To the modern American schoolchild learning the history of her country, fuzzy ideas of the Civil War might be transmitted, pitting a villainous, or at least severely misguided, South, where every white man was a spoiled plantation owner or an evil overseer, against a North full of heroes who realized black people were just like them. The leader of these heroes was Abraham Lincoln, a true forward-thinker who would be among the most tolerant Americans even today, and who cut the bondage of every American slave, warmly inviting them into American society as equals. Yet analysis into Lincoln’s less iconic speeches and writings reveal that he was subject to many of the same prejudices as the vast majority of Americans at the time, and that the emancipation strategy he most favored was sending them elsewhere once freed. In light of this, those Confederate memorial groups who criticize the modern idealization and glorification of Lincoln might actually be on to something.

Reading some of Lincoln’s statements on race would certainly burst the bubble of someone who had imagined the great American hero of liberty and equality as the very paragon of tolerance. But after all, we must realize that Lincoln was a product of his times. He was not an anachronism, no space alien beamed down to show Americans the error of their ways. Could such a person ever be elected to the presidency, after all? He was human, and subject to the same sicknesses of society, a judgment of others based on the color of their skin, as nearly everyone else at the time. Yet Lincoln did have certain ideas which, while finding support in the Republican party, were passionately controversial and the antithesis of those of many of his countrymen.

Not before the war, and perhaps never throughout it, did Lincoln believe that black people were quite the same as white people. He believed they had inherent differences, the most manifest and inalienable being physical. “There is a physical difference between the two [races],” Lincoln claimed in 1858, “which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality.” In 1862, when talking to a delegation of freedmen to persuade them to colonize in Central America, one of his arguments was that the “similarity of climate with [their] native land” was “suited to [their] physical condition.”

Some Southerners may have used such arguments to portray blacks as being ideal for their work as slaves. Yet Lincoln believed that their physical difference was due to the climate in which their race had long lived, and suggested that it was unjust for them to be in North America at all. He certainly did not believe that this physical difference occasioned them to be slaves. “In some respects [a black woman] certainly is not my equal,” he said in 1857, “but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands without asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others.”

Lincoln’s discourse suggests he found black people different from whites in other ways, as well. In 1858, he claimed that a black man “is not my equal in many respects-certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment.” Note, however, that he does not commit to a black man not being his equal in the latter qualities, only suggests that this might be the case. I find this very interesting, as in this statement he only admits to the difference in color, which is obvious, and what meaning has color, after all? At any rate, this statement seems a way of hedging, that is, pleasing everyone by suggesting the superiority of the white race in these faculties but not committing to an opinion. His actual opinions at the time are difficult to discern.

At any rate, at the 1862 meeting with a black delegation mentioned above, Lincoln admits that black men can be as intelligent as their white counterparts. “It is exceedingly important that we have men at the beginning capable of thinking as white men,” he states, “and not those who have been systematically oppressed.” He acknowledges that for those in bondage, their “intellects are clouded by Slavery.”

Thus it seems Lincoln was very stable in his claim of a physical difference between whites and blacks, but not so certain about whether they differed in moral and intellectual capacity. He recognized that slavery had dehumanizing effects on those subject to it, leading to an appearance that black people had less mental faculty and were morally inferior. Yet he saw that indeed this was only an appearance, as his comments to the freedmen suggest. This may, of course, be Lincoln’s strategy of trying to please everyone, that they may work together as harmoniously as possible, simply giving lip service to the black community. However, I do not think so. Lincoln was an intelligent and sensible man, and when interacting with free black men, I do not think he would have allowed prior assumptions to prevent him from realizing their intelligence. What’s more, I doubt he would have invited this delegation into the White House if he did not respect them.

Lincoln’s ultimate opinions on slavery and race are difficult to pinpoint with certainty. But I would say these things with confidence: He thought that black and white people were at least physically different, that it was unnatural to bring Africans over as slaves in the first place, and that both whites and blacks would be better off if the blacks were colonized back into Africa or a similar climate. He thought that the institution of slavery was wrong, as it dehumanized those in bondage; besides, he wished, as he wrote in 1862, “that all men every where could be free.” However, before the war and well into it, he did not think it was sensible, nor did he believe he had the right, to impose his morals on the nation and effect immediate emancipation. Saving the Union was always his main aim, and as the war progressed, immediate emancipation became a strategy used in desperation, even bypassing the Constitution, so that the nation which gave meaning to that Constitution might live.

I also want to note that it is important to remember how much opinions can change over time, especially when faced with a traumatic experience like war. From my own experience in daily life, I have noticed that opinions naturally change over the course of time, even from day to day, depending on moods and social factors including the persuasion of others. They can seem to change depending on who we are talking to; the degree to which these are instances of trying to placate our audience, or evidence of our less solid opinions being swayed by others, differs in each case. With this in mind, trying to arrive at Lincoln’s innate and ultimate opinions on slavery should be attempted with care. At any rate, Lincoln’s opinions were not some constant, innate secret that we can someday uncover and unlock like buried treasure. The best we can do is define what he articulated in his discourse, that is, his speeches and writings both public and private, which were probably his best way of holding his own thoughts together against the onslaught of opinions and complaints that battered him in his role as president. And we must bear in mind that these opinions were bound to change over time, so blanket statements such as “Lincoln thought blacks were intellectually inferior,” won’t do if we find contradicting evidence elsewhere in time.

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