Again . . . VERY well written.

I have read these exact same comments from Abraham Lincoln before and I remember that I was horrified when I first read them twenty or so years ago. I will add that Lincoln was crafty in that he tailored his message to meet with the approval of his audience wherever he was.  He appeared to be enlightened and anti-slavery to anti-slavery audiences and he appeared to be indifferent or highly sympathetic to a pro-slavery position to pro-slavery audiences.  This was basically evidenced in his speech below.   SO . . . did Lincoln say what he felt that he needed to say for the purpose of freeing the slaves being willing to be two-faced as necessary in order to get himself elected President and further that objective??   Quite possibly.

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Lincoln was likely one of the lesser racists of his time but he was still very much a racist by today's standards as evidenced by his statements that you quote.

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I was NEVER raised to believe that racism was acceptable.  BUT . . . my aunts and uncles would occasionally make statementsreferring to blacks as "darkies" as well as other comments that would be considered horrific and inexcusable today.  They would also refer to blacks in disparaging ways that would NEVER be acceptable today in polite company.  Now to be fair, these same relatives are still alive today.  They are now in their late 80s and early 90s  and I have not heard any of them utter anything like this in the past 30 years.

They were likely much more open-minded regarding race than were their parents.  I KNOW that I am much more enlightened regarding race than they were and I am also sure that my kids are more enlightened than I am.  I remember that my older sister had a black boyfriend when she was in her 20s in the early 1970s and my parents were not pleased about this.  They weren't angry or anything but I would describe their reaction as mild shock and disappointment with my sister.   At the age of 12, I thought that it was a great thing.

I think that inter-racial marriage is wonderful and shows that this culture is moving beyond race. 

A lot of wonderful progress has been made over the past 50 years.
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Obviously, I disagree with you about having a Democratic President.

 I think that the best thing would be to adopt the ideal of MLK Jr that we should have a society where all people "would be judged by the content of their character and NOT the color of their skin".  This means that we should strive to have a colorblind society.  This is means that reverse racism is wrong because it is still racism.   Affirmative action is also wrong because it is also reverse racism.  This cheats blacks by telling them that they are inferior and can't make it in the world based on their own merits.   They can only make it because the white man rigs the game in their favor.  Then people tend to assume that blacks often get what they get because of a handout and not because of merit.   This is NOT fair and creates racial division and strife.  This cheats blacks out of the satisfaction of earning their own way in the world.  Blacks that I have talked with resent affirmative action.   They want the world to know that they earned their own way, fair and square.

It's time.