TR3.5

Fauner's Lincoln's View of Slavery

Houjun Liu 2021-12-13 Mon 23:00

A summary of Will Rush…

Lincoln carried some abolitionist values but never aligned himselve in anti-slavey party.

He was trying to better the economy by abolishing slavery. Not too much critiques of the work — dismanting complicated figures who get glorified and oversimplified by history. that —

"these characters from history are human beings, and that they changes with the context with their time". We have a tendency to villify and deify

1 Reading Notes

1.1 Foner argues that Lincoln is quintessentially American

perhaps the quintessential American

1.2 Foner attempts to place Lincoln in context

tries to explain Lincoln in the larger context of the time in which he lived

1.3 Argues that Lincoln was a figure that evolved with the evolution of America

there is no single moment or single quote that can represent Lincoln’s evolving position on slavery, instead Lincoln’s greatness was his capacity for growth as the nation wrestled with its original sin.

1.4 Lincoln at first was not an abolitionist

he at first stood at odds with abolitionism, willing to confer with abolitionist leaders but unwilling to count himself among their membership

1.5 Lincoln did not argue for equality, but instead used a constitutionally-following argument

based on natural rights and the U.S. Constitution with the idea that the races didn’t need to be equal but that slavery violated the natural right

1.6 :claim: Lincoln was a patriot that disregarded his (moral) believes in favor of constitutional fairness

Lincoln was opposed to slavery not on the grounds of moral, political, or religious impetuous, but rather because he saw slave labor as theft in violation of the Nation’s founding creed.

1.7 Civil war push Lincoln into ultimate abolitionism

he tied the survival of the Union to the death of slavery

1.8 That Lincoln morphed into having impact

Lincoln as a man who grew to have such an enormous impact