Lincoln, Abraham (1809–1865)

Views on Slavery

Lincoln's views on slavery were consistent but complex. His father had moved the family from Kentucky to Indiana partly to avoid association with slave society. During his 20s, Lincoln transported goods on a flatboat to New Orleans, where he observed the slave markets and reportedly expressed revulsion at slavery. As a member of the Illinois legislature, he refused to sign a resolution condemning abolitionists for encouraging slave revolts; he endorsed another resolution that, although critical of abolitionists, noted that the system of slavery was founded on injustice and bad policy. Yet in his early public career, Lincoln did not give prominence to the issue. In speeches such as the 1838 Lyceum Address and the 1842 Temperance Society Address, he referred to slavery only ellipti-cally and by analogy. As a lawyer, he defended a master seeking to reclaim a fugitive slave as well as a fugitive claiming his freedom.

Lincoln's antislavery convictions were aroused by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Until then, he said, public opinion was that the founders had placed slavery on the path to extinction. So long as that was the case, its continued existence could be tolerated as a matter of necessity. But the Kansas-Nebraska Act opened the possibility of perpetual slavery. Lincoln made opposition to slavery's extension the centerpiece of his political creed, and it became the organizing principle of the new Republican Party. He believed that slavery must either expand or die, so containing it would be the first step toward its demise. He considered this to be a conservative position, returning to the approach of the founders.

For Lincoln, the fundamental evil of slavery was that it denied slaves the fruits of their labor, and secondarily, it was inconsistent with self-government. To the argument that slaves in the South were treated better than wage earners in the North, he responded that slavery precluded upward mobility, whereas northern wage earners might become self-employed merchants or capitalists. He defended the right to strike on the grounds that one retained control over one's labor. Frequently, he maintained that any system holding that one person was entitled to rule another person placed liberty for all at risk. Lincoln was not insensitive to the [Page 853]plight of the slaves, but neither their wretched condition nor the brutality of their owners furnished the principal grounds of his opposition.

Although opposed to slavery, Lincoln was not an abolitionist. His preferred solution was colonization—the simultaneous voluntary emancipation and deportation of slaves. Despite evidence of the infeasibility of colonization and the lack of enthusiasm for it, he continued to advocate it as late as 1862.

Even if he had not shared dominant U.S. views about race, Lincoln believed that he was legally precluded from doing anything about slavery where it already existed. Slavery was recognized—albeit implicitly—in the U.S. Constitution. It was a matter over which each state was sovereign. The Constitution also recognized the obligation to return fugitive slaves to their masters. Lincoln thought that he was bound by these compromises as much as by any other provisions of the Constitution. Accordingly, he frequently disclaimed any intent to interfere with slavery in the southern states. As president-elect, he indicated that he would be willing to accept a proposed constitutional amendment irrevocably guaranteeing protection of slavery where it already existed. Believing that this protection was already implicit in the Constitution, he did not object to making it explicit.

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