Lincoln on Inequality
“I think it cannot be shown that when I have once taken a position, I have ever retreated from it.”
This quote spoken by Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglass in 1863 is telling of his character in multiple regards. It has been cited within the context of his humble personality when he admitted he was not as quick and willing to support black soldiers as Douglass wished. However, it is also reflective of his strength of conviction in the beliefs he held throughout his life. While most historians agree that Lincoln was thoroughly consistent in his declaration that he was antislavery, it is less accepted as to the motivation of why he was antislavery. To address the motivations behind his antislavery beliefs and goal of the end of slavery requires that his beliefs about the role and status of African Americans be established.
Opinion amongst historians is diverse and wide-ranging in regards to how Abraham Lincoln approached issues of race and equality. Don Fehrenbacher criticized Lincoln’s failure to move beyond the immediate horror and damage of slavery towards confronting, “that systematic racial discrimination might be, like slavery, a stain on the national honor and a crime against mankind.”[1] David Lightner found that Lincoln employed a politician’s touch in determining when to support black equality in America and how much equality white Americans were willing to tolerate. “I believe that if Lincoln’s words and actions are understood within their specific historical context, it becomes evident that when Lincoln said or did things that were inconsistent with egalitarianism, he did so with the deliberate intent of misleading his countrymen with regard to his personal beliefs and ultimate aims.”[2] Lerone Bennet took the provocative stance that Lincoln did not care about black Americans at all, “Insofar as it can be said that Lincoln had a policy it was to rid America of both slaves and blacks.”[3] Others employ historical empathy in categorizing Lincoln’s views and attitudes on racial equality within the context of the generational attitudes of the mid-nineteenth century, “. . .whether Lincoln changed his mind, the weight of evidence and logic seems to support the hypothesis that Lincoln died with the same basic views on black-white relations that he had held tenaciously throughout his public life.”[4]
From a limited summary of the historical research on Lincoln’s personal beliefs about the role and status of black Americans in society, it is clear that his views were complex. At the most they were in flux and evolving and, at the least, they were stunted and inconsistent. Considering that his life was cut short before he could more specifically develop what post-emancipation America would look like, it is valuable for historians to consider how his beliefs on racial equality could have influenced the role and status of black Americans after the Civil War. By analyzing and evaluating a selection of primary documents and statements, both public and private, made by Lincoln throughout his life, one will not find an absolute answer to what his beliefs were about racial equality. But one can gain a clearer picture of the fault lines that Abraham Lincoln stood on and what distinctions he was willing to make about the role of African Americans in society. Throughout the selection of documents taken from three pivotal periods in Lincoln’s life consider the following question: How did Abraham Lincoln differ between his beliefs regarding racial equality and slavery?
Protest on Slavery--March 3, 1837
The following document is a public statement Abraham Lincoln wrote and sponsored as a member of the House of Representatives with Dan Stone, a fellow Congressman from Sangamon County. This is a rare document in regards to Lincoln’s direct statements on the issues surrounding slavery and the federal government’s relationship to the institution. Considering these comments were made at the national stage early in Lincoln’s political career, lend weight to this document. Additionally, when one considers the national context of the mid-to-late 1830s, one can better understand why this document matters in establishing a baseline for Lincoln’s views on both slavery and racial equality.
Harper's Weekly, "The First Cotton Gin" (1869) "American Progress" by John Gast (1872)
On the eve of Martin Van Buren’s inauguration and the historic economic Panic of 1837, America was at the high water mark of Jacksonian-Democracy’s influence on politics. While the national economy declined dramatically and violently in the next five years, the party to which Lincoln belonged continued to flounder on the national scene. Westward expansion began to flourish into territories in Mexico while more Americans moved west of the Mississippi River into Texas and Arkansas. Amidst such a period of dramatic change, the institution of slavery also changed in dramatic ways brought on by new technologic inventions and economic trends of nationalism in the 1820s. The Cotton Boom produced a recommitment to the peculiar institution that the Framers believed would eventually die out. Events such as the debates over the Missouri state constitution, slave rebellions (like the Denmark Vesey Revolt and Turner’s Rebellion), and Congressional Gag Resolution in 1836 all demonstrated that while slavery increased and sought to spread farther west, a slave resistance movement established a counter-balance—either in the form of insurrectionists like Nat Turner or abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison. This document is part of this emerging larger conflict between the pro-slavery advocates and abolitionist radicals in the 1830s.
