Abraham Lincoln was more than just a good president; he literally saved our nation. Perhaps no one else available at that time could or would have led this country through the Civil War and gotten passed the 13th amendment permanently ending slavery. But he was a complex man as made clear by a recent book, “Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times” and a mini-series on CNN.
He always saw how wrong slavery was but was enough of a politician to not publicly associate himself with the extreme Republicans who endorsed abolition which would have derailed his chances to be elected. Rather early on he fought for disallowing slavery in new states. This position was sufficient, combined with his showing during his debates with Stephen Douglas and his Cooper Union speech, to get him the Republican nomination and eventually the presidency.
As president he pushed toward the goals of abolition of slavery and achieving citizenship for the ex-slaves when he determined he could act and, as a result, both eventually came to be. It is true that earlier he supported the goal of transferring freed slaves back to Africa or to a South American location. So, he either evolved his thinking and regard for black people or concealed a commitment to abolition until the time was right. His north star was always the assertion in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” without qualification depending on skin color. If only John Wilkes Booth had not ended his life before the Reconstruction era. Instead we got the racist Andrew Johnson and Jim Crow became the norm.
