Lincoln and Contemporary Blacks—an Uneasy Puzzling Relationship
More people pay a visit to the varied Lincoln historical sites than any other American figure. More books have been written about Lincoln than any other person in world history outside of Christ. Yet, blacks do not flock to these sites, nor buy their share of the books. Since Lincoln is best known as the emancipator of slaves, this may seem strange—almost ungrateful since he was assassinated precisely over this issue. Maybe it is odd that Martin Luther King, who is black, has his own national holiday for his efforts on Civil Rights for blacks, while Lincoln, who is white, has no such personal holiday for his efforts to end slavery. It seems less amazing to find the effort to help others similar to ourselves admirable, than to help those different from ourselves. Just a side point here.
So why are contemporary blacks so cautious about embracing Lincoln? The blacks who lived at the same time of Lincoln certainly showed no such caution. They didn’t doubt at all who played the major role in getting them out from under the yoke of slavery. Some modern day black historians often play down the role Lincoln played in freeing the slaves, insisting he just wanted to save the Union, not end slavery.
Slavery is a unique situation, one in which a whole segment of society loses all dignity and rights that others have. To ensure black slaves, who were a significant percentage of persons in our country at the time, had no chance to organize a successful revolt, they were kept illiterate, unskilled, and needed passes to even venture off the plantation on which they lived. Having no means of communication with each other, and knowing virtually nothing about the world outside their own plantation, blacks were truly powerless. Their plight was nothing like women trying to get the right to vote, gays trying to get the right to marry, workers getting the right to unionize, etc. Most groups gain rights and privileges pretty much on their own, and the leaders are from the group itself.
Slaves were trapped, for the reasons listed above—they could not save themselves. It had nothing to do with any deficiency of genetics and everything to do with their unique situation, especially being illiterate and the inability to communicate with blacks outside their own plantation. Given all this, it is hardly surprising that modern day blacks do not find that situation uplifting, but something they would rather leave behind. What could be more depressing than to relive the depravity of it all? As individuals many of us have things in our personal past which we have left behind, and are not interested in dwelling on anymore——period. So too have most blacks—slavery is distant enough in time now for them to have little desire to dwell on it. Even more to the point—whites were the ones responsible for black slavery, so it is asking a bit much for a white to be the hero in ending slavery. I suppose it might be reasoned by blacks as to why it took so long for slavery to end? It took hundreds of years for whites to end slavery, so there is often little wiggle room for gratitude to Lincoln or not suspect Lincoln really didn’t want to do it, but was forced to do it.
So let’s look at Lincoln’s personal role in ending slavery We will rely here on what Lincoln said, when he said it, and the circumstances in which he said it. For a start Lincoln had little personal experiences with black people. They were not part of his life growing up. His family never owned slaves, he never owned slaves. So whatever his views, they were not formulated through close interaction with blacks. We’ll start back in 1841, 19 years before the Civil War started.
"In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border." Letter to Joshua F. Speed (August 24, 1855), p. 320. This trip was 19 years before the Civil War.
Lincoln always sought reason and logic to formulate his viewpoint on most anything. His feelings followed reason and logic, not preceded. Lincoln believed “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital…..Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” (1861) 16 years before the Civil War Lincoln stated: “Most governments have been based, practically, on the denial of equal right of men, as I have, in part, stated them: ours began, by affirming those rights. They said, some men are too ignorant, and vicious, to share in government. Possibly so, said we; and by your system, you would always keep them ignorant, and vicious. We proposed to give all a chance; and we expected the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant wiser, and all better, and happier together. (1854).
Thus, Lincoln had already used reason and logic to formulate a strong opinion on labor and rights. He then applied his general principles already formulated to the question of black rights. “If A can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B——why may not B snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A? You say A is white and B is black. It is color then—the lighter having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own. You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own. But, you say, it is a question of interest; and, if you make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he an make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.” (1854)
"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it." (1858)
“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy." (1858)
"I do not wish to be misunderstood upon this subject of slavery in this country. I suppose it may long exist, and perhaps the best way for it to come to an end peaceably is for it to exist for a length of time. But I say that the spread and strengthening and perpetuation of it is an entirely different proposition. There we should in every way resist it as a wrong, treating it as a wrong, with the fixed idea that it must and will come to an end." (1859)
"This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave." (1859)
All of these statements were made by Lincoln before the Civil War.
