Chapter 16: His Personal Views on Race Are Revealed in a Debate with Douglas

Abe wins the Republican nomination after his House Divided speech arguing that the nation cannot endure half slave and half free. What follows are a series in seven debates across Illinois from August 21 to October 15.

Douglas immediately attacks Lincoln as a Black Republican abolitionist who would favor intermarriage and even citizenship and suffrage for the Africans. He makes his opposition clear:

In my opinion this government of ours is founded on the white basis. It was made by
the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by white men,
in such manner as they should determine.

Lincoln vigorously denies the abolitionist tag while pointing out that freeing Southern slaves is legally prohibited by the 1787 Northwest Ordnance. But he also argues that the nation’s Founders wanted slavery to wither away, as inconsistent with the moral values announced in the Declaration of Independence.

However, when pressed at Charleston on September 18, Lincoln reveals his own uncertainties about full racial equality:

There is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe
will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political
equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together,
there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any man am
in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.