Dissertation
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Lincoln’s values were important in shaping his outlook on slavery, as well as dictating the extent to which he
voiced opposition to the institution. Lincoln’s speeches and writings indicate that from the mid-1850s
onwards, slavery became of increasing concern. Lincoln expressed opposition for a number of reasons,
including the inherent wrong he saw in slavery and an apparent desire among some of his countrymen to
spread its evils. Furthermore it is necessary to consider how Lincoln articulated his views on race as they
help to illuminate his apparently ambivalent views on slavery. Lincoln’s fundamental beliefs in the equality of
all men contrasted with the common conception that blacks were inferior and not deserving of the same
rights as whites. This chapter will discuss the development of Lincoln’s ideas on slavery and race.
Lincoln’s Values
Historians and biographers commonly suggest that Lincoln’s moral opposition towards slavery stems
originally from the preaching and sermons of a Baptist minister. The young Abraham Lincoln heard the
minister ‘inveighing against slavery’ and, as his father did, Lincoln came to oppose the idea of human
bondage.# While Lincoln was keen to distance himself from the barely literate, labour intensive world of his
father, the importance of Thomas Lincoln’s antislavery views can be seen as a factor which helped to shape
Abraham’s views. Lincoln’s personal experience of slavery in his formative years in Indiana and Illinois was
limited, although there was much discussion surrounding the Missouri Compromise of 1820.# This perhaps
can explain his later reverence towards the Compromise which limited the spread of slavery, and his
admiration for the architect of that agreement, Henry Clay. Lincoln’s most important contact with blacks and
human bondage came from the trips on the Ohio River to New Orleans that he took with Joshua Speed, and
from visiting the slaveholding family of his wife, Mary Todd. During his riverboat voyages with Speed, Lincoln
noticed the ‘effect of condition upon human happiness’, when referring to the presence of slaves being taken
to a farm in the South. His views as expressed in a letter to Mary Speed seem ambiguous, when he mentions
that ‘amid all these distressing circumstances, as we would think them, they were the most cheerful and
apparently happy creatures on board.’ Seeming to find some comfort in their outward appearance of
happiness, Lincoln concludes by suggesting that ‘How true it is that “God tempers the wind to the shorn
lamb,” or in other words, that He renders the worst of human conditions tolerable, while He permits the best,
to be nothing better than tolerable.’# This sentiment does not seem particularly opposed to slavery,
especially when compared to Lincoln’s reflections upon the encounter several years later. In a letter from
1855, Lincoln declared that the sight of ‘ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons,’ constituted a
sight that was ‘a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other
slave border.’# This change in views suggests that the later description of the incident was influenced by
Lincoln’s increased awareness of the slavery question, and indicates a Lincoln more knowledgeable of the
evils of slavery. Lincoln’s views on slavery must be examined within the context of his time, as these diverging
accounts of the conditions of slaves also reflect changing attitudes in the north towards slavery between the
early 1840s and the mid-1850s.
In Kentucky with the Todds and the Speeds Lincoln experienced first-hand slavery in patriarchal households,
and would have seen the ‘institution in its least oppressive form.’# As an Upper South slave state, Kentucky
did not demonstrate the same overt signs of a slave society that was evident in the Deep South. Slaves in the
families of Lincoln’s friends were regarded as African-American servants, whose condition was accepted as
a normal part of life in Kentucky. If Lincoln felt any outrage against their treatment, he did not express it
publicly or privately. At this time in Lincoln’s life, belief in the economic problems caused by slavery
outweighed the issue of morality. Of far more concern to Lincoln was the fact that slavery ‘stifled free-
enterprise, discouraged self-discipline, and sustained a fundamental inequality: depriving human beings of
the just rewards of their labour.’# Economic opposition to slavery would remain with Lincoln throughout his
life, but would be joined later by an increasing sense of moral outrage against the inhumanity of the condition
of bondsmen.
