Lincoln, Race, and Slavery Before 1858: The Key Documents

Abstract

Typically, students learn about Abraham Lincoln's views and policies regarding slavery and race as they were formulated after his emergence on the national stage during and after his debates with Stephen Douglas in 1858 and especially during his presidency. Lincoln, however, stated on a number of occasions that he had always hated slavery. This teaching strategy focuses on the years before the Lincoln Douglas debates and on his public utterances on slavery and race, beginning with his first public statement in March 1837, when he was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives. His private views, as Michael Ryan-Kessler suggests, had a much longer history than that. One might ask: How did Lincoln, born in a slave state and raised in a southern midwestern culture that was virulently racist, emerge so differently from most of those with whom he grew up? And why Stephen Douglas, a native of Vermont, never publicly challenged the morality of slavery?