Big Enough to Be Inconsistent: Abraham Lincoln Confronts Slavery and Race (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures)

169 Pages·2008·0.49 MB·English

by  George M. Fredrickson

big enough to be inconsistent
TheW.E.B.DuBoisLectures

big enough
to be
inconsistent
Abraham Lincoln
Confronts Slavery and Race
N
george m. fredrickson
HarvardUniversityPress
Cambridge,Massachusetts
London,England
2008
Copyright©2008bythe
PresidentandFellowsofHarvardCollege
Allrightsreserved
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Fredrickson,GeorgeM.,1934–
Bigenoughtobeinconsistent:AbrahamLincolnconfrontsslaveryand
race/GeorgeM.Fredrickson.
p. cm.—(W.E.B.DuBoislectures)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN-13:978-0-674-02774-9(alk.paper)
ISBN-10:0-674-02774-4(alk.paper)
1.Lincoln,Abraham,1809–1865—Politicalandsocialviews.
2.Lincoln,Abraham,1809–1865—RelationswithAfricanAmericans.
3.Slavery—Politicalaspects—UnitedStates—History—19thcentury.
4.AfricanAmericans—Civilrights—History—19thcentury.
5.Staterights—History—19thcentury.
6.Federalgovernment—UnitedStates—History—19thcentury.
7.Presidents—UnitedStates—Biography. I.Title.
E457.2.F786 2008
973.7092—dc22 2007034018
For Jake and Carlito

Contents
Preface ix
1 AClashof Images:
GreatEgalitarianorHard-CoreRacist? 1
2 FreeSoil,FreeLabor,andFreeWhiteMen:
TheIllinoisYears 43
3 BecominganEmancipator:
TheWarYears 85
Notes 129
Index 146

Preface
more than thirty
yearsagoIpublishedanarticle
entitled “A Man but Not a Brother: Abraham Lincoln
and Racial Equality.”1 Since then a great deal has been
writtenonthissubject,someof itdisagreeingwithone
ormorepointsthatIhadmade,especiallymydebatable
suggestion that Lincoln’s racial views remained essen-
tially unchanged until his dying day.2 In this book I
wish to return to the subject and broaden it by incor-
porating the scholarship of the past three decades as
well as devoting greater attention to Lincoln’s view of
slavery as an institution or state of being, considered
apartfromtheraceof itsvictims.
ThebookderivesfromtheDuBoislectures,givenat
ix