The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1917-08-09
Lincoln and the Negro.

on The Attitude OF Lincoln loWard
the South" which one wishes might
be in the hands of all the editors in
the country.
While DR. Currell is unqualified in
the stress that he places on the loss
that the South suffered through Mr.
Lincoln's death and enlarges upon
the liberality of his firm purpose to
protect the Southern people from
persecution subsequent to the war,
he discusses with utmost frankness
Mr. Lincoln's polical pol cies and
opil i,ns. He asserts that when
Lincoln died the South lost her most
generous foe-nay, even more than
that-her best friend but ne
quotes with discrimination freely
from the records to show that the
perfervid adulation that Northern
writer's bestow upon Mr. Lincoln as
the liberator of the slaves is with
out any solid foundation in fact.
Indeed, our Northern friends have
fallen so completely under the spell
of the Lincoln tradition that they
have for the most part lost sight of
what the man was. what he said
and what he did in his earthly career.
The Lincoln legend of the twen-
tieth century bears dim and far
away relationship to the hardhead-
ed and great-hearted country law
yer of Illinois who was born of the
plain people of Kentucky. AS Pres
ident of the United States MIR Lin
coin deserves a place IN history as
the central figure that worked for
and succeeded in perpetuating the
American Union in the day of its
extreme trial. but the shifting upon
him of glory that he never sought
as a literator cf negro slaves is
as unfair to his memory as 1t is
false in allegation. This, DR. Currell
did not shrink from saying, in kind
ly terms but without compromise to
an audience of Northern sympathy
assembled at the institution bearing
President Lincoln's name. Mr. Lin
coin undoubtedly was opposed to the
institution of slavery, but he was
not less opposed to abolishing it by
force of arms in the States where
it's existence was guaranteed by the
federal constitution and he was
more than willing to trust to time
ard events to remove it without the
accompaniment of violence. 1t was
his desire long after the War Be-
tween the States had broken out
and while it was being bloodily
waged that the slave owner should
be paid for their property and in
his own conscience he justified eman.
cipation only as a measure of war
essential to the Unions preservation.
He had scant sympathy" says DR.
CurreIl, with the Abolitionists who
were exceedingly incensed with
him for his tentative and to them
criminally lukewarm attitude to.
wards the liberation of the blacks"
In fact" he adds, Wendell Phil
lips, one of the leading Abolitionist
orators, styled Lincoln the slave
hound of Illinois. "
These words quoted by DR. Currell
to his East Tennessee hearers from
Lincoln himself must yield little sat-
isfaction to the doctrinaires who at
this time have projected upon the
screen of history a Lincoln that new
er lived in the flesh or the spirit: i
have no purpose to introduce polit-
ical and social equality between the
white and black races. There is a
physical difference between the two,
which, in my judgment, would prob
ably forever forbid their living to-
gether upon the footing of perfect
equality. and inasmuch as it becomes
a necessity that there must be diff
ference. l, as we'll as Judge Douglas.
am in favor of the race to which |
belong having the superior position.
In the Central Mississippi Valley
it may be that the memory of the
true Lincoln still abides and presides
and if it doe 8 there can be no doubt
that in all the years the master race
will assert itself. Mr. Lincoln in his
boundless endowment of common
sense steered constantly away from
extremists of all sections and look
ing the facts of the race question
rather than of the slavery question
in the face, was only turned in part
from his opinion when in the clash
of war it was for a time obscured.
It can not be said that ever he aban-
doned it and he repeatedly made