Springfield, Illinois (1869)
To narrow the historical context of this document further into the orbit of Abraham Lincoln, one must consider the agenda of his congressional cohort from Sangamon County. They sought two primary aims in the 1837 session: investment in internal improvements and to establish Springfield as the capital of Illinois.[1] Both of these issues found inconsistent support and were threatened by southern efforts to get states to reject abolitionist societies and open publication of their pamphlets. Many state legislatures were petitioned to ban such societies and declare as incendiary documents all abolitionist publications.[2] As Illinois was home to many Americans of southern cultural leanings as well as a particularly racist population, its state legislature passed a series of resolutions condemning abolitionist societies as attempting to interfere with a constitutionally protected institution. Amongst these resolutions were measures that condemned abolitionist societies in general and that the federal government cannot abolish slavery in the nation’s capital.[3] Members of the Illinois House of Representatives, Abraham Lincoln and Dan Stone, a fellow Whig lawyer, voted against the resolutions and produced this statement of protest against them.
The following protest was presented to the House, which was read and ordered to be spread on the journals, to wit:
``Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both branches of the General Assembly at its present session, the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of the same.
They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy; but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than to abate its evils.
They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power, under the constitution, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different States.
They believe that the Congress of the United States has the power, under the constitution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; but that that power ought not to be exercised unless at the request of the people of said District.
The difference between these opinions and those contained in the said resolutions, is their reason for entering this protest.''
DAN STONE,
A. LINCOLN,
Representatives from the county of Sangamon.[4]
Lincoln and Stone’s resolutions are brief and direct in their condemnation of the institution of slavery as unjust and impractical. This statement was characteristic of Lincoln’s views not only during this time period, but throughout his life. When referencing or addressing the institution of slavery, Lincoln used the words “unjust” and/or “evil.” While this is strong language, it is also significant to note that Lincoln did not delve into why it was unjust or to whom it was unjust. This is a terse statement of political stance rather than a moral outcry against the evil that men do—thus, helping historians to differentiate Lincoln away from the emerging abolitionists of this decade. Though, he claimed it was unjust and evil, Lincoln also described the institution of slavery as constitutionally legal. Considering the portions of the Constitution that legitimize slavery—the 3/5 Compromise and the Fugitive Slave Clause—Lincoln defended the practice of this institution in America. To Lincoln, the Constitution could enforce and legitimize evil and unjust actions. This placed stark contrast between he and Ralph Waldo Emerson who later stated, “I suppose the Union can be left to take care of itself….But one thing appears certain to me, that, as soon as the Constitution ordains an immoral law, it ordains disunion. The law is suicidal, and cannot be obeyed. The Union is at an end as soon as an immoral law is enacted. And he who writes a crime into the statute-book digs under the foundations of the Capitol to plan there a powder-magazine, and lays a train.”[5] The nuanced stance Lincoln held that slavery was morally wrong while constitutionally legal marked a fundamental point of separation between he and abolitionists who he viewed as radicals. Men like Emerson and William Lloyd Garrison transferred moral outrage into condemnation of the legal foundation of American life. As an emerging politician with ambitious aims as well as a lawyer with the utmost respect for the rule of law, Lincoln was politically aware to distinguish his antislavery thoughts from the emergent radical abolitionists in the 1830s and 1840s.