Lincoln did not enter the Civil War to free the slaves. The reason is simple enough. He had no authority, by the Constitution, to free the slaves. Slavery, where it existed, was protected by the Constitution. Lincoln got back into politics when he did because the South was trying to get the government to permit slavery in newly acquired territories. Lincoln understood the Constitution protected it where it now existed. His belief was that if it were prevented from spreading it would eventually disappear as an inefficient system of productivity. He repeated this at various times before he was elected as illustrated below. Remember, the Civil War started in 1860.
"We think slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the territories, where our votes will reach it." (1860)
"In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time." (1858)
When the Civil War started, both sides believed it would be a short lived war. It lasted over 4 years, and the blood shed was higher per capita than any war before or since then. The South gave it all they had as they saw slavery the target, either immediately, or down the road (preventing it from existing in newly acquired territories or states). The citizens of the North fought the war to prevent the south seceding from the union. While most citizens of the north felt slavery was wrong, not that many were ever willing to fight a war to put blacks citizens on an equal bases with whites. Now let’s see how Lincoln felt about the way government works. “The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good. Almost every thing, especially of government policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgement of the preponderance between them is continually demanded. On this principle the president, his friends, and world generally, act on most subjects”. (1848)
Harriet Beecher Stowe nailed an important observation about Lincoln. “Lincoln is a strong man, but his strength is of a peculiar kind: it is not aggressive so much as passive, and among passive things, it is like the strength not so much of a stone buttress as of a wire cable. It is strength swaying to every influence, yielding on this side and on that to popular needs, yet tenaciously and inflexibly bound to carry its great end; and probably by no other kind of strength could our national ship have been drawn safely thus far during the tossing and tempests which beset her way.”
It need be remembered that no strict abolitionist could ever have been elected to any major political post in the North. It is true that some abolitionists saw things regarding blacks which were ethically correct and logical right down the line. Their understanding of blacks would meet current standards today. Some black historians see the abolitionists as the heroes, not Lincoln. This is absurd. If Lincoln had been a strict abolitionist, he would never have been nominated for President or been able to get elected. Without being elected, Lincoln could never have engineered the abolition of slavery.
It also need be remembered, and this something Lincoln knew well—he had to have people on the side of the war, not just the minority abolitionists. The only thing most everyone in the north were in common agreement on was perpetuation of the Union. His manipulation of the various factions in the north was brilliant. He bent just enough in enough directions to keep everyone focused on perpetuating the union.
