Lincoln and Slavery
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
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