The format of this piece is somewhat different from my usual style. I am approaching this subject in a question and answer type of format. The questions are derived from various discussions I have been involved in over my lifetime that concern this very topic, including those that have emerged here at Suite101.com. The answers to these questions will be drawn from various sources I have on Lincoln, including general Civil War texts and biographies of our 16th President.

How young was Lincoln when he was first exposed to the issue of slavery?

Anti-slavery sentiment was introduced to Lincoln at a rather early stage in his life. He was about eleven years of age when his family joined Pigeon Creek Baptist Church in Indiana, and there is little doubt that he was exposed to the minister's hard-line sermons against slavery. And though he never joined the church, Abe, like his father (who came from a slaveholding family himself) began to oppose human slavery, though most of his childhood was devoid of any real experience with actual slaves (Oates, 1994).

How did Lincoln approach the issue of slavery while in the Illinois state legislature?

In 1837, Illinois passed a series of negative "black laws" that, given the racist sentiment of the time in both North and South, most politicians favored. These laws greatly limited the rights of Blacks living in (or attempting to live in) Illinois and relegated them to the lowest of social status. They could not vote, nor could they run for political office or exercise their civic duty by serving on juries. They had to, however, pay their share in taxes if they were permitted to reside in the state. Lincoln voted against the majority of these resolutions, making it the first time he had publicly taken a stance on an issue that involved race. However, he did vote for the exclusivity of white suffrage, catering to the overall racist sentiment of the state and the North. Voting otherwise would have meant political suicide for Lincoln, and he pragmatically operated under that prospect (Oates, 1994).

Though he operated differently in his public action, his personal revulsion for slavery would grow later in 1841. While on a river steamer on the Ohio River heading back to Illinois, he noticed a group of 20 slaves on board, chained together like, as he put it, "fish upon a trot-line." He would later recall in mental anguish that the spectacle "was a continual torment to me," and that slavery "had the power of making me miserable" (Oates, 1994, p. 59, 60).

How did Lincoln's experience as a member of the United States House of Representatives shape his beliefs on race and slavery?

In 1846, with the Mexican War just beginning, Lincoln was in the process of forming his anti-war stance as a member of the House of Representatives with his "spot" resolutions. While at a Whig anti-war rally, one of Lincoln's political idols, Henry Clay, rose and spoke on many issues, from the war to territorial expansion to slavery. It was here that Lincoln's own view of slavery was reinforced by Clay. Henry Clay, a slave owner, confessed that "I have ever regarded slavery as a great evil." And he, like Lincoln, supported gradual emancipation and colonization of the freedmen to Africa (Oates, 1994).

Additionally, within three weeks of the war's outset, a Pennsylvania Senator named David Wilmot introduced a Proviso that would have declared any territory gained as a result of this war to be free soil. Lincoln, who was entirely against the territorial expansion of the vile institution, supported this measure, but it failed in the Senate after passing the House.

His abhorrence of slavery was also augmented by a familiar sight all through his days in Washington, DC as a Congressman. Just down the road from the Capitol, Lincoln witnessed, as he put it, "the sort of negro livery-stable (where) droves of negroes were collected, temporarily kept, and finally taken to Southern markets, precisely like droves of horses" (Thomas, 1993, p. 114). This was the internal slave trade, with Washington, DC at its very center. In 1848, Lincoln designed a bill that called for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia in 1850. "His measure would have liberated and placed under apprenticeship all children born to slave mothers of the District after January 1, 1850, and also provided for voluntary compensated emancipation of other slaves within the District, the whole project to be contingent on the consent of the people of the District" (Thomas, 1993, p. 126). Unfortunately, Lincoln weighed his political options and found that too little support was there for his measure. He never introduced it. He left office before any action on slavery in the District of Columbia was taken.

How did Lincoln react to the fiery issues of the 1850's?

One of the things Lincoln tried to do in his spare time was research, analyze, and scrutinize Southern pro-slavery arguments. These arguments--hinged on the basic tenets of Black inferiority and subhuman status, the economic value and necessity of the institution, and the natural existence of slavery over free soil capitalism--were at their peak during the 1850's with the issues surrounding Kansas and Nebraska, the Fugitive Slave Law, the Dred Scot decision, and other significant political issues. Lincoln often wrote counter-arguments for use in speeches. "Volume on volume, he observed, had been written to defend slavery as 'a very good thing.' Yet Lincoln had never heard of a man who wished to take advantage of this good thing 'by being a slave himself'" (Oates, 1994, p. 126).

However, it is important to also remember that his detestation of slavery only extended so far. He was not in favor of immediate emancipation but rather gradual. He did not support the extension of slavery into the territories but was more reluctant to limit it where it existed. He did not, at this time, believe that Blacks, once freed, should be integrated into white society but rather should be colonized in Africa. (The limitations on his own anti-slavery sentiment will be further explored in review of his debates with Stephen Douglas.) Further, he was often afraid to bring his anti-slavery views to the public forum. When the Fugutive Slave Law was brought into effect in 1850, Lincoln refused to publicly denounce the Act. "I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down," he confided to a friend, "but I bite my lips and keep quiet" (Zinn, 1995, p. 183).

The Dred Scot decision in 1857, in which the Supreme Court ruled that a Missouri slave who was taken by his owner to Illinois and Wisconsin had no rights to freedom upon his owners death shortly thereafter. The Court stated that Blacks "had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order--so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect" (McPherson, 1992, p. 104). Therefore, Dred Scot was still a slave and not a citizen of the United States, thus having no rights to freedom.

Lincoln, like many in the newly formed Republican party, was outraged. He warned, though somewhat derisively, that the Court would soon declare "that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a state to exclude slavery from its limits" (McPherson, 1992, p. 106). He also defended his own position that though the Declaration of Independence did not necessarily extend full freedom and equality to all groups,

they meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all, constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere (Thomas, 1993, p. 174).

He also refuted the claim of his Democratic rival, Douglas, that the Republican Party was for full racial equality in the United States. He argued that just because he did not want to see a Black woman in bondage didn't mean he wanted her to be his wife. "In some respects she is certainly not my equal," he asserted, "but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands without asking leave of anyone else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others" (Thomas, 1993, p. 175). Moreover, he believed that a hierarchy of freedom existed with a minimum standard set at the bottom. That minimum was for all Americans. At the top, of course, were white males.