Lincoln and the Abolitionists

Fred Kaplan

• Publisher: Harper
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780062440013
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

"Anyone who wants to understand the United States' racial divisions will learn a lot from reading Kaplan's richly researched account of one of the worst periods in American history and its chilling effects today in our cities, legislative bodies, schools, and houses of worship."— St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The acclaimed biographer Fred Kaplan returns with a controversial exploration of how Abraham Lincoln's and John Quincy Adams' experiences with slavery and race shaped their differing viewpoints, providing perceptive insights into these two great presidents and a revealing perspective on race relations in modern America

Though the Emancipation Proclamation, limited as it was, ultimately defined his presidency, Lincoln was a man shaped by the values of the white America into which he was born. While he viewed slavery as a moral crime abhorrent to American principles, he disapproved of antislavery activists. Until the last year of his life, he advocated "voluntary deportation, " concerned that free blacks in a white society would result in centuries of conflict. In 1861, he reluctantly took the nation to war to save it. While this devastating struggle would preserve the Union, it would also abolish slavery—creating the biracial democracy Lincoln feared.

Years earlier, John Quincy Adams had become convinced that slavery would eventually destroy the Union. Only through civil war, sparked by a slave insurrection or secession, would slavery end and the Union be preserved. Deeply sympathetic to abolitionists and abolitionism, Adams believed that a multiracial America was inevitable. Lincoln and the Abolitionists, a frank look at Lincoln, "warts and all, " including his limitations as a wartime leader, provides an in-depth look at how these two presidents came to see the issues of slavery and race, and how that understanding shaped their perspectives.

Its supporting cast of characters is colorful, from the obscure to the famous: Dorcas Allen, Moses Parsons, Usher F. Linder, Elijah Lovejoy, William Channing, Wendell Phillips, Rufus King, Hannibal Hamlin, Andrew Johnson, Abigail Adams, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and Frederick Douglass, among scores of significant others. In a far-reaching historical narrative, Kaplan offers a nuanced appreciation of the great men—Lincoln as an antislavery moralist who believed in an exclusively white America, and Adams as an antislavery activist who had no doubt that the United States would become a multiracial nation—and the events that have characterized race relations in America for more than a century, a legacy that continues to haunt us all.

INDEX

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abolitionism and abolitionists, xiv, 12, 38, 39, 299

John Quincy Adams and, xi, 4, 25–26, 58, 65–68, 151, 152, 205

arguments of opponents, 61

Beecher family and, 282

black abolitionists, 307, 310–16 (see also Douglass, Frederick; Walker, David)

in Boston, 56, 57, 58, 59, 63, 65, 69, 149–50, 247, 249–52, 310, 311

Boston Tremont Temple anti-abolitionist riot, 254–57

Buchanan and, 267

Civil War, view of, 331

Clay’s views of, 144–45, 148–49, 151–52

H. Ford Douglas and, 244–48

Emancipation Proclamation and, 333

Hamlin and, 325

heroes of, 247–48, 258, 334–35

Jefferson viewed by, 307, 308–9

Kansas-Nebraska Act and, 230

Key’s opposition to, 7

King’s views on, 117

Lincoln’s views on, xi, xii, 25, 26, 46, 52, 53, 55–56, 65, 144, 148, 186, 226, 227, 250, 259, 262, 275

Lovejoy and, 27–28, 33–35, 38, 39, 44–45, 50, 52, 57, 64

in New England, 247

newspapers of, 34, 55, 58, 311

in the Northeast, 69–70 (see also Boston)

opinions about Lincoln, xiv, 251–52, 278, 286, 288–89, 290

Phillips’ Tremont Temple speeches and, (1860), 249–52, 254–55, 262

practicality of, 62

Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and, 294

presidential election of 1860 and, 253

presidential election of 1864 and, 328

racial problems today and, 334–35

as radical and threat to civil order, 32, 35, 56, 65, 197, 205, 268

Republican Party and, 241, 253

in St. Louis, 29

separatism and, 331

Seward and, 275

slave insurrection and, 268–69

Springfield anti-abolitionists, 53–54, 58

war powers and, 298

Whig rejection of, xii, 20, 25, 26, 39, 55, 64–65, 144

See also Douglass, Frederick; Garrison, William Lloyd; Lovejoy, Elijah; Phillips, Wendell; specific abolitionists

Adams, Abigail, xiii, 335

on black character, 83

civil rights for free blacks and, 220

on emancipation, 83

freed slave of, Phoebe, and, 79–83

Othello and, 221

prejudiced neighbors of, 83

on racial mixing, 220, 221

on representation, 98

on secession threats, 104–5

on slavery, 83, 85–86

on Southern politics, 88, 94

Adams, Charles Francis, 199, 228–29, 279

Adams, John, xiii, 59, 104, 334

American Revolution and, 85

as antislavery moralist, 280

breech with Jefferson, 94, 100

civil rights for free blacks and, 220

Confederation Congress and Southern position on slaves, 87

Congregationalism and, 79

defense of Boston Massacre soldiers, 91

defense of John King, 91–93

on emancipation, 88

as Federalist, 96

Haiti and, 136, 149

Rufus King and, 93–95

loss of presidential election (1800), 88, 141, 155

principles of, 91

on racial mixing, 220–21

on slavery, 88–89, 136, 137–38, 149

as U.S. foreign minister, 79, 82

as U.S. President, 94, 99, 102, 138

as U.S. Vice President, 97–98

Adams, John Quincy, 245

abolitionism and antislavery activism, xi, xii, xiii, 1–11, 17, 25–26, 58, 65–68, 71–73, 151, 152, 205, 206, 214, 334

abolition petitions and, 2, 40–41, 54–55, 69, 144–45, 149–50

access to, by mail or person, 67, 71

Adams–Onís Treaty and, 122, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• One: A Continual Torment
• Two: The First American Martyr
• Three: A Difficult Year
• Four: A Field of Blood
• Five: The Distant Goal
• Six: The African Mirage
• Seven: The Constitutional Rag
• Eight: The Ameliorative President
• Nine: Soft Inducement
• Ten: The Ultimate Gradualists
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index
• Photo Section
• About the Author
• Also by Fred Kaplan
• Copyright
• About the Publisher