Reply #24: Lincoln started politics as a whig, but was he really something else?

[burr]

Lincoln wrote to a friend on his political views as a Whig in 1855 "that is a disputed point. I think I am a whig; but others say there are no whigs, and that I am an abolitionist. The Declaration of Independence now practically reads that all men are created equal, but if the Know Nothings (or whigs) win it would read all men are created equal except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics. When things come to pass, I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where depotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy."

Clearly Lincoln had grown disgusted with the party he started out in, but was it wrong for him to help start what would become the country's dominate party?