It is now widely said that Obama is modeling himself on Lincoln. Wonderful; he should. Last night on "Charlie Rose," Eric Foner, the Columbia historian, in a discussion of Obama's transition in historical terms, said that Lincoln had opposed the abolitionists for some time before he took office.
This is from Lord Charnwood's biography Abraham Lincoln (1917). Charnwood quotes a letter from Lincoln to Joshua Speed, a good friend and Kentucky slaveholder, in 1855:
But you say that sooner than yield your legal right to the slave, especially at the bidding of those who are not themselves interested, you would see the Union dissolved. I am not aware that any one is bidding you yield that right; very certainly I am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations under the Constitution in regard to your lsaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down and caught and carried back to their stripes and unrequited toil; but I bite my lips and keep quiet. In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip on a steamboat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were on board ten or a dozen slaves shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me, and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio or any other slave border. It is not fair for you to assume that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power to make me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintian their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union…
Emphasis mine. Great mind, Lincoln. And great politician. The trip St. Louis was 22 years before the Emancipation Proclamation, this letter eight years before it. Joshua Speed was a close friend of Lincoln's. Obama's good friends Alan Solow and Lee Rosenberg brought him out on a steamboat to Israel. And when he was there, he saw Palestine.
