Zinhead,
I see you completely ignored the fact I was quoting a passage directly from his PERSONAL writings in the mid-1850’s…well before that debate.
One thing you’re ignoring is public speeches given by politicians must to some level allow for and play to the attitudes of the critical majority of a given potential electorate…however unfortunate those attitudes may be. Considering the vast majority of White Americans of that era…especially those who could vote had attitudes which viewed AAs as inherently inferior…even among the more “polite” abolitionists*, he knew very well he had to couch his public speeches/debates in a way to make himself remotely palatable to the public at large if he was to be elected and thus, possibly be in a position to effect changes if the opportunity came up.
What that quoted speech actually denotes is that he’s a reasonably competent politician who knew he had to downplay personal opinions which would play badly with the critical majority of the American electorate in the election season leading up to 1860…which was practically all White back then and mostly of the view AAs were inherently inferior and/or should be enslaved.
One thing about analyzing public speeches given by politicians and public figures is that they don’t always correspond to the speech giver’s actual opinions and feelings on a given topic.
Even with his playing to the prevailing audience of potential electors of that era, so many White southerners strongly suspected him of abolitionist sympathies that once he was elected, they exerted their influence to get their respective states to secede from the union not too long after he was elected President. And that eventually lead to the Civil War.
- Interesting considering abolitionists were already considered to have extremely radical views in their anti-slavery stance by the vast majority of White Americans of that era...including northerners. And the more radical less "polite" abolitionists who argued AAs should be considered no different from Whites and other races....even more radical to the point of being downright scandalous.
The latter group of abolitionists were considered the extreme radicals of their day by Whites in both north and south. Interestingly, Oberlin was one of the colleges at the very forefront of radical abolitionism and considered so radical for its day it was considered downright infamous and hated by many White southerners in the antebellum period and into the Civil War.