"Not since Lincoln." Lincoln's struggle with slavery.

We live in a shallow age. Not only are Tony Abbot’s swimwear and Julia Gillard’s accent considered two to the top political issues of the day, we are content to find one statement, one epithet, one action from a politician we don’t like and base our judgment on a person or a career on that. We think ‘racist’, ‘sexist’, ‘homophobe’ or whatever the appropriate word and reject that person and all their works. (Mind you, if you can apply all three to one person, you may be on to something.)

But take this statement:

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black 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 I believe will forever 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. 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.

Surely this appalling man was condemned to the political fringe, or at least ended his career in ignominy. However, the formal language and the vocabulary is a bit of a giveaway that this is a politician from some time ago. The speaker is Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest presidents of the United States, the Great Emancipator, and the man who did more for the advancement of black Americans in one stroke than anyone else.

But the man is a racist! Surely we should condemn him, say that history is telling us a great lie, and insist anything he did was motivated by a grasp for power and nothing else.

We could do that. Look up that quotation on the internet and commentators indeed are way ahead of me. But they are wrong. You could say they are wrong in part, but that part is such an enormous part let’s just call them wrong.

I have just read The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner, which traces Lincoln’s attitudes and actions with regard to American Slavery from his youth through to his assassination in 1865. And what he finds is a man whose attitudes towards slavery and Black Americans evolved as he went through his life, both personally and politically. Imagine that! A politician whose ideas evolve! Who responds to what he hears and sees and experiences. No! We have caught Lincoln uttering racist remarks in a political debate, we must condemn him forever!

Lincoln was a product of his time. But even as a young man he found slavery abhorrent. But being opposed to slavery did not mean feeling the Negro (to use his language) was his equal. You don’t need me to tell you that Emancipation didn’t lead to social equality. That struggle is still going on. Those calling for immediate abolition of slavery weren’t necessarily calling for full citizenship for the slaves. There were many gradations of beliefs between the radical abolitionist and those slave owners who refused to see there was even a problem.

Despite what people will tell you, the Union broke on the issue of slavery. Lincoln, along with many other politicians, was satisfied to limit the spread of slavery while allowing it to remain in the states where it existed, believing, probably rightly, that the ‘peculiar institution’ would die a natural death. The laws governing slavery, including runaway slave laws and rights of transit for slave owner in non-slave states were complex and often changing. But that solution was not good enough for many slave state who insisted the Federal Government had no rights to place limits on slaveholding anywhere. (It didn’t impress Abolitionists or black Americans much either.) The Southern States insist they broke away over state rights. But the state rights they were worried about were all to do with slavery.

Lincoln then moved to gradual, compensated abolition, with the children of slaves made bondsmen instead, which meant eventual freedom, and owners compensated for any loss of their “property”. This too was rejected not only by the Confederate States, but by the border states, slave-owning states that had remained in the Union.

All the while, Lincoln was a big believer in emigration for freed slaves, either to Africa or South America. He believed both whites and blacks would be happier separate. He was to hold to this belief for a long time, but it too was one he would eventually alter, convinced by arguments from anti-slavery activists, both black and white.

During the early years of the Civil War, Lincoln insisted the war was about preserving the Union, treating the Confederate States with the rights of any other state under the Constitution. This was his way of trying to reassure the more conservative elemens of both sides that they had nothing to fear from being part of the United States. It was only when the war was going badly and the North’s fighting spirit need reinvigorating that Lincoln finally talked about the enormous elephant in the room: the war was about slavery.  As Lincoln had said many times before, the country could not exist half-slave and half-free. Here is another Lincoln quote:

As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it, "All men are created equal, except Negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read, "All men are created equal except Negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some other country where they make no pretense of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

Lincoln knew that if you allow discrimination to one group, you prepare the way for discrimination against more.  He also knew that “all men” included those brought over in slave ships and their descendents. In a later speech, he referred to “Americans of African descent,” thus including them with all other American descended from other lands. How Lincoln would have handled the Negro question in post-war American, of course we shall never know. Doubtless he would have struggled and changed and moved between ideal and practical, the way he dealt with the slavery question.

The Emancipation Proclamation, though limited in its scope, gave the Civil War a moral and clear purpose. The war wasn’t about a poltical principle it was about a humane one. Without slavery the war may well have never come about. Without its abolition, there was no point to carrying on the struggle. The Proclamation was not a military turning point, but a moral one, for the country as a whole. Once again, the United States was reminded of the principles on which it was founded, and its people, led by their President, insisted they be upheld.

Lincoln may have been by our standards racist, but he was intelligent and open to new ideas. He was also courageous and stood up for his beliefs. If Lincoln did not genuinely believe in the intrinsic wrongness of slavery, he had many opportunities to allow it to continue and let later generations deal with it, but he did not. He played a tough political role in keeping his party with radicals and conservatives united and fought a war rather than let slavery continue. In the end, he was killed for it, the victim of a group led by a Southern white supremacist. Lincoln’s greatness, while marked by speeches and actions, may be due to his ability to evolve as a human being. He was not held by his time, or his upbringing or any other constraint. He admitted when he was wrong, saw what was right, and strove to bring it about.

The fiery trials through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.

Foner’s book is a good read, if a bit dry and academic, dealing as it often does with legislation and political manouvres. But it shows a great man struggling towards greatness. Or if you like, a great soul struggling towards its ultimate expression. There are very few Abraham Lincoln’s around, then as now. But part of our political responsibility it to listen to arguments and to engage with them. Many people such as Frederick Douglass were appalled by some of the things Lincoln said and did.  He could have dismissed him as racist, insulted him in the press and made fun of his beard. In 2011, this is the sort of thing that often passes for political debate. But he met with him, talked with him, argued with him and helped to change his mind. Listening, talking and thinking– still powerful tools.

Lincoln was one of what we all are – a flawed human being. But he rose above his time, his upbringing, his own prejudices and the pressures of his political career to end one of the greatest injustices of all time.  His methods and solutions are not perfect, but I still don’t understand those that now want to denigrate his memory. Thank goodness for historians like Eric Foner.

You may not know – I did not - that 27 million people are in slavery today, more than in the 400 years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Evil goes on, demanding our best efforts. I hope we are equal to the task.

PS: And while we’re on the subject of changing people’s minds through talk, last night my home state of Queensland passed legislation recognizing civil unions for homosexual couples. Congratulations to everyone for that one.