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In reply to the discussion: Allen West to NPR: ‘Abraham Lincoln only served one term in Congress, too’ [View all]BainsBane
(52,999 posts)To hold him in esteem? You post reads like a grade-school version of history. Firstly, history is constantly in the process of revision. If it weren't, we would never have gotten beyond learning about kings and presidents. All history is revisionist. To hold political leaders to a 21st century standard does them a disservice. It not only ignores much of who they were, but it dismisses the difficult cultural context that they operated in. If Lincoln had thought as we do, ending slavery would have been an easy decision. His path was far more conflicted. His ability to resolve those contradicts in favor of freedom is precisely what made him such a great President.
Lincoln was NOT an abolitionist. He was a proponent of Free Soil. They were distinct movements. William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Weld, The Grimkes, Frederick Douglass, and Sojourner Truth were abolitionists. Lincoln was far more pragmatic in seeking to stop the spread of slavery into the new territories. Yet it was Free Soil rather than abolitionism that succeeded in persuading Americans to vote to limit slavery, and that eventually let to it's end.
Lincoln was a active supporter of colonization. Read that section in The following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_and_slavery