Lincoln (Was "The Founders and Slavery")

[Scarberry, Mark]

I think I agree more with Paul Finkelman than with Tom West on the issue of
Thomas Jefferson's moral failings on the slavery issue. (I am willing to
consider someone like TJ to be a great man despite his very deep moral
flaws, and I do think his rhetoric at least helped to set up the eventual
emancipation.) But I want to know what Paul thinks of Lincoln's famous
statement that if he could preserve the Union by freeing none of the slaves,
he would do it. Lincoln's personal revulsion for slavery was clear, but he
seemed willing to subordinate freedom for blacks to the need to preserve the
nation. Or is it more accurate to say that Lincoln's opposition to the
expansion of slavery was a long term strategy to strangle the institution of
slavery and that preservation of the Union was required for that strategy to
succeed? (In other words, was preservation of the Union an instrumental
goal, with the ending of slavery the final goal?)

Mark S. Scarberry
Pepperdine University School of Law
mailto:mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu <mailto:mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu>


-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Finkelman [mailto:Paul-Finkelman at UTULSA.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2000 1:52 PM
To: CONLAWPROF at listserv.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: The Founders and Slavery


Clyde is exactly right.  Indeed, the whole way Jefferson approaches slavery
has a fantasy element to it.   [snip]  The contrast with Lincoln is obvious.
When given the opportunity to act, Lincoln did, and forcefully.   [snip]

Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East Fourth Place
Tulsa, OK  74104


918-631-3706
Fax 918-631-2194


E-mail:  paul-finkelman at utulsa.edu