Abraham Lincoln's Racial Perspective

Eugene R. Fingerhut, in the essay "Abraham Lincoln, Negroes and Whites," writes that Lincoln's views on the slaves and on blacks in general gradually evolved from a racist perspective to a more humane one. Fingerhut says this change came about as the result of the Civil War, not simply because Lincoln became a more just man by contemplating the issue of slavery. It is an essay based on a realistic analysis of Lincoln's policy toward slaves and slavery. It does not accept the idea that Lincoln was a champion of blacks and their freedom from beginning to end, but neither does it say that Lincoln should receive no credit because he changed only because he had to change. As Fingerhut points out in what could be a summary of his essay: "The man who was inaugurated President in 1861 still hoped free Negroes would leave America. At his death in 1865 Lincoln was formulating a

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