an unwillingness on the part of our people, harsh as it may be, for you free colored people to remain with us."
-Abraham Lincoln Address on Colonization to a Deputation of Negroes August 14, 1862, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 5.Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
Conclusion
According to our "greatest" president, for the good of humanity, free blacks should lead by example and go live in a foreign country. As a member of the Illinois legislature, Lincoln urged the legislature "To appropriate money for colonization in order to remove Negroes from the state and prevent miscegenation." In 1853 Lincoln gave a speech to the Springfield colonization society; his colonization plan would "Free slave holders from the troublesome presence of free Negroes." When pushing for his colonization plan, he said, "Where there is a will, there is a way."
He promoted three aspects of his agenda. Gradual emancipation, compensation to slave owners, and colonization in Africa or Central America. His friend Henry Whitney said there was nothing besides preserving the Union that Lincoln felt more important. Ward Lamon said Lincoln "Zealously and persistently devised plans for the deportation of the negro." In the diary of Gideon Welles, we read, "Following the preliminary Proclamation, and as part of the plan…was the deportation and colonization of the colored race."
In Lincoln’s first state of the Union address, he suggested free blacks be included in his colonization plan when he said: "It might be well to consider, too, whether the free colored people already in the United States could not, so far as individuals may desire, be included in such colonization." Lincoln called for three constitutional amendments for gradual emancipation, compensation, and colonization in his second inaugural address. He stated, "I cannot make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization." On December 31, 1862, Lincoln signed a contract to send 500 American-born Negroes to an island off the coast of Haiti; many died, and the survivors were brought back to America. Until his death, Lincoln negotiated with European nations to deport blacks to Africa.
"Mr. Lincoln is quite a genuine Representative of American prejudiced and negro hatred and far more concerned for the preservation of slavery...showing all his inconsistencies, his pride of race and blood, his contempt for Negroes and his canting hypocrisy…Mr. Lincoln takes care in urging his colonization scheme to furnish a weapon to all the ignorant and base."
-Frederick Douglass The Life and Writings of Fredrick Douglass International Publishers Co 1950
In short, Lincoln was the ultimate segregationist. He didn't just want blacks removed from schools, restaurants, and work areas; he wanted them removed from the country.
Jeb Smith is the author of Missing Monarchy: What Americans Get Wrong About Monarchy, Democracy, Feudalism, And Liberty (Amazon US | Amazon UK) and Defending Dixie's Land: What Every American Should Know About The South And The Civil War (written under the name Isaac. C. Bishop) - Amazon US | Amazon UK
You can contact Jeb at jackson18611096@gmail.com
[1] This article was taken with permission from a section of Defending Dixie’s Land: What Every American Should Know About The South And The Civil War.
