Thought-provoking article: "What 'Lincoln' misses and another Civil War film gets right"....

[Moonwalk]

38. Oy! First off, let's separate Lincoln the man from Lincoln the politician...

In 1860 there was only one way for a Republican to get elected (go ahead and read "Team of Rivals&quot --and that was to be against slavery spreading to new territories BUT not to want to get rid of slaves in existing territories. That was the party line. A true abolitionist would not have gotten nominated as the Republican candidate as there would be no way he could win the presidency. I suppose the ironic comparison to now is guns. If one of the democrat choices in the next election said they'd completely outlaw gun ownership...would they get nominated? How about the one who said, instead, "We need more gun control laws, but let gun owners keep their guns...."

Lincoln wanted to be elected, and as an ambitious politician, he had to have that point of view at least publicly. So we have him saying this publicly in 1860 to those who he hopes will vote him into the presidency: "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." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Speech at Chicago, Illinois" (March 1, 1859), p. 370.

This doesn't mean it's what he actually thought, nor how he came to eventually think by the end of the war. Very like our own president on the subject of gays, a man--a president's views can evolve. And Lincoln started with remarkably evolved views on slavery even if he maintained the party line in public. Here is an argument he wrote up to himself in 1854 (six years before what he said above) against slavery--it's remarkably modern in its views:

"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, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you."

In short, are we really going to take to task anyone born in another time for not acting like the modern, enlightened, 21st century person we want them to act like? I'm sorry, but there are very few real human beings who magically transcended their time and failed to absorb any of the misogynistic or racist or religious bias held by their culture and historical period. I think it better to admire what people did in spite of their inherited prejudices--and that means looking at their entire life not cherry picking only the bad stuff or good stuff for that matter--rather than try to find spotless historical figures that somehow transcended all that (good luck with that!).