Lincoln the Racist
Abraham Lincoln was openly opposed to racial equality. He wanted to ship blacks out of the United States.
"I will say, then, that I am not nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white 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 will ever 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." --
Abraham Lincoln, "Fourth Lincoln-Douglas Debate, September 18, 1858, Charleston, Illinois," in "Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings" (New York: Library of America, 1989), p. 636, and in Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 3, pp. 145-146
"Negro equality! Fudge! How long, in the government of a God, great enough to make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue knaves to vend, and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagougism [sic] as this." - Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, [New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1953], v. 3, p. 399. Fragments: Notes for Speeches, Sept. 6, 1859
"I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in the favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary." -- Abraham Lincoln, "Lincoln's Reply to Douglas, Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858, Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, ed. Roy P. Basler (New York: Da Capo Press, 1990), p. 445
"What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races." -- Abraham Lincoln, Spoken at Springfield, Illinois on July 17th, 1858; from Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works, 1894, Volume 1, page 273
“We know that some southern men do free their slaves, go north, and become tip-top abolitionists; while some northern ones go south, and become most cruel slave-masters. When southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery, than we; I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists; and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,--to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough for me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded. We can not, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the south.” -Abraham Lincoln, speech at Peoria, Illinois, 16 October 1854, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, (Volume 2, Page 255-256)
“Judge Douglas has said to you that he has not been able to get from me an answer to the question whether I am in favor of negro-citizenship. So far as I know, the Judge never asked me the question before. He shall have no occasion to ever ask it again, for I tell him very frankly that I am not in favor of negro citizenship. This furnishes me an occasion for saying a few words upon the subject. I mentioned in a certain speech of mine which has been printed, that the Supreme Court had decided that a negro could not possibly be made a citizen, and without saying what was my ground of complaint in regard to that, or whether I had any ground of complaint, Judge Douglas has from that thing manufactured nearly every thing that he ever says about my disposition to produce an equality between the negroes and the white people. If any one will read my speech, he will find I mentioned that as one of the points decided in the course of the Supreme Court opinions, but I did not state what objection I had to it. But Judge Douglas tells the people what my objection was when I did not tell them myself. Now my opinion is that the different States have the power to make a negro a citizen under the Constitution of the United States if they choose. The Dred Scott decision decides that they have not that power. If the State of Illinois had that power I should be opposed to the exercise of it. That is all I have to say about it.” - Lincoln's Fourth Debate with Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 3 page 179
Author Greg Durand offers the following comments and quotations:
In an address delivered at Springfield, Illinois on 26 June 1857, Lincoln openly declared himself in favor of racial segregation and the eventual deportation of the Blacks back to their native Africa:
"A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation.... Such separation, if ever affected at all, must be affected by colonization.... Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and at the same time, favorable to, or at least not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be." –Abraham Lincoln
Less than five months prior to delivering the final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln addressed a delegation of free Blacks at the Executive Mansion with these words:
...[W]hy... should the people of your race be colonized, and where? Why should they leave the country? This is, perhaps, the first question for consideration. You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races.... You here are freemen, I suppose... but even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race.…Owing to the existence of the two races on this continent, I need not recount to you the effects upon white men growing out of the institution of slavery. I believe in its general evil effects on the white race.... But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other.... It is better for us both therefore to be separated.... (speech delivered at the Executive Mansion on 14 August 1862)
The issuance of Lincoln's Proclamation brought no change in his position:
"I have urged the colonization of the negroes, and I shall continue. My Emancipation Proclamation was linked with this plan. There is no room for two distinct races of white men in America, much less for two distinct races of whites and blacks. I can conceive of no greater calamity than the assimilation of the negro into our social and political life as our equal.... We can never attain the ideal union our fathers dreamed of, with millions of an alien, inferior race among us, whose assimilation is neither possible nor desirable" (address delivered at Washington, D.C.; in Roy P. Basler, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume V, pages 371-375).
"I will say, then, that I am not nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white 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 will ever 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." --
Abraham Lincoln, "Fourth Lincoln-Douglas Debate, September 18, 1858, Charleston, Illinois," in "Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings" (New York: Library of America, 1989), p. 636, and in Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 3, pp. 145-146
"Negro equality! Fudge! How long, in the government of a God, great enough to make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue knaves to vend, and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagougism [sic] as this." - Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, [New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1953], v. 3, p. 399. Fragments: Notes for Speeches, Sept. 6, 1859
"I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in the favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary." -- Abraham Lincoln, "Lincoln's Reply to Douglas, Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858, Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, ed. Roy P. Basler (New York: Da Capo Press, 1990), p. 445
"What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races." -- Abraham Lincoln, Spoken at Springfield, Illinois on July 17th, 1858; from Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works, 1894, Volume 1, page 273
“We know that some southern men do free their slaves, go north, and become tip-top abolitionists; while some northern ones go south, and become most cruel slave-masters. When southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery, than we; I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists; and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,--to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough for me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded. We can not, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the south.” -Abraham Lincoln, speech at Peoria, Illinois, 16 October 1854, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, (Volume 2, Page 255-256)
“Judge Douglas has said to you that he has not been able to get from me an answer to the question whether I am in favor of negro-citizenship. So far as I know, the Judge never asked me the question before. He shall have no occasion to ever ask it again, for I tell him very frankly that I am not in favor of negro citizenship. This furnishes me an occasion for saying a few words upon the subject. I mentioned in a certain speech of mine which has been printed, that the Supreme Court had decided that a negro could not possibly be made a citizen, and without saying what was my ground of complaint in regard to that, or whether I had any ground of complaint, Judge Douglas has from that thing manufactured nearly every thing that he ever says about my disposition to produce an equality between the negroes and the white people. If any one will read my speech, he will find I mentioned that as one of the points decided in the course of the Supreme Court opinions, but I did not state what objection I had to it. But Judge Douglas tells the people what my objection was when I did not tell them myself. Now my opinion is that the different States have the power to make a negro a citizen under the Constitution of the United States if they choose. The Dred Scott decision decides that they have not that power. If the State of Illinois had that power I should be opposed to the exercise of it. That is all I have to say about it.” - Lincoln's Fourth Debate with Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 3 page 179
Author Greg Durand offers the following comments and quotations:
In an address delivered at Springfield, Illinois on 26 June 1857, Lincoln openly declared himself in favor of racial segregation and the eventual deportation of the Blacks back to their native Africa:
"A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation.... Such separation, if ever affected at all, must be affected by colonization.... Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and at the same time, favorable to, or at least not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be." –Abraham Lincoln
Less than five months prior to delivering the final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln addressed a delegation of free Blacks at the Executive Mansion with these words:
...[W]hy... should the people of your race be colonized, and where? Why should they leave the country? This is, perhaps, the first question for consideration. You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races.... You here are freemen, I suppose... but even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race.…Owing to the existence of the two races on this continent, I need not recount to you the effects upon white men growing out of the institution of slavery. I believe in its general evil effects on the white race.... But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other.... It is better for us both therefore to be separated.... (speech delivered at the Executive Mansion on 14 August 1862)
The issuance of Lincoln's Proclamation brought no change in his position:
"I have urged the colonization of the negroes, and I shall continue. My Emancipation Proclamation was linked with this plan. There is no room for two distinct races of white men in America, much less for two distinct races of whites and blacks. I can conceive of no greater calamity than the assimilation of the negro into our social and political life as our equal.... We can never attain the ideal union our fathers dreamed of, with millions of an alien, inferior race among us, whose assimilation is neither possible nor desirable" (address delivered at Washington, D.C.; in Roy P. Basler, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume V, pages 371-375).