I got it. I need to resize it. But we're good.

The union was the primary thing he cared about, not the only thing. Only fanatics only care about one thing (SEE Brown, John). Lincoln actually had pretty complex views on slavery which changed radically over his life and during his presidency (actually encountering black people changes one's perspective a tad). If you are interested in his views on slavery, I cannot recommend The Fiery Trial highly enough. It is a great book by a great historian, Eric Foner.

But I think it is wrong to state that Lincoln did not care about slavery. However, it is true he cared about legality and Union more (hence the Emancipation Proclamation only freeing slaves in rebelling states, as a war measure under his powers as commander-in-chief).

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Posted by iwyLSUiwy

I'm your huckleberry

Member since Apr 2008

34488 posts

Posted on 11/15/12 at 12:01 pm to Baloo

I'll have to check that out. I go to a black college,or whatever you want to call it, Southern. My last history class was Pre Civil War history(we covered it just not past it), and like most my instructors, she was black. We covered a good bit about blacks coming over from Africa and the ridiculously gross/terrible trip and situation they were in, which was actually the most interesting part of the class. The end of the semester was pretty fun around the time we got to Lincoln and freeing the slaves. I would imagine a majority white college Pre-Civil War class would be a good bit different

She wasn't really a Lincoln fan and didn't give him much credit at all which was mind blowing to the class (I was the only white person I think). She was a very knowledgeable teacher and really liked me but had a odd opinion of Lincoln. If you research Lincoln and how he talked in multiple speeches/addresses yeah he does sound like a racist. But a racist in today's standard but was on par or under par for the south at the time. Don't know why that turned her off like it did. After that class though Jackson became my most interesting president. Dude was an old badass and a friggin racist toward Indians my god.