The importance of slavery to Lincoln in the years prior to the 1850s can be illustrated by the records of his
legal career concerning slavery-related cases. Brian Dirck has suggested that it was Lincoln’s faith in the
American legal system that provided him with a sense of community and a sense of self. Lincoln was
apparently less concerned with matters of conscience, motive and intent where the law was concerned, and
‘became aware that there were often no absolute winners, and perhaps no absolute right or wrong, in the
outcome of a trial. “There are few things wholly evil or wholly good,” he once remarked.’# This general outlook
was combined with a limited exposure to cases involving slavery and meant that Lincoln’s views on slavery
were less pronounced in the 1840s and early 1850s when his legal practice was predominantly engaged in
tort, corporate and criminal cases. Two often cited cases show a Lincoln willing to argue both sides of the
slavery question. The Matson case of 1847 saw Lincoln defending the rights of a slaveholder to retain his
slaves when moving to a free soil area, while the Cromwell case later that year saw Lincoln defending a
black woman seized as a slave. In the latter, Lincoln argued that ‘the presumption of law was, in this State
[Illinois], that every person was free, without regard to colour…The sale of a free person is illegal.’# These
cases reflect two important points about Lincoln’s views during the 1840s. Firstly, no matter how he might
feel personally concerning slaveholders who attempted to bring slaves into free territory, he felt obligated to
defend their rights under the law and the constitution. Secondly, Lincoln firmly believed that everyone brought
to court deserved representation, whether white or black, slave or slaveholder. Lincoln made no moral
judgements where the law was concerned. He believed that laws should be upheld, and if repugnant, they
should be respected until they could be struck down by the proper legal means.
After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, Lincoln gradually became more outspoken against
the immorality of slavery. This theme emerged especially during Lincoln’s debates with Stephen Douglas in
1858. Lincoln declared in speech after speech that the nation was divided into ‘the men who think slavery a
wrong and those who do not think it wrong.’ This was followed by a clear statement of his position, and that of
his party: ‘The Republican party think it wrong - we think it is a moral, a social and a political wrong.’# Lincoln
was always ready to confirm that the issue of right and wrong was at the heart of the slavery debate, and he
attempted to sway the crowds gathered to hear him speak to do the morally right thing, and side with the
Republicans. Moral opposition to slavery became an integral part of Lincoln’s political agenda and he would
not allow any reneging on his declaration to oppose attempts to increase the influence of the slave power.
Lincoln emphasised Douglas’s apparent indifference to slavery, allowing it to spread through the popular
sovereignty doctrine into Kansas and other new territories. He declared that the recent 1856 election was ‘a
struggle, by one party’ to reject the idea that slavery was wrong, and ‘to substitute it for the opposite idea that
slavery is right, in the abstract’ with the consequence of ‘the perpetuity of human slavery, and its extension to
all countries and colours.’# Lincoln sought to emphasise this difference in the 1858 debates.
The Republican platform had been based around a fundamental opposition to slavery, and Lincoln was
always keen to emphasise that this philosophy coincided with his own views. Lincoln affirmed that
Republicans ‘think slavery is wrong; and that, like every other wrong which some men will commit if left alone,
it ought to be prohibited by law.’ He concluded that his party thought slavery ‘not only morally wrong, but a
“deadly poison” in a government like ours, professedly based on the equality of men.’# Whereas Lincoln and
his Republican colleagues would strive to remove the damaging influence of slavery from the nation, the
Democrats were intent on its perpetual survival and expansion. Lincoln said that ‘the Democrats deny [the
Negro’s] manhood; deny, or dwarf to insignificance, the wrongs of his bondage; so far as possible, crush all
sympathy for him, and cultivate and excite hatred and disgust against him.’# Lincoln’s speeches suggest a
distrust of the Democratic party that was most noticeably manifested in his opposition to slavery. From his
Peoria address in 1854 onwards, Lincoln took an increasing interest in the slavery question. He absorbed
ideas first promulgated by antislavery leaders including Salmon P. Chase and refashioned them into an
effective argument of his own. The points Lincoln expressed in the Peoria address would form the basis of
his thinking over the next decade, with some fine-tuning of his rhetoric, but fundamentally similar in his
opposition to slavery. As Neely has suggested, the importance of Lincoln’s contribution ‘lay more in the
eloquence of his statements than in his originality.’#
Lincoln was concerned that slavery prompted some citizens to place the ‘greedy chase to make profit of the
Negro’ ahead of ‘the white man’s charter of freedom.’# Economic concerns joined Lincoln’s moral concerns
in his opposition for slavery. Exploiting blacks for profit was clearly an abuse of the work ethic he was so keen
to promote, as he could point to his own rise from humble origins as evidence of what could be achieved
through self-improvement and dedication. Mark Neely has suggested that Lincoln ‘hated slavery expansion
for what it would do to the American economy and, more particularly to free white American labourers,
degrading their efforts to rise in life.’# If slavery was allowed to spread into new territories, argued Lincoln,
then white labour would not be able to compete with black slave labour. This would not only continue to
degrade life for blacks, but restrict opportunities for whites as well, save for the small number of slaveholders
who would profit from greater slave territory. As was often the case with Lincoln’s argument against slavery,
the physical cruelties of the institution were considered, but economic prosperity was also threatened.
