Naturally Anti-Slavery: Lincoln, Race, and the Complexity of American Liberty

Abstract

In this age, when some charge any revision of political position as a "flip flop" and consider thoughtless consistency a praiseworthy political attribute, we would do well to remember one of the most important political figures in American history, President Abraham Lincoln, a man who learned from personal experience and changed his mind. In a letter written in 1864, one year before his assassination, Lincoln expressed a view of himself as firmly opposed to the institution of slavery. "I am naturally anti-slavery," he wrote. "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." Then he added an intriguing autobiographical note, "I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel." 1 Although Lincoln did not have much direct contact with slavery during his early life, he did observe the general inhumanity of the institution. He saw slaves at labor, being sold, and being punished. He was generally appalled but he was constrained by his acceptance of the legitimacy of law. Significantly, he believed that the United States Constitution protected slaveholders' human property, placing it beyond the reach of his personal morality. No matter how he felt about slavery, under the law, slaves were personal property and the source of great wealth throughout the South. S. Wilentz (ed.), The Best American History Essays on Lincoln