Abraham Lincoln Was A Racist

Some of you may read that title and be thinking, “Right On!” and some of you may be thinking, “How dare she?” (Assuming someone other than papermasks ever reads this blog, of course.) However, I’ll probably surprise both sides by the time I’m done.

Now, I love Abraham Lincoln. I think he was a great man who did great things. Even the fact that he suffered from depression makes me love him because he managed to trudge on in spite of it.

My favorite Abe story is about a young Abe and Ann Rutledge. He reportedly loved her deeply even though she was engaged to another man and went into a depression after she died of typhoid. The story goes that the night of the first rainfall after her burial Abe rushed away, startling his friends.

When he didn’t return they went looking for him and found him holding an umbrella over her grave. They approached him, asking for an explanation and he reportedly wept, “I cannot bear that it should rain upon her.”

That story may be an exagerration or just flat untrue. I mean, certainly today that language sounds unbelievable, but that’s the way they talked back then. Proper grammar. Beautiful prose being completely commonplace…

Disease! Death! Prejudicial Ignorance! Enslavement! Insufficient Sanitation!

Okay, sorry about that. I had to remind myself why I really am glad I didn’t live in the nineteenth century.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, Lincoln.

The fact is that Lincoln, like most abolitionists, was a product of the culture of the time: A culture that viewed slaves of African decent as little more than animals. I'm thinking that people of the time kind of viewed them in a similar way to the way we view animal rights activists.

Note: I am not in any way, shape or form saying that people with more melanin are animals or animal like. Well, any more than any of us is. I am saying that back in the nineteenth century the general consensus was that they were just a notch or two above animals and, for the record, the general consensus was wrong (as it often is).

Now, there were the “moderate” abolitionists like Lincoln who recognized the vicious cruelty being perpetrated by slave traders and owners but “understood” that darker persons were inferior. They actually believed that slavery was so wrong, there was no need to liberate slaves. If you prevented new states from legalizing it and enforced it's ban in other states, the system of slavery would collapse.

This is oddly similar to the tack we took on Communism. We never outright fought to destroy the U.S.S.R. We just did everything we could to keep communism from spreading and waited for it to collapse.

Huh...I'm not really making a point there. It just strikes me as odd. Anyway...

There were radicals, like John Brown, who were the PETA of their day. Insisting, not only that the cruelty stop immediately, but that slaves be given all the rights of other men.

When you look at Lincoln’s life, you can see his opinion changing. The reason? I think it was information. I think Lincoln was ignorant. His heart was in the right place but his understanding of the abilities and nature of visibly darker persons was based mostly on second hand information. If he actually had the opportunity to meet a freed slave, that person had been deprived of even the most basic education.

Remember me talking about how much the culture of the time valued grammar? Think of the worst Grammar Nazi you’ve ever met and populate the world with them. These people prized oration and elucidation so highly, and there you have the slaves: deprived of anything remotely resembling an education and that wasn't accidental.

Then Lincoln met Fredrick Douglas. Fredrick Douglas was a GREAT man. (And, seriously, someone needs to make biopic of his life while Morgan Freeman is still able to play the lead role. I'm just saying...)

When he was a boy he was given as a “house boy slave” to a young couple upon their marriage. The young woman had never been around slaves and, thus, treated young Frederick as she would any other child. She gave him chores around the house and set aside time each day for education.

When her husband, a man well schooled in the slave culture, learned of the lessons he stopped them immediately. His reaction was so violent, the extremely intelligent Frederick Douglas, recognized that something about an educated slave was threatening. So, he carried on teaching himself and educating himself.

Frederick Douglas was eloquent. He was so well read and well spoken that even many abolitionists couldn’t bring themselves to believe that he was the real deal. They speculated that he was simply parroting the words of others. That's how deep the belief that darker pigmentation meant a person was, well, somehow less than a person.

Now, Lincoln and Douglas didn't always agree. Douglas critisized the fact that Lincoln initially merely opposed the expansion of slavery and not emancipation. However, Lincoln's interaction with men like Douglas, men of darker pigmentation that disproved what he had been taught, were the key to his growth as a man. When Lincoln met Douglas, he didn't stupidly and rigidly cling to the belief that all darker people were inherintly stupid like so many others did.

Even the people working to free slaves were colored by the propoganda of the time and limited interaction with former slaves who had been deprived of education and traumatized by their experiences. They made the mistake of confusing ignorance with unintelligence.

That ignorance was steadfastly maintained for just that purpose and given this zealously maintained ignorance among dark folks, it’s not surprising that an equally distressing level of ignorance was maintained among light folks.

What’s my point?

Yes, Abraham Lincoln had an ignorant understanding of skin pigmentation. He was a racist, but not in the way we think of racism today, and probably not for all of his life.

Today, the proof of the equality of man is all around us. People of darker pigmentation speak the same language, have been permitted to achieve high levels of education, they have been allowed to make incredible and significant contributions to our society and culture. Well, some of them have been allowed (that's going to need to be another post).

If you are a racist today, it is because you are stupidly, willfully ignorant.

The fact that Lincoln, over the course of his life, continued to refine his opinion of slaves and those of darker pigmentation is remarkable. It is conceivable that, had he been allowed to live, he would have come to a modern day understanding of race. That is amazing considering the culture in which he was immersed.

And that's why we have to actually look to Lincoln as an example. Because even though his point of view was skewed and bent, he was thinking for himself instead of following the crowd, and that is what makes him remarkable.

So, yeah, Lincoln was a racist and that’s the truth. But the truth also is that he was a kind, loving, deeply compassionate man who thought for himself. I don’t think it’s fair to despise him for his ignorance any more than it would be fair to despise the slaves for theirs.

I don't think it's fair to stand within a culture of awareness and tolerance that was, in part, created by Lincoln and his example and despise him.

I also think (becasue that's all this is, theories and thoughts) that we have to be careful. If Lincoln and so many others were led astray by the culture of the day, we stand in similar peril. The lesson I take from Lincoln is to try to never just follow the crowd; to never accept that something is right or wrong without examining the evidence and searching my own soul.

I'll end with what Fredrick Douglass had to say in a candid tribute to Lincoln at the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial. A tribute in which he did not fail to point out Lincoln's faults:

"Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word?"