Lincoln and Slavery
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
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