Abraham Lincoln Ralph Waldo Emerson
While slavery was legal in Lincoln’s eyes, it was not invincible before the law—it could be regulated as it had been before 1837. While Lincoln in later public addresses would note that the Northwest Ordinance was clear evidence to the Congress’ power to regulate slavery where it could exist, it is clear that Lincoln held the belief in as early as 1837. Lincoln claimed that slavery can exist where it did exist and legally Congress cannot abolish it under the Constitution. But Congress could restrict it in federally-controlled territories such as the Northwest Territories, the Louisiana Territory, and the nation’s capital in the District of Columbia.[6] This was also a belief that Lincoln held consistently throughout his political career. Lincoln tempered that statement with the Jeffersonian view that it was only in the people’s hands such congressional power could originate and be wielded. This is not a slight point to overlook as it directly relates to his view of abolitionists. In the 1830s, abolitionists were viewed as radical minorities after an ambitious change to American life in general. Lincoln was constantly anxious about the ambitions of motivated-minorities and capable-men. Lincoln condemned the actions of abolition societies as exacerbating the evils of slavery rather than eradicating them. Considering the racial beliefs of Illinoisans and the nature of the resolutions originally proposed in the state legislature, it is not difficult to understand why Lincoln included this caveat to his protest. However, it remains a consistent feature of several statements and comments throughout his career, that abolitionists could present a dangerous voice in the dialogue over slavery. To some degree it was the rise of abolitionist societies and their broad-based publications and pamphlets sent into the South that southerners were reacting to with petitions for Illinois and other state legislatures to condemn such groups. When one considers the scene of William Lloyd Garrison burning a copy of the Constitution with the claim, “This is the source and parent of all other atrocities. . . So perish all compromises with tyranny!” one can understand the political advantage Lincoln found in avoiding condoning radical views while remaining firm and consistent in his stance against slavery.[7]
William Lloyd Garrison
Lincoln did not just constrict his views of slavery to only terms of legal justice, but also in terms of economic policy. To Lincoln as to many children of men who moved away from competition with slave-holders, slavery was economically doomed to failure. Either for the expensive upfront capital needed to maintain such a system or due to the fragile balance of power rested upon a system based on stealing the bread from another man’s sweat or from the simple fact that slave-based cotton production exhausted the soil.[8] Lincoln further defined those thoughts throughout the 1850s by framing his thoughts on the economic viability of slavery in politically biblical terms—tyrants who steal the fruit of one’s labor. In notes for a speech in the 1850s, he elaborated on this economic assessment, “The ant, who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest, will furiously defend the fruit of his labor, against whatever robber assails him—So plain, that the most dumb and stupid slave that ever toiled for a master, does constantly know that he is wronged.”[9] Lincoln’s latter point about the economic failure of slavery was the basis for southern expansion of slavery west into new lands with untapped soil—Missouri and Texas. While this was not explicitly stated within this document, one can see Lincoln’s economic beliefs about slavery as an ineffective economic model which, if left to itself in the South, would ultimately die out.
A last conclusion that can be drawn from this public statement was Lincoln’s lack of comment on the impact of slavery on the lives of slaves or on free blacks in American society in general. This is not a protest of the politics of race or equality. While there are several reasons for why this particular document did not delve into those realms—including length of the document and immediate aim of the legislature’s resolutions—it is consistent that Lincoln refrained from expanding his comments on slavery as unjust into the details of why it was unjust or how that injustice could spread beyond slavery to the lives of freedmen. During this early portion of his political career, the Great Emancipator did not produce a manifesto against the institution of slavery or the impact it had on the republican virtues of American society.
[1] Donald, David Herbert. Lincoln. New York City: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Print. 62-64
[2] Donald, David Herbert. Lincoln. New York City: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Print. 62-64
[3] House Journal, Tenth General Assembly, First Session, pp. 817-18
[4] Abraham Lincoln and Dan Stone, Protest on Slavery [1837], Roy Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (8 vols., New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 1: 75-76
[5] Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “The Fugitive Slave Law: Address to Citizens of Concord, 3 May, 1851.” The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Vol. 11, Miscellanies. (Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1904): 177-214
[6] Donald, David Herbert. Lincoln. New York City: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Print. 175
[7] Fauchald, Nick. “William Lloyd Garrison: Abolitionist and Journalist.” (Minneapolis: Compress Point Books, 2005): 80
[8] Donald, David Herbert. Lincoln. New York City: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Print. 134
[9] Abraham Lincoln Fragment on Slavery [1857-1858?], Roy Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (8 vols., New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 2: 222
