There are some historians here on OS who are aware of this, but it is not something most folks think about today. As an aside, this post is basically a cut and paste from a Stormfront post by another author which I am editing/adding to, to get to the meat of my point.
The Emancipation Proclamation did not actually free the slaves. To wit:
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom."
Lincoln's proclamation would have no more effect than if President Obama issued a proclamation that all Israeli sex slaves were hereby freed.
For decades, conservatives/Republicans have used the issue of Lincoln freeing the slaves to make the point that they aren't racist. They need to knock that crap off and face reality. Abe Lincoln never gave a hoot about blacks---in fact, he didn't really care for them.
Part of this could be due to the fact that Abe was almost killed by a group of blacks when he was 19. (The more things change, the more they stay the same. 19th century black crime stats weren't that much different than today.) Quote: "When he was nineteen, still residing in Indiana, he made his first trip upon a flat-boat to New-Orleans. He was a hired hand merely; and he and a son of the owner, without other assistance, made the trip. The nature of part of the cargo-load, as it was called – made it necessary for them to linger and trade along the Sugar coast – and one night they were attacked by seven Negroes with intent to kill and rob them. They were hurt some in the melee, but succeeded in driving the Negroes from the boat, and then “cut cable” “weighed anchor” and left."
Then we have Lincoln's own words on the matter:
"In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, which took place in 1858, while debating in Ottowa, Illinois on August 21st of that year, Mr. Lincoln stated, quite plainly, that: "I have no disposition to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together on terms of respect, social and political equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there should be a superiority somewhere, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position;"
"Lest one be tempted to think that this Lincolnian sentiment was a mere abberation, a slip of the tongue on his part, let's note Lincoln's comments in his speech at Charleston, Illinois on September 18, 1858. Here, dealing again with the same question, Lincoln said: "I will say then, that I am not nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way, the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not, nor have I ever been in favor of making voters of the negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, or having them to marry with white people...there must be the position of superior and inferior, that I as much as any other man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man." And he repeated, again, this exact same sentiment in the debate in Quincy, Illinois on October 13th."
And lastly........To start with, says Bennett, Lincoln was a crude bigot who habitually used the N word and had an unquenchable thirst for blackface-minstrel shows and demeaning "darky" jokes. He supported the noxious pre-Civil War "Black Laws," which stripped African Americans of their basic rights in his native Illinois, as well as the Fugitive Slave Act, which compelled the return to their masters of those who had escaped to free soil in the North. But Bennett's main theme is that Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was only "a ploy" designed to keep as many slaves in bondage as possible until Lincoln could build support for his plan for ending slavery: "colonization," a preposterous scheme to ship the black population either to Africa or South America. His fondest dream, Bennett writes, was of a "lily-white America without Native Americans, African Americans and Martin Luther Kings." (Can I hear an A MEN!!!!!!!)
Honestly, to repeat, my fellow conservatives need to stop touting Lincoln as some kind of idol for supposedly freeing the slaves. If you are a conservative and you aren't racist, you'll need to cite other proof that the Republican party is the party of inclusion and diversity--both big mistakes IMO.
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