Lincoln admonished two leading abolitionists in his office: “The position in which I am placed brings me different kinds of people, and it appears to me that the great masses of this country care comparatively little about the Negro and are anxious only for military successes. We shall need all the antislavery feeling in the country and more. You can go home and try to bring the people to your views, and you may say anything you like about me, if that will help. Don’t spare me! When the hour comes for dealing with slavery, I trust I will be willing to do my duty, though it cost my life. And, gentlemen, lives will be lost.” (1862)
For any modern black historian to play down Lincoln’s role in the abolition of slavery, he would have to successfully refute Lincoln’s appraisal of popular opinion, and deny, ‘that when the hour comes for dealing with slavery, I trust I will be willing to do my duty, though it cost my life.” Lincoln said many times that he would ‘move only so fast as the people are with me’. Had he expressed himself as certain black historians insist he should have, the support for the war would have evaporated and at the very least the South would have been back in the union with slavery intact. In his last speech before being assassinated, Lincoln was already talking about giving at least some blacks the right to vote. Lincoln understood human nature, especially when it comes to prejudicial matters of long standing. These black historians would have Lincoln be perfectly right on every issue of race, and if Lincoln had, he would not have been the one to actually engineer the abolition of slavery. Lincoln understood justice, especially matters of universal justice. As mentioned, Lincoln did not have a long history of association with blacks. He used his position as President to move cautiously on ending slavery. He was not prepared to move on a lot of other social issues regarding blacks—a case of we must learn to walk before we can run. On the social aspects he had to educate himself step by step. Blacks, he was told, could not be well educated, they were inferior. But he made it his business to talk to those blacks who were educated and those whites whose opinion he trusted about their educational abilities. Blacks, he was told, would be terrible soldiers, totally incapable of being good soldiers. But he gingerly put blacks in the army, although to placate those who were against it, he paid them less, at least at first. People like Frederick Douglass were furious. Lincoln told Douglass he was putting blacks in the army against public opinion, but he wanted the blacks to prove themselves in battle, and then the time would come to adjust pay. He noted that Douglas was a very educated person. Lincoln noticed that blacks were good soldiers when allowed to fight. He concluded that the general principles he had always expounded on regarding freedom and rights clearly applied to the black population. He knew the kind of prejudice that was out there and feared once let loose with freedom the white population would do whatever they could to keep negroes ‘down of the farm’. These concerns were great enough that he at first supported deportation back to Africa, but after meeting with educated blacks in this country he changed his mind—if blacks were willing to fight through all the prejudice he would not be the one to deny them this opportunity. To attempt to distort this into a notion that Lincoln simply wanted to get rid of blacks is disingenuous.
One thing is for sure. If Lincoln were really a ‘phony’ and not really wanting slavery to end, the blacks back then would have surely detected this. Blacks who lived back then knew fully well that John Brown wasn’t going to be able to free them, Frederick Douglass wasn’t going to be able to free them, the radical Republicans weren’t going to be able to free them——no, Lincoln was their only realistic hope. And every time there was movement, Lincoln came down on the right side. Lincoln always kept important matters close to his vest. He was basically educating the public throughout the Civil War. At the start of the war, Lincoln assured people he was just trying to save the Union, not fight for the end of slavery in the original states. Before that Lincoln, faced with political suicide, fudged on just how equal blacks were. It was 1858, two years before the Civil War and during the debate between Douglass and Lincoln that Lincoln made the statement which Black historians love to quote as proof Lincoln had no respect for blacks. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way 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. “
Lincoln came to the debates prepared to define slavery as a moral evil. Douglas kept insisting that Lincoln’s real goal was to make blacks the equals of whites. To focus the debate back on slavery, Lincoln offered the above statement. He had never spoke on the issues in the above paragraph, so he technically had never spoke in favor of any of the above. According to Herndon, his law partner for 25 years, "He was the most secretive- reticent - shut-mouthed man that ever lived." This personal characteristic paid many dividends in his political career. Had Lincoln ever expressed an opinion on all the issues about blacks other than slavery, his political career would have gone no where. It was Lincoln’s way of granting Douglass all these spurious situations. Lincoln knew that it must start with the end of slavery and all the rest would come, in due time. The pure abolitionists wanted all of it settled right then and there. It must be remembered that back in 1958 Lincoln had little interaction with blacks. He had no experience to start debating whether there were physical or mental differences, whether interracial marriage should be legal. He was simply convinced that freedom is deserved by all people, that those who labor should be able to benefit from what they have labored to produce. Douglas was trying to get Lincoln’s candidacy buried right then and there, but Lincoln deftly steered the debate back to his goal of ridding the country of slavery.
Later in the war, when Lincoln put blacks in the army and had issued the Proclamation to free all slaves in seceded states, he wrote back to a soldier who angrily protested that he was not fighting any war to free the negroes: “You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter. Fight you, then, exclusively to save the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time, then, for you to declare you will not fight to free negroes.”