Slaveholders provoked Lincoln further by claiming that slavery was a beneficial state for the slaves. Lincoln
scoffed at the idea that slaveholders were acting out of anything less than their own interest. He exclaimed
‘Nonsense! Wolves devouring lambs, not because it is good for their own greedy maws, but because [it] is
good for the lambs!!!’# Lincoln noted that ‘although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very
good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself.’# It was not
simply the institution that caused offence to Lincoln’s sensibilities, but those who had the audacity to defend
its alleged benefits also received condemnation.
Racial Equality
Lincoln’s views on racial equality demonstrate the same sense of hesitancy that is evident in his gradual
evolution to becoming an antislavery politician. It is important to consider how Lincoln articulated his views on
race as he faced the ‘unresolved ambiguity of freedom for the Negro. Is freedom the same for black as for
white? Are all men created equal?’# Lincoln’s response was predominantly affirmative to the second
proposition, but uncertain on the first. Such a conflict of views on the issue of black freedom were doubtlessly
influential on Lincoln’s slavery views. Living and working in Illinois, Lincoln inevitably shared the sentiment
that blacks were in some ways inherently unequal with whites. During his speech on Kansas-Nebraska he
asked rhetorically what should be done with black slaves. On the idea of freeing them and granting them
equal political rights, he declared that ‘My own feelings will not admit of this, and if mine would, we well know
that those great masses of white people will not…A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, can not be
safely disregarded.’# Lincoln accepted that the vast portion of Northern public opinion was opposed to the
political equality of blacks, neither was he a keen advocate. Again, this reminds us that Lincoln was a man of
his times, when black equality was frowned upon by the majority of white Americans. This example also
serves to illustrate the political ambition that Lincoln possessed. He knew that anti-black sentiment in Illinois
was a powerful force, and that if he wished to make any impact on the political climate in the state, he could
not present himself as an outright proponent of black equality. Lincoln would have to wait until sentiments
were less opposed to the idea of a natural equality between the races. Northerners might accept the ‘abstract
idea of emancipation, but not the idea of racial equality,’ and Lincoln was always keenly aware not to alienate
Northern popular opinion.#
Lincoln was not averse to playing to audiences’ prejudices during his speeches, at times he bordered on
outright racism. During the debates with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln remarked that ‘there is a physical
difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together
on terms of social and political equality.’# Such comments were usually made to reassure the anti-black
sentiments of the crowds. While white audiences might accept Lincoln’s opposition to slavery, they were less
forgiving on matters of equality. Richard Carwardine notes that when Lincoln was faced with ‘politically
friendly audiences’, he could make some statements concerning a fundamental equality between blacks and
whites. When crowds were undecided and more conservative, Lincoln ‘made no reference to equal rights or
the Declaration of Independence and elicited considerable laughter by stroking his audience’s prejudice over
the idea of inter-racial marriage.’# Rather than focusing on the inhumane conditions of human bondage,
Lincoln warned crowds that by sustaining the supporters of slavery in positions of power, ‘Negro equality will
be abundant, as every white labourer will have occasion to regret when he is elbowed from his plow or his
anvil by slave niggers.’# While this was consistent with Lincoln’s economic appeals against slavery, it was
couched in terms that would pander to the widespread racist feelings of his audience. Lincoln accused the
Southern Democrats of being in favour of ‘amalgamation,’ as the slave states possessed a greater
proportion of mulattoes. The Republicans, asserted Lincoln, were the party who wished to exclude slavery
from the territories, and thereby reduce the chances of whites and blacks intermingling.#
Lincoln noted that the overall living conditions for blacks had barely improved since they had been first forcibly
brought to American shores. In fact, he was sure their conditions had, if anything, deteriorated. Lincoln’s
writings suggest that he was aware of the difficulties that blacks were forced to endure. According to Lincoln,
the hostility of public sentiment had ‘degraded the black man in the estimation of Douglas and his followers
from the condition of a man of some sort, and assigned him to the condition of a brute.’ Lincoln told the
slaveholding South and their Democrat allies that this was ‘the largest possible stride that can be made in
regard to perpetuation of your thing of slavery.’# While slavery was still ensconced within the Union, the
position of blacks could never improve, as by its very nature slavery propagated inequality. Lincoln accused
Democrats of desiring that ‘slavery should be perpetual and that we should not foster all lawful moves toward
emancipation.’ Furthermore, ‘to gain their end they will endeavour to impress upon the public mind that the
Negro is not human, and even upon his own soil he has no rights which white men are bound to respect.’#
Lincoln could accept suggestions that there was a political or social inequality between whites and blacks,
but there were some rights, as proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, which were endowed upon all
races.
