Tom Leonard: Obama's faith in Lincoln may be misplaced
[Tom Leonard is the Daily Telegraph's New York correspondent.]
Will Barack Obama namecheck Abraham Lincoln in his inauguration address today? He hardly needs to, given how much he has said already of his reverence for the US president that saved the Union and freed the slaves.
But little has been said of what Lincoln would have thought of him. The matter is addressed in an excellent piece in the New York Times. The authors, a pair of Lincoln experts - Henry Louis Gates and John Stauffer - make the point that Lincoln was far from ideal as a model of liberated thinking on the issue of racism.
We all know that his Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves was driven principally by a practical desire to stir up trouble in the Confederacy rather than any human empathy. I was less aware that Lincoln harboured views on racial integration little different to those of today's white supremacists.
As president, he met many black leaders but never invited one to a formal meal. It may have been because of his belief - voiced in 1858 - that "there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which ... will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of social and political equality"...
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Will Barack Obama namecheck Abraham Lincoln in his inauguration address today? He hardly needs to, given how much he has said already of his reverence for the US president that saved the Union and freed the slaves.
But little has been said of what Lincoln would have thought of him. The matter is addressed in an excellent piece in the New York Times. The authors, a pair of Lincoln experts - Henry Louis Gates and John Stauffer - make the point that Lincoln was far from ideal as a model of liberated thinking on the issue of racism.
We all know that his Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves was driven principally by a practical desire to stir up trouble in the Confederacy rather than any human empathy. I was less aware that Lincoln harboured views on racial integration little different to those of today's white supremacists.
As president, he met many black leaders but never invited one to a formal meal. It may have been because of his belief - voiced in 1858 - that "there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which ... will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of social and political equality"...