Loren vs. Lincoln

[Loren]

In the course of doing my work on the Confederacy, I keep coming across attacks on Abraham Lincoln. Apparently, the idea is that by making Lincoln out to be prejudiced or inconsistent over slavery, this means the Confederacy didn't secede over slavery. I think that line of reasoning is pretty much bunk, but my obsession with the legitimacy of quotes eventually got the better of me, and I decided to spend some time investigating the authenticity of some I found.

Bolded below is a list of Lincoln quotes I found posted several places around the web, and th eindividual quotes seem to show up in Confederate defenses with some regularity. This list actually provided a fair number of at least partial citations, so that made it a little easier. Here's what I found:

And, that the "evil" South was not alone in its "wretchedness." Consider the great one, Abe Lincoln:

when asked "Why not let the South go in peace?" Lincoln replied: "I can't let them go. Who would pay for the government?"

This is apparently a paraphrase of another supposed Lincoln quote, which is more accurately phrased below as "What then will become of my tariff?" It doesn't actually appear in any of Lincoln's own papers, but rather shows up in a later book where it's attributed to Lincoln during a meeting with Colonel James Baldwin.

Lincoln said: " ... in saving the union, I have destroyed the Republic. Before me I have the Confederacy, which I loath. *But behind me I have the bankers, which I fear."

As far as I can tell, completely unsourced. My gut says this is a bogus quote, because it seems absurd that any politician would actually say such a thing.

In order to coalesce the forces in the North, Lincoln had to stage an incident to inflame the populace, which he did. The firing on Sumter was by his own admission a setup for just such action. Lincoln was aware that provisioning Sumter could provoke a war.

Lincoln's letter to Gustavus Fox on 1 May, 1861, makes it clear that he was pleased by the result of the firing on Ft Sumter..." You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Ft Sumter, even if it should fail; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result. "

Legit. But like I said above, it's hard to see how this demonstrates that the South didn't secede over slavery.

Abraham Lincoln said the following on September 18, 1858 in a speech in Charleston, Illinois:
"I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been , in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races [applause]: 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 I believe
will for 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."

Legit, but incomplete. This is from Lincoln's fourth debate with Douglas. Interestingly, it cuts off the paragraph's final sentence, which serves to temper the rest of the quote: "I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything."

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the
right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable a most sacred right a right, which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much territory as they inhabit." -- Abraham Lincoln (hypocritical, perhaps?)

Legit, but this is actually from an January 12, 1848 speech he gave about the War with Mexico. And it really has more to do with revolution (like Jefferson's old quote about overthrowing the government) than secession.

"I am not in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office." Campaign Speech

This repeats the quote from two entries above.

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the
institution of slavery". First Inaugural Address

Legit.

"I am more than a little uneasy about the abolishment of slavery in this District (of Columbia)." To Horace Greeley

Inexact and incomplete. (http://www.lincolnwhitehouse.org/content_inside.asp?ID=48&subjectID=2) It actually cuts off the last part of the sentence. The full quote is "I am little uneasy about the abolishment of slavery in this District, not but I would be glad to see it abolished, but as to the time and manner of doing it."

"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it".
To Horace Greeley

Really incomplete (http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm). I won't post the whole letter (from August 22, 1862), but here's an illustrative chunk:

If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.

Strangely, the rest of this quoted section doesn't appear all that often in Confederate defenses, even though it has Lincoln explicitly stating that his motive for fighting is to reunite the Union, not to free the slaves. Of course, as I've stated previously, I view the real question as being why the South seceded, not why the North fought to prevent secession, and this quote doesn't address the former question.

"What then will become of my tariff?" Abraham Lincoln to Virginia
compromise delegation, March 1861.

Questionable. See above.

On August 14, 1862, Lincoln received a deputation of free Negroes at the White House to which he said, "But for your race there could not be war...It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated." He advocated colonization in Central America and promised them help in carrying out the project.

Incomplete. There's a lot missing where those ellipses lie. Here's the complete passage, with the omitted material reinserted:

"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. Nevertheless, I repeat, without the institution of slavery, and the colored race as a basis, the war could not have an existence. It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated."

