Faculty Lecture Series - Dr. Ed Crowther - 9/23/2009

Was Lincoln a racist, or is that reading the present into the past? Did he really free the slaves, or did their self-emancipation force his hand? The Lincoln bi-centennial has provided an opportunity to review the words and deeds of the 16th president. Absent from much of the public discussions and commemorations about Lincoln is the vast historical scholarship--both old and new--which reveals a very human politician, whose hatred of slavery was lifelong, and whose views on race evolved with his experiences in difficult times. This talk delineates the race-related questions posed by Lincoln's words in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, his posture toward emancipation and colonization during the Civil War, the applicable scholarly arguments, and a fresh reading of Lincoln as politician and emancipator during the Civil War.