Douglas and other Democrats attacked Lincoln’s ‘Black Republicanism’ by suggesting that he was
encouraging interracial liaisons and even wished to free slaves so he could take a black woman for a wife.
Lincoln dismissed these claims as ‘counterfeit logic’, stating that ‘In some respects she certainly is not my
equal; but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands without asking leave of anyone
else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others.’# Lincoln, and indeed other leaders of the Republican party
were hesitant about extending the natural rights of blacks to calling for emancipation. Lincoln expounded the
superior position of whites as the natural order, but just as natural was the right of blacks to basic human
necessities and freedoms, which slavery denied them. He set forth a simple plea before the white voters of
Illinois: ‘All I ask for the Negro is that if you do not like him, leave him alone. If God gave him but little, that little
let him enjoy.’# Lincoln admitted that he did not see a perfect equality between blacks and whites to be likely,
or indeed, desirable. In the first debate with Douglas, he declared that he had ‘no purpose to introduce
political and social equality between white and black races.’# Lincoln repeated this idea in the subsequent
debates, further illustrating the limits of his views on equality. A Massachusetts antislavery society refused to
endorse his candidacy in the 1860 presidential election precisely because he appeared to deny the tenets of
the Declaration of Independence, and was ‘unworthy of the votes of all those who love freedom and regard
justice.’# In reality, Lincoln’s publicly expressed position on the equality of blacks was close to that of the
majority of Northern public opinion. Lincoln seemed constantly aware of how far he could push popular
opinion with regard to black equality, which was not as far as he could with opposition to slavery.
In terms of political rights, Lincoln assured listeners that he was not in favour of granting blacks full
citizenship. After all, in the Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court had ruled that states did not have the
power to make blacks citizens.# During his political career in the Illinois legislature in 1836, Lincoln affirmed
that all whites deserved the right of suffrage, but ‘like virtually every other Illinois politician, did not think African-
Americans were entitled to the ballot.’# Despite this early sentiment, Lincoln later joined Republicans in
suggesting that despite the inherent inferiority of blacks, there was no need to add more ‘to the burdens of an
already downtrodden race.’# Otherwise, Lincoln warned, through such actions as the Dred Scott decision of
1857, black inequality was bound to increase, accompanied by further restrictions of freedom. Dred Scott set
a dangerous precedent, in Lincoln’s opinion. It overturned previous rulings to curtail rights for all blacks, slave
or free, declaring that any black person in a similar situation to Dred Scott would be treated just as harshly.
Completing these dark prospects for the future, once freedoms for blacks had been curtailed, there was no
reason to suggest that white freedoms would remain untouched.
In Lincoln’s view, the basis for the fundamental equality of whites and blacks on the level of natural rights,
was the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln hailed it as the ‘first precept of our ancient faith,’ describing it
as the nation’s founding charter.# As Susan-Mary Grant suggests, Lincoln felt that the Declaration ‘offered the
only valid means to nationhood for a people comprising many different ethnic groups’.# It was the best
indication of the Founders’ views on race and equality:
Those who signed that document, Lincoln contended, did not intend “to declare all men equal in all respects.
