Because Lincoln was president during the Civil War, and he issued he Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, the people in the United States have a view of him as a great champion for equality and the prompt abolition of slavery. However, when reading the documents provided for this blog post, one realizes that Lincoln, like most men of his time, believed in the superiority of the white man and thought the slaves and free blacks inferior to him. In 1858, in his address in Ottawa, Illinois, he clearly says that he is in “favor of the race to which [he] belong[s] having the superior position” despite the accusations of his running rival of urging for the equal rights of blacks and whites in the country. In the same address, Lincoln says that he believes that there is a “physical difference between the two, which, in [his] judgment, will probably forbid t their living together upon the equal footing of perfect equality.” His position as a statesman and his desire to maintain a favorable image that the rest of the country would agree with probably motivated Lincoln to express his ideas of superiority when he addressed a crowd.
Nevertheless, when he says that blacks are not his equal in “color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment” he also acknowledges that these differences do not translate to blacks having to endure slavery. In his response to the Dred Scott decision in 1857, he says that a black woman is equally entitled to the “right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands without asking the leave of anyone else.” All people are equal in the fact that they are entitled to “‘certain inalienable rights, among them which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’” While politically and socially the two races are not the same, both groups of people have the right to lead their life however they please without having to answer to a master.
While Lincoln did not want to end slavery immediately and favored a colonization effort to remove the black population from the United States (Annual Speech to Congress), he did have negative views of slavery. In his letter to Alexander Stephens, Lincoln admits that slavery “is wrong and ought to be restricted” because it denied the black population the possibility of caring for themselves and having to answer to one. Obviously, his views on race and his opinions on the rights people possessed, greatly influence what he thought about slavery. While he did not believe that blacks and whites could live together harmoniously, he did think that it was possible for blacks to be free and left alone without any personal interaction. Whatever his views on the other race, Lincoln claimed he hated the institution “because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself” (Peoria, Illinois, 1854). Clearly, none should be subject to such a fate.
Lincoln’s personal views of race were influential in his dislike for the institution of slavery, but he also considered the preservation of the Union and the effects that the image of the United States as a slave-holding nation had on the rest of the word. In 1854, in Illinois, Lincoln said that slavery “enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites.” He did not agree with the fact that a country that represented freedom still held other human beings as slaves. The consideration he held for the United States ultimately prompted him to declare emancipation during the course of the war. Lincoln, as president, was invested in the preservation of the Union and he would do anything in his power to prevent its disintegration. While Lincoln expressed his personal views on race and on slavery to the public, he did not make decisions based on personal opinion. The Emancipation Proclamation was prompted, not by his personal desire to see slaves free, but as a strategic move that would contribute to the victory and preservation of the United States. He clearly says, in his letter to Horace Greeley, that if he could save the Union by not freeing any slaves he would do it.
Lincoln ultimately was a politician that did not allow his personal views to drive his political decisions. While his views on race influenced his ideas and his dislike for slavery, untimely the only thing that influenced his actions was his regard for the Union.