Yep, Lincoln attributes secession to slavery, but that sentence and a half gets cut out.

"Such separation...must be effected by colonization...to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be." From a speech delivered in Springfield, IL; 26 June 1857

Legit.

"What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races." From a speech in Springfield; 17 July 1858

Legit.

"I will say here...I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black race...there is a physical difference between the two, which...will forever forbid them living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and...I am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position."
Reply to Stephen A. Douglas in the first joint debate, Ottowa, IL; 21 Aug 1858

Incomplete. Once again, the quote cuts off Lincoln just before he gets to the "But..." part of his speech. After "...superior position," he continues:

"I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence - the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglashe is not my equal in many respects - certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."

[Loren]

In August, 1862, Lincoln convened a White House conference with black leaders and said to them: "Why should people of your race be colonized, and where? Why should they leave this country? You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong, I need not discuss; but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think. Your race suffers very greatly, many of them, by living among us, while we suffer
from your presence. If this is admitted, it affords a reason, at least, why we should be separated."

This is from the same August 14, 1862 speech cited a few quotes up. Again, it once again cuts off at a convenient point in the speech:

"...why we would be separated. You here are freemen, I suppose?

Perhaps you have long been free, or all your lives. Your race is suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong ever inflicted on any people. But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. You are cut off from many of the advantages which the other race enjoys. The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this braod continent not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of ours. Go where you are treated the best, and the ban is still upon you. I do not propose to discuss this, but ot present it as a fact with which we have to deal. I cannot alter it if I would. It is a fact about which we all think and feel alike, I and you. We look to our condition.. 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. See our present condition - the country engaged in war - our white men cutting one another's throats - none knowing how far it will extend - and then consider what we know to be the truth. But for your race among us..."

"Send them to Liberia, to their own native land. But free them and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit this."

Really incomplete. This is from Lincoln's speech delivered in reply to Sen. Stephen A. Douglas in Peoria, Illinois, on October 16, 1854. Again, the missing portions are italicized:

"If all earthly power were given to 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 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 whites would not.

It goes on, but you get the idea of what's been omitted in what is presented to be a 2-sentence quote.

Some ten years later, in his December 1, 1862, message to Congress, Lincoln reiterated that 'I cannot make it better known than it already is, that I strongly favor colonization."

Legit.

"Negro equality, Fudge!! How long in the Government of a God great enough to make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue to be knaves to vend and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagoguism as this?" --

Apparently from some notes Lincoln wrote on a debate with Douglas. I give it the benefit of the doubt.

And, while prosecuting the war to "free the slaves," Lincoln said:

"I cannot make it better known than it already is, that I strongly favor colonization...in congenial climes, and with people of their own blood and race."
Annual message to Congress; 1 Dec 1862

Hugely incomplete. There's actually two whole paragraphs of material represented by those ellipses. I won't quote the whole thing, but I'll share the whole first sentence:

"I can not make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization; and yet I wish to say there is an objection urged against free colored persons remaining in the country which is largely imaginary, if not sometimes malicious."

"The [Emancipation] proclamation has no constitutional or legal
justification except as a war measure."
Letter to Sec. of Treas. Salmon P. Chase; 3 Sep 1863

Legit.

What about the suspension of the habeas corpus? It was for the purpose that men may be arrested and held in prison who cannot be proved guilty of any defined crime."

"Arrests," wrote President Lincoln to that Albany committee of Democrats, "are not made so much for what has been done as for what might be done. The man who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his Government is discussed cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered (by arrest, imprisonment, or death) he is sure to help the enemy."

Incomplete and inaccurate. This is from a June13, 1863 letter of Lincoln's. Lots of material is missing from the middle, and the first sentence has been edited:

"This is precisely our present case - a case of rebellion, wherein the public safety does require the suspension. Indeed, arrests by process of courts, and arrests in cases of rebellion, do not proceed altogether upon the same basis. The former is directed at the small percentage of ordinary and continuous perpetration of crime; while the latter is directed at sudden and extensive uprisings against the Government, which at most will succeed or fail in no great length of time. In the latter case arrests are made, not so much for what has been done as for what probably would be done. The latter is more for the preventive and less for the vindictive than the former. In such cases the purposes of men are much more easily understood than in cases of ordinary crime. The man who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his government is discussed, cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered, he is sure to help the enemy; much more if he talks ambiguously--talks for his country with "buts," and "ifs," and "ands.""