They did not mean to say all were equal in colour, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity.” What
they meant to say was that all men, black as well as white, were equal in their inalienable right to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness.#
It was impossible to reconcile the presence of slavery with the right of liberty for all men, therefore Lincoln
concluded that slavery was not part of the Founders’ vision of the Union. The Fathers had merely tolerated a
distasteful institution that they had inherited. Lincoln affirmed that in the Constitution, the word ‘slavery’ was
not to be found. He suggested that ‘the clause that covers the institution is one that sends it back where it
exists, not abroad where it does not.’ Lincoln suggested that it was Congress’ duty, as part of laying the
foundations for society, to be ‘strongly opposed to the incorporation of slavery among its elements.’# The
Declaration of Independence could also be used by those in favour of the institution of slavery. Indeed, those
with the authority to shape the future of the country in the late 1850s were predominantly Democrats,
including President Buchanan, Senator Stephen Douglas and Chief Justice Taney. Lincoln was dismayed by
their apparent desire to assert that the Declaration ‘did not include black Americans’ and that they had
‘concocted a new doctrine that operated “to dehumanise the Negro - to take away from him the right of ever
striving to be a man.”’# When blacks were judged to have no recourse to the law, their position became ever
more tenuous. This danger did not only apply to slaves who might one day escape, but also to blacks who
had already been emancipated, and even those who had been born free. Lincoln was concerned that his
egalitarian interpretation of the Founders’ intentions would be drowned out by Democrats in collusion with
the slave power, and seemed convinced that the nation’s ‘future, if it had one, lay in the free states.’#
It was the key phrase in the Declaration of Independence suggesting that ‘all men are created equal’ which
provided Lincoln with a cornerstone of his opposition to slavery. In Lincoln’s view, the American Union was
the great hope for freedom in the world, and the continued presence of slavery betrayed the ideals enshrined
in the Declaration.# Lincoln saw an inherent danger in those who would claim that the Declaration did not
apply to blacks. He posed the question: ‘If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another says it
does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we
find it and tear it out!’# Conversely, where the Declaration was in conflict with the rights enshrined in the
Constitution, Lincoln was equally adamant in the opposite direction. He affirmed that while slavery was a
violation of the principles of the Declaration,
that principle had not been made one of legal obligation; that by our frame of government, the States which
have slavery are to retain it, or surrender it at their own pleasure; and that all others - individuals, free-states
and national government - are constitutionally bound to leave them alone about it.#
Even with Lincoln’s firm belief that the Founders had attempted to declare that all men, including Negroes
should be free and equal, as long as slavery enjoyed protection in law and in the Constitution, slaveholders’
rights needed to be respected. This suggests that Lincoln’s antislavery tendencies were often limited by
other fundamental beliefs.
Lincoln’s writings also suggest, however, that his views on the equality of the white and black races was
limited. He could imagine and proclaim a fundamental natural equality that all men shared, an equality which
had been espoused in the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln stated that ‘there is a world of
compensation; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to
others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.’# When it came to issues
of political rights and black citizenship, Lincoln was more cautious, lest he be accused of being an
abolitionist. Lincoln’s stance on this issue does raise the suggestion that ‘Without the vote, without
citizenship, without social parity with his fellow man, the Negro’s “equality” would be a strangely ambiguous
status, a no man’s land somewhere between freedom and slavery.’# A combination of his personal caution
combined with overwhelming popular opinion meant his stance towards black equality in the period before
his presidency was always carefully couched in terms his audiences would find acceptable. The limitations
concerning Lincoln’s views on racial equality reflect similar limitations in his opposition to slavery.
Lincoln’s initial opposition to slavery was shaped by his upbringing, his Whiggish economic views and a
belief in the constitutional methods of tackling the institution. Allen Guelzo has suggested that prior to the
1850s, when Lincoln spoke of ‘slavery,’ he was referring to ‘any relationship of economic restraint, or any
systematic effort to box ambitious and enterprising people like himself into a “fixed condition of labour, for his
whole life.”’# While this definition referred to black slavery, it also included free labourers who were exploited
by their bosses, or white workers adversely affected by competition with slave labour. In this period it was
more the denigration of labour inherent in black slavery that offended Lincoln, rather than the harsh
conditions and lack of freedom. As Leonard Richards notes, Lincoln ‘was content with what he regarded as
Henry Clay’s position - a national policy that treated slavery as an evil, set limits on its expansion, and looked
forward to a day of its “ultimate extinction.”’# Yet slowly Lincoln began to accept that slavery was not destined
to die out as he had always believed it would. The arguments over slavery’s expansion grew in intensity and
he felt obliged to become involved in them. He was able to articulate the ideas espoused by antislavery
leaders in a manner that was less inflammatory to the general mass of Northern opinion. Lincoln was even
praised by abolitionists for demonstrating that he was the friend of coloured people, as the publisher of the
Chicago Tribune, Zebina Eastman declared that ‘we knew he was a politician that could be trusted.’# Lincoln
was not alone in demonstrating an often contradictory position on slavery, as ‘Lincoln’s difficulties with the
question [of slavery] reflect a great deal of the perplexity and ambiguity with which a considerable segment of
the Northern public approached it.’# Lincoln’s slowness in reaching a well-defined position on slavery was
partly a case of a difference between moral opposition to slavery and respect for the legal rights of
slaveholders. If Lincoln was to make any headway against the power of the Democrats he would need to
adopt a platform neither too radical nor too weak. Once roused into the national arena by the Kansas-
Nebraska act, Lincoln felt more able to articulate opposition to the spread of slavery, with the constant offer of
reassurance to his Southern brethren that he did not intend to interfere with slavery where it existed.
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