The Emancipation proclamation has been declared a fraud by some black historians because the only blacks it freed were those in the seceding states where Lincoln had no control. Ending slavery everywhere required a Constitutional Amendment. Lincoln could only use his ‘War Powers’ to free slaves in the rebelling states. But everyone knew that it meant at the end of the war slavery would be formally abolished. People everywhere stayed up until midnight to see if Lincoln would really sign it—all blacks and whites understood the importance of the Proclamation, even if some black historians hundreds of years after the fact wish to interpret it as a sham. If certain modern black historians see Lincoln as either against or merely a token player in ending slavery, it did not seem to be the case with the blacks who lived in that period. A full third of the U.S. population either viewed his casket or stood alongside the train tracks when the train carrying Lincoln’s body passed on its way back to Springfield for burial. Keep in mind how difficult it was to travel back then, yet one third of American citizens managed to pay their respects. The lines passing his casket were estimated to be 10,000 per hour. While blacks were often put in the back of any procession, their numbers were astounding. Keep in mind that most blacks had the least wear-with-all to get anywhere. Back in those days people didn’t travel and stay in motels. They had to camp out. Blacks came in droves to stand at attention with tears in their eyes when the train passed. They knew as little about Lincoln personally as Lincoln did of them, but when push came to shove during the long four years, Lincoln never let them down. They knew he was the only horse in the race with a chance for the impossible victory for their cause.
Most groups who do do battle and die in the process of winning the battle are members of the group doing the battle. They are, of course, historical heroes to all in the group they represented. The slaves were trapped, for reasons mentioned at the start of this musing, and it was going to take a miracle white leader to beat the odds. The importance of Lincoln to blacks is best determined by those blacks who lived in that era, not some black historian far down the road who uses a license to manipulate the reality back then. Fredrick Douglass was a highly self educated black who met with, and kept pushing Lincoln throughout the war. Bitterly critical of Lincoln early on in the war, Douglass, like virtually all the blacks back then, came to understand the humanity and genius of Lincoln. Below are excerpts from a speech he made dedicating a statue of Lincoln:
“The name of Abraham Lincoln was near and dear to our hearts in the darkest and most perilous hours of the Republic. We were no more ashamed of him when shrouded in clouds of darkness, of doubt, and defeat than when we saw him crowned with victory, honor, and glory. Our faith in him was often taxed and strained to the uttermost, but it never failed………. It mattered little to us what language he might employ on special occasions; it mattered little to us, when we fully knew him, whether he was swift or slow in his movements; it was enough for us that Abraham Lincoln was at the head of a great movement, and was in living and earnest sympathy with that movement, which, in the nature of things, must go on until slavery should be utterly and forever abolished in the United States……His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined…….Few great public men have ever been the victims of fiercer denunciation than Abraham Lincoln was during his administration. He was often wounded in the house of his friends. Reproaches came thick and fast upon him from within and from without, and from opposite quarters. He was assailed by Abolitionists; he was assailed by slave-holders; he was assailed by the men who were for peace at any price; he was assailed by those who were for a more vigorous prosecution of the war; he was assailed for not making the war an abolition war; and he was bitterly assailed for making the war an abolition war……In doing honor to the memory of our friend and liberator, we have been doing highest honors to ourselves and those who come after us.”
Can we imagine certain of these modern day black historians, placed in a large auditorium of blacks from that era, trying to convince these blacks that Lincoln was some sort of imposter, some part of him was their enemy? I doubt such a historian would ever get out of the auditorium alive. Lincoln was the whole ballgame back then and the blacks knew it. There were endless booby traps all over the playing field, they watched Lincoln dart this way, then that way, and at every point along the way Lincoln kept darting toward the goal line until at last, near one December deadline, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation which finalized that Lincoln was ready to officially declare the war was indeed going to solve the slavery question. Only Lincoln had the wisdom and political manipulative abilities to have created a public environment in which slavery could finally be abolished.
When we wonder why current day blacks don’t talk more about Lincoln or visit the Civil War sites and museums, we need only understand human nature. A lot of soldiers come back from a war and seldom wish to talk about it. If someone is raised in a dysfunctional family they are not likely to be too interested in rehashing that past life. Lincoln himself would understand. When it came to human nature Lincoln was a genius.