Under Lincoln's definition silence became an act of treason.

"Much more, if a man talks ambiguously, talks with 'buts' and 'ifs' and 'ands' he cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered (by imprisonment or death) this man will actively commit treason. Arbitrary arrests are not made for the treason defined in the Constitution, but to prevent treason."

A bastardization of the quote immediately above. Strangely, the latter sentence doesn't seem to appear in Lincoln's own letter, but rather shows up as a supposed quote of Lincoln's in Virginia's reply letter.

Lincoln supported his home state's law, passed in 1853, forbidding
blacks to move to Illinois. The Illinois state constitution, adopted in 1848, called for laws to "effectually prohibit free persons of color from immigrating to and settling in this state."

Legit to the latter. Of course, Lincoln was a U.S. Representative in 1848, so its relevance here is questionable. I didn't try to verify the former.

Lincoln blamed blacks for the Civil War, telling them, "But for your
race among us there could not be a war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or another."

From the same August 14, 1862 speech that's already been used twice already, which, as I've pointed out, is missing some relevant material.

Lincoln claimed that "the people of Mexico are most decidedly a race
of mongrels. I understand that there is not more than one person there out of eight who is pure white.

Legit, but it reads a little different in context, as it's not made as a serious statement, but as a racial joke at Douglas' expense:

"I don’t know whether the Judge will be in favor of the Mexican people that we get with it settling that question for themselves and all others; because we know the Judge has a great horror for mongrels, and I understand that the people of Mexico are most decidedly a race of mongrels. [Laughter] I understand that there is not more than one person there out of eight who is pure white, and I suppose from the Judge’s previous declaration that when we get Mexico or any considerable portion of it, that he will be in favor of these mongrels settling the question, which would bring him somewhat into collision with his horror of an inferior race."

[Loren]

Repeatedly over the course of his career, Lincoln urged that American blacks be sent to Africa or elsewhere.

In 1854, Lincoln declared his "first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia - to their own native land." In 1860, Lincoln called for the "emancipation and deportation" of slaves. In his State of the Union addresses as president, he twice called for the deportation of blacks. In 1865, in the last days of his life, Lincoln said of blacks, "I believe it would be better to export them all to some fertile country with a good climate, which they could have to themselves."

More or less legit. The last one comes from a letter to General Benjamin Butler, April 1865.

"Would my word free the slaves, when I cannot even enforce the Constitution in the rebel States? And what reason is there to think it would have any greater effect upon the slaves than the late law of Congress, which I approved, and which offers protection and freedom to the slaves of rebel masters who come within our lines? Yet I cannot learn that the law has caused a single slave to
come over to us."

Pretty much legit, but it's missing its second sentence, which is "Is there a court or magistrate or individual who would be influenced by it there?"


"We didn't go into the war to put down slavery, but to put the flag back; and to act differently at this moment would, I have no doubt, not only weaken our cause, but smack of bad faith..."

Questionable. This doesn't appear in any of Lincoln's papers or speeches, but instead seems to first appear in an 1874 book (http://books.google.com/books?vid=0ClIv2yplJsNLSaKxNxTJHS&id=RSwOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA359&lpg=PA359&dq=%22smack+of+bad+faith%22#PPA359,M1) that recounts a conversation Lincoln supposedly had with Charles Sumner.

So there you have it. Roughly 29 quotes, of which only 13 aren't defective or misleading in some significant way. Not a sterling track record.

OK, that was a good waste of a couple of hours. Now on to better things...

[Nick Soapdish]

He had two choices with Fort Sumter.

Re-provision them and risk war.
Not re-provision them and have them starve to death or be forced to surrender to the Confederacy.

The latter just makes the North look like a bunch of weenies so I don't see how one could find fault with him taking the former. Part of why Lincoln seemed so brilliant politically is because the South was so inept. They repeatedly put Lincoln into no-brainer situations.

[LtMarvel]

Loren vs. Lincoln.

