Week Three: Lincoln the Racist
In keeping with the prevailing national tendency to debunk all cultural and
political heroes of the past, there has been a spate of books recently denouncing
Lincoln as a Machiavellian manipulator and hypocrite on the subject of race. This
school contends that far from being the benevolent, freedom-bestowing Great
Emancipator of myth, Lincoln was at heart a typical Illinois redneck of the midNineteenth Century. His efforts to end slavery had little to do with compassion
for African Americans, and even less to do with concern for egalitarian justice. In
this paradigm, Lincoln attacked slavery primarily to preserve the western
territories for white settlers. Lincoln regarded slavery as a threat to working and
middle-class whites, and only secondarily (if at all) as an evil for the African
victims of the “Peculiar Institution”. These Lincoln detractors claim that Lincoln
resolved to destroy the plantation economy of the South in order to pave the way
for Yankee commercial hegemony over the newly constituted nation. Economics
and racism motivated Lincoln, not humanitarianism. In this talk we will examine
the evidence supporting this revisionist view, and also assess the validity of the
arguments.
Troubling Lincoln Quote of the week:
Denouncing the 1840
Democratic Presidential candidate Van Buren, who had once advocated a form of
limited suffrage for free blacks, Lincoln said, “His breath smells rank with devotion
to the cause of Africa’s sons and his very trail might be followed by scattered
bunches of N----r wool.”
Terms to know:
Amalgamation-the mixing of the races, producing an “inferior” “mongrel”
offspring. Term used freely by both parties, North and South.
“Egypt”-Extreme southern tip of Illinois. Settled by immigrants from Slave States,
Lincoln had to be very cautious when he spoke “down in Egypt”.
Black Laws of Illinois-During the 1830’s and 40’s Illinois passed a number of laws
designed to keep free blacks from entering the state, and to deny key civil rights
to blacks who already lived in the state (right to vote, testify in court, intermarry
with whites, etc.)
Miscegenation-Marriage between whites and blacks. One of the key charges
against Lincoln and the “Black Republicans.”
Black Republicans-Derisive term used by Democrats for Lincoln and anti-slavery
voters. The Democrats felt that Republicans were determined to incite slave
rebellions, promote amalgamation, and grant blacks civil rights.
For Further Reading:
Bennett, Lerone. Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream (Chicago:
Johnson Publishing Co., 2000) Anti-Lincoln screed contending that Lincoln was a
thoroughgoing bigot with no redeeming values.
Frederickson, George M. Big Enough to Be Inconsistent: Abraham Lincoln
Confronts Slavery and Race (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2008) Fine study of
the evolution of Lincoln’s views on race over the last 15 years of his life.
Magness, Philip and Page, Sebastian. Colonization After Emancipation: Lincoln
and the Movement for Black Resettlement (Columbia, Missouri: Univ. of Missouri
Press, 2011) Argues that Lincoln clung to the hopeless colonization scheme right
up to the time of his death.
Oakes, James. The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham
Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics (New York: W.W. Norton and Co.,
2007) Must reading for Lincoln-bashers. Describes the complex, ever-growing
views Lincoln held on black equality.