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 | Lincoln on Race and Slavery |
Generations of Americans have debated the meaning of Abraham Lincoln's views on race and slavery. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation, authorized the use of black troops during the Civil War, supported a constitutional amendment to outlaw slavery, and eventually advocated giving the vote to black veterans and to what he referred to as "very intelligent negroes." But he also harbored grave doubts about the intellectual capacity of African Americans, publicly used the n-word until at least 1862, enjoyed "darky" jokes and black-faced minstrel shows, and long favored permanent racial segregation and the voluntary "colonization" of freed slaves in Africa, the Caribbean, or South America. In this book--the first complete collection of Lincoln's important writings on both race and slavery--readers can explore these contradictions through Lincoln's own words. Acclaimed Harvard scholar and documentary filmmaker Henry Louis Gates, Jr., presents the full range of Lincoln's views, gathered from his private letters, speeches, official documents, and even race jokes, arranged chronologically from the late 1830s to the 1860s. Complete with definitive texts, rich historical notes, and Gates's original introduction, this book charts the progress of a war within Lincoln himself. We witness his struggles with conflicting aims and ideas--a hatred of slavery and a belief in the political equality of all men, but also anti-black prejudices and a determination to preserve the Union even at the cost of preserving slavery. We also watch the evolution of his racial views, especially in reaction to the heroic fighting of black Union troops. At turns inspiring and disturbing, Lincoln on Race and Slavery is indispensable for understanding what Lincoln's views meant for his generation--and what they mean for our own. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. His PBS documentary Looking for Lincoln marked the February 2009 bicentennial of Lincoln's birth. Donald Yacovone has written and edited a number of books, including Freedom's Journey: African American Voices of the Civil War. "Gates dispenses his lessons respectably. For the most part, he places Lincoln correctly in these different groups and along these different measures, even though it requires conceding that Lincoln fell far short of our own conceptions of justice and humanity. Amid the current bicentennial emoting, it is refreshing to read an evaluation of Lincoln that refuses, as Gates writes, to 'romanticize him as the first American president completely to transcend race and racism.'"--Sean Wilentz, New Republic Endorsements: "An essential volume for anyone who knows Lincoln or, more crucially, thinks he knows Lincoln, this eye-opening collection--so carefully selected, judiciously edited, and wisely assembled--fully evokes the complexities of the mid-nineteenth century and its most famous American personality. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s piercing introduction is a dazzling piece of original, provocative, and in the end deeply felt scholarship."--Harold Holzer, cochairman of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission "Of all the great Lincolnian questions, perhaps the most vexed and interesting is his evolving attitudes about race, slavery, and the future of African Americans after abolition. In his new book, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., presents vital evidence for the reader's judgment. Just as important, in his introduction he offers a pained, exact, careful, and persuasive account of how Lincoln's economic faith in free labor underlay his opposition to slavery--but also of how that narrow faith in the free market grew over time to become a moral position of compassion and courage. For all those who wish to believe in the capacity of public men to change their views through the force of moral argument, this book will be one of the most cheering of this Lincoln year."--Adam Gopnik, author of Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life Another Princeton book by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: Another Princeton book by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: Subject Areas: | |||||
Prices subject to change without notice File created: 11/4/2009 | |||||
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