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Re: Abe's 200th Birthday Today
In Response To: Re: Abe's 200th Birthday Today ()

Dennis you asked; "So, might Lincoln have embraced both viewpoints at different times as expressed in my earlier post?"

Certainly he embraced both viewpoints at different times, because it was politically expediant to do so. To me it would be hard to prove that he ever had a genuine viewpoint NOT shaped bt political reality.

Remember that Lincoln was a politician from southern Illinois. Southern Illinois was very much more sympathitic and tolerant of slavery than the Northern part of that state, seeing as a lot of the people in that part of the state immigrated from Kentucky and Virginia. Geographically and Climatically southern Illinois is farther south than Richmond, Va.

The sentiment of the people of Southern and western Illinois, along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, were at best indifferent to the freeing of the slaves. The Northern part of Illinois was settled by people from the Northeastern states traveling by way of the Great Lakes, hence their attitudes. His family being from Kentucky were a part of this "southern" community, and his political base was in Gelena Illinois. It was only the radical elements which demanded the freeing of the slaves during that period.

It was politically expediant to court the majority voters in the 1850's if you wished to be elected to Congress as he was, or elected as a Senator as he was trying to do in the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Remember Douglas was more proslavery than Lincoln during those debates, and he won that election and went on to run as one of 3 Democrat candidates for President in 1860 also. Lincoln would not have won the 1860 election had the basically "Stay the Course" stance on Slavery of the Democrat party voters NOT been divided among 3 different candidates.

In my opinion Lincoln mearly held his "Political Finger" in the wind as far as his opinion went on anything, except his political ambitions of being the President of ALL the States, until it became politically necessary for him to change his position.

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Abe's 200th Birthday Today *NM*
Re: Abe's 200th Birthday Today
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Mary Todd Lincoln on Slavery
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Re: Abe's 200th Birthday Today
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Re: Abe's 200th Birthday Today