Thursday, May 28, 2009

Lincoln's Racial Views

According to historian Garry Wills, black historian Henry Louis Gates thinks that Abraham Lincoln had the following three strand in his racial outlook:

(1) There is opposition to slavery, which could (but need not) free him
from racism. (2) There is the belief that blacks are inferior to whites in
intelligence and "civilization." (3) There is the belief that blacks must be
kept apart from whites, so far as that is legally and logistically possible,
which is usually but not necessarily a racist position (some blacks held
it).

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