Sorry Loren, gotta put my money on Lincoln. He faced tougher mooks than youse.

[Tages]

He had two choices with Fort Sumter.

Re-provision them and risk war.
Not re-provision them and have them starve to death or be forced to surrender to the Confederacy.

The latter just makes the North look like a bunch of weenies so I don't see how one could find fault with him taking the former. Part of why Lincoln seemed so brilliant politically is because the South was so inept. They repeatedly put Lincoln into no-brainer situations.

The emboldened is inaccurate. The Confederate forces were allowing the soldiers at Sumter to go into town nearby and purchase supplies.

So while the CSA clearly wanted them to surrender, as the forts before Sumter did, I don't think they wanted them to starve.

[Shellhead]

Lincoln was a 19th century man. It would be great if he had somehow been incredibly enlightened compared to the average man of that era, but I find it credible that he had some racist tendencies of his own. I also find it very likely that the sore losers down south who continue to obsess over the defeat of the Confederacy are willing to spread some lies about Lincoln to make themselves feel better. So there are some apocryphal quotes floating around now that make Lincoln sound like more of a racist than he actually was.

It amounts to just so much hypocrisy, because in the end, Lincoln did something that even our glorious founding fathers never did: he set the slaves free. Maybe Lincoln did it to undermine the South during the Civil War. Even so, he did set the slaves free. Actions speak louder than words. The Confederacy wasn't planning on setting the slaves free, so why bother dragging Lincoln down to that level when his actions are beyond reproach?

Every southern man who still flies a Confederate flag in his front yard is an ignorant fool who would be better off learning Spanish to deal with the near future than to obsess over a past that is dead and gone.

[Loren]

Lincoln was a 19th century man. It would be great if he had somehow been incredibly enlightened compared to the average man of that era, but I find it credible that he had some racist tendencies of his own. I also find it very likely that the sore losers down south who continue to obsess over the defeat of the Confederacy are willing to spread some lies about Lincoln to make themselves feel better. So there are some apocryphal quotes floating around now that make Lincoln sound like more of a racist than he actually was.

The obsession with deriding Lincoln almost amuses me. It reminds me of people who attack MLK with arguments about infidelity, or those who try to make FDR out to be a monster. I even agree with the general negative opinion of FDR's policy, but demonizing him seems unnecessary.

I was browsing the Georgia Heritage Council (http://georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/scroggins-RBignorance-trumps-truth032207.phtml) website earlier, and got a good illustration of their Lincoln obsession. Some of their article titles: "Lincoln Hypocrisy," "More Lincoln Myths Exposed," "The Unknown Lincoln," Confronting the Lincoln Cult," "More Trouble for the Lincoln Cartel," "King Lincoln Archive," "Lincoln: America's Most Beloved Racial Supremacist," and "A Rare Lincoln Photo: Abe the Gay Entertainer."


It amounts to just so much hypocrisy, because in the end, Lincoln did something that even our glorious founding fathers never did: he set the slaves free. Maybe Lincoln did it to undermine the South during the Civil War. Even so, he did set the slaves free. Actions speak louder than words. The Confederacy wasn't planning on setting the slaves free, so why bother dragging Lincoln down to that level when his actions are beyond reproach?

The general tenor ends up being something to the effect of 'Sure Lincoln disapproved of slavery, and thought all blacks should have rights, but he didn't actually like black people and thought whites were better than them! That makes Lincoln worse than the South!'

It largely plays on the same Argument-by-Hypocrisy that I'm sick of seeing in modern day politics. A person's stances aren't attacked, but rather the attack is on some perceived inconsistency between different stances the person holds. This allows one to condemn a politician without necessarily declaring which stances you agree or disagree with him on. Changing your mind on an issue, even over the course of many years, suddenly becomes a character flaw.

That method is best seen here in the Lincoln quote from 1848, where he expresses support for the right to overthrow a government. And yet, a mere 13 years later, when he was the sitting President, Lincoln opposed Southern secession! He's a flip-flopper!

[Michael P]

The obsession with deriding Lincoln almost amuses me.

My high school US history teacher told us that his grandmother still referred to him as "That damned Lincoln."