Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 18:49:40 -0500 (EST)
From: louisgodena-AT-ids.net (Louis R Godena)
Subject: Re: M-I: RE: on nation building



Tony Hartin claims:

>There is more than enough evidence to convict Lincoln beforehand as both
>pro-slavery and a racist.


Racist, yes, pro-slavery?  I doubt it.  Lincoln, as President, catered the
interests of two rather disparate classes -- yeomen farmers and industrial
capitalists, neither of whom had much use for chattel slavery. It was, they
were convinced, archaic and unprofitable.  And the Civil War was about, not
slavery, but the preservation of both the union and the rising capitalist
class that was coming to dominate the national government, to the
consternation of the southern planter aristocracy, which itself had held
sway for more than half a century.

Early in 1863, the Lincoln administration acquired land in Central America
for the newly freed blacks.  "Why," he said to a black delegation, "should
the people of your race be colonized, and where?  Why should they leave this
country?  This is, perhaps, the first question for proper consideration.
You and we are different races.  Whether it is right or wrong I need not
discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, I
think.   Your race suffers very greatly, many of them, by living among us,
while ours suffers from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side.
If this is admitted, it affords a reason, at least, why we should be
separated."   

